In our closest relationships that support our growth and development, alignment is naturally in flux. When things get messy or confusing, or trust falters, how do we straighten it all out?

Ok, time for some personal talk. This one is for you, my lady friends. How does your monthly cycle affect your leadership strategy? Or your presence? Or your mindset? I’ve talked before about managing our energy as the key to managing our time and achieving balance.

There is no managing of time, really. Time management is one of those elusive leadership phrases that, when you pull back the curtain, nothing appears to be there because we can’t actually control time - it just happens.

Radical empathy is the term I use to remind myself of the skill of employing empathy in the hardest circumstances. Empathy is about putting ourselves in someone else's shoes and imagining what it is like to be them within their circumstantial context. We may not naturally do this when that 'other' is on opposite sides of an issue from us.

I have this hypothesis that our strengths and our weaknesses are not two separate lists of characteristics. I believe what makes us ineffective — our true “weaknesses” — results from the misapplication of our strengths.