In her last “Calling the Game” video of 2024, Bobbie LaPorte looks to the future with hope and optimism. She also offers some tips for building a “bank” of positive feelings and emotions to help you get through any stressful times that lie ahead.

Start Building Your Bank of Leadership Stress Strategies for a Successful 2025

When I reflect back on 2024, it had many challenges as well as opportunities, as we would expect, although it feels like the last four years, starting with Covid, have given us more than our share of curveballs.

But while I do feel fundamentally optimistic heading into next year, I also see the continued stress that these times bring to all of us, personally and professionally.

I have written in this space before about how stress activates our “fight or flight” survival mechanism that protects us from harm. But the kind of ongoing stress we experience when there is so much change and uncertainty is unhealthy.

Some studies estimate that we now spend upwards of 80% of our days in stress mode. That’s not good, and it’s not likely to change in this environment unless we do something about it.

So what’s the antidote?

Here are some leadership stress strategies

There are many ways to address and alleviate this type of harmful stress. One example I’ve shared here in the past is the power of sharing positive emotions, which activates the part of our brain responsible for creativity, inspiration, for thriving.

Expressing emotions like hope, gratitude, love and appreciation can act like “nutrients” for us: they positively impact cognition and brain structure; they build up resources you can draw on when you are not feeling so positive; and they can undo the lingering effects of negative emotions when you have them.

So when you face a curveball or some other unexpected challenge this year-end and into the new year – and you know you will – try considering the possibilities in that moment. What positive emotion can you substitute for fear, disappointment, or anger? Start building up your bank of positive, emotional nutrients you can draw on and get a great start to 2025.

Multitasking during meetings is hard to resist—but the cost of doing so may be higher than you think. Take a few minutes to watch Bobbie LaPorte’s December 2 “Calling the Game” video for a (gentle) reminder of how being present in the moment is the biggest lever you have in building relationships.

Are You Present or Pretending? The Real Cost of Divided Attention in Leadership

Looking to make a change? Now is definitely NOT the time to lay low, waiting for opportunities to come along or for someone else to offer you that ideal role. Watch Bobbie LaPorte’s November 26 “Calling the Game” video for some real-world tips you can use to create those opportunities for yourself.

Using an Unconventional Path to Your Next Executive Role

I’ve stopped counting the number of times my clients ask me, “How are you seeing the job market?”

We all know that the executive career market has been pretty weak over the last couple of years. People are getting recruited and placed, but the demand is definitely not what it was pre-Covid.

So, how do you actively manage your career in these times? Not passively—laying low, waiting for the perfect opportunity to come along…or for someone to approach you about a possible role. Sure, the latter situation would be nice…but that happens rarely these days.

There are opportunities out there for leaders who are willing to put the time, thought, and intention into setting themselves up to create opportunities, not just wait to respond to them.

Here’s what I mean: in these times of volatility and uncertainty, the strategic problems that companies face demand a contemporary, cross-functional skill set that you might not naturally find in a traditional functional role.

Some examples are:

• Being able to continually scan the horizon to pick up on enterprise-wide needs
• To work intentionally with cross-functional peers to understand their goals and how you might support peers
• Deploying the skills and talents of your team beyond your own remit
• And most importantly, to continually develop and nurture your network so you have supporters and advocates you can tap into.

Two of my executive clients recently secured senior, high-visibility, high-impact roles in their companies by leveraging the process and value proposition I just outlined.

They were able to use their enterprise-wide orientation to uncover a need, map an approach to address it using their skill sets and leadership offering, and use their strong internal network to validate their proposal and seal the deal.

This is how today’s savvy leaders leverage a complex and continually changing executive marketplace and ensure that they are always “in demand.”

To support you in calling your own game, I am offering my 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link to sign up now!

Three Practical Ways to Make Your Strategic Leadership Visible, Actionable, and Impactful

I have a question for you: How often have you been told that you are ‘not strategic enough’? Really? So what does that mean?

Has whoever said that to you also shared what that means? Like, what are the behaviors that exhibit being strategic? How will your work change? In what way will the outcomes, as well as your leadership impact, change?

I am guessing that:

(1) you have heard that more than once in your career.

(2) it’s likely no one gave you any specifics about what that looks like or how to get there.

At least, that’s been the experience my clients have shared with me over the last two decades.

That can be frustrating and confusing, no doubt. Everyone has different ideas about what “being strategic” means, but what I do know is it is not some planning meeting you attend on a regular basis and then go about your daily routine.

Your strategy needs to connect and inform what you do as a leader every day – with your team, peers, and internal stakeholders.

So (assuming you have a strategy), I want to offer three ideas to make that strategy visible, real, and accessible to everyone:

1. Put your strategy in the context of some shared framework that already exists in your organization – like OKRs, KPIs, or whatever enterprise-wide goal structure everyone shares and understands. This helps everyone be aligned on what you and your team are working toward and how it supports the goals of your colleagues and stakeholders. This might seem obvious, but I have been surprised at how many leaders don’t take this important step.
2. Make your strategy relatable to your team to help them see how their own work contributes to and impacts the broader strategic objectives of the organization. Not only does this create connection and cohesion, but it helps them feel part of a larger mission and purpose, and helps you promote the contributions of your team. Ask questions like, “How does this initiative support our long-term objectives?” to guide the conversation toward big-picture thinking.
3. Develop a rallying cry for your team – something that will remind them of their purpose in a fun and memorable way. It might seem a bit corny, but that’s okay. Like Just Do It: from Nike or ThinkDifferent from Apple. Yours can be anything that represents the essence of your strategy in action: how you expect your team to act, how you will know they ‘get it.’ A good rallying cry should be memorable and concise, and it should connect with people on both a rational and emotional level. Have your team help to craft this, and then include it in your meeting agendas, use it to showcase examples of how it drove successes, and have some fun with it.

Being told you’re not strategic enough can be frustrating and confusing. But if you take it to heart and act on it, it can be the key to strengthening your leadership, building support with your team and internal stakeholders, and increasing the visibility of your impact. When the strategy is seen, understood, and actionable, good things will happen.

To support you in calling your own game, I am offering my 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link to sign up now!

Key Distinctions That Help Leaders Navigate Uncertain Times

During the pandemic, so many things changed for leaders and their teams, and there was a lot of guidance about how to approach this unprecedented time that challenged all of us to our core.

Some of that, including what I often shared on this platform, focused on how to limit the high cognitive load that everyone experienced, personally and professionally. For example, creating little bumps of certainty to counter all the volatility and uncertainty or balancing what is exhaustive vs. essential – not asking people to do too much.

Another topic that continues to come up and that I often see in my client work is the question of “complicated vs. complex.”

What do I mean by that? Many leaders use the terms complicated and complex interchangeably, but they are very different.

Complicated problems can be hard to solve, but they can be broken down into parts and usually solved with rules, processes, and systems that already exist in your organization. For example, implementing a new physical security system that involves people, systems, and physical operations across dozens of facilities across multiple countries is complicated.

The solutions to complicated problems don’t work as well with complex problems. Complex problems involve too many unknowns and interdependent factors, some of which may change over time. An action or change in one dimension can result in disproportionate and unforeseen outcomes.

For example, developing and implementing a Return to Office policy remains a thorny issue for many companies. It has many interdependent and unknown elements and is one that most organizations have never experienced before. They have no rules, systems, or processes in place that they can readily call on to solve this problem.

Solutions to complex challenges typically emerge after much trial and error and require the willingness to act, learn, and adapt.

So why am I reintroducing this now? Because I believe in what we call a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world, that leaders like you will be faced with many more complex than complicated problems in the future. And this is why becoming “VUCA Ready®,” as we have previously covered here in depth, is so critical.

One of the three shifts I believe all leaders need to make to become “VUCA Ready” is the willingness to shift from relying solely on your experience and domain knowledge to being open to asking for help, to other perspectives, to trying new approaches, learning, and adapting.

Many leaders find it scary to operate from this position, particularly when pressure is on to solve tough problems that help their organization move forward. But we know that you can’t rely on what you’ve done in the past; what is easy, known, and comfortable will not get the job done.

Is your problem complicated or complex?

So, the next time you are presented with a problem that is not simple, one that you haven’t seen before, stop to think: Is this problem complicated? Can I break it down into discrete parts and solve it using existing systems and processes in the organization?

Or is it complex – involving many unknowns and interdependent factors, some of which may be unknown and may change over time in ways you can’t predict? If it’s the latter, this is where your willingness, your courage to consider new ways of approaching this – with the help of others and not knowing what the final outcome might be – helps build critical capabilities for you and your team to become “VUCA Ready.”

To support you in calling your own game, I am offering my 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link to sign up now!

A Leadership Strategy for Claiming Credit Without Stealing the Show

In this platform, I have often covered the importance of self-promotion for today’s leaders. There has never been a more challenging, but also more opportunistic, environment for you to promote the value proposition of you and your team.

This continues to be a concern – and a dilemma – for many of my clients, for many reasons. Lack of confidence, a belief that the “people who matter” already know all the good work you do or being uncomfortable with what feels inappropriate and self-serving.

I get it, but you need to get over it. In this competitive environment, NOT making this a more intentional and consistent practice can be a career derailer.

Think about that person in your leadership staff meeting who takes all the air out of the room every time they speak, boasting about all the things they are working on and never acknowledging the contributions others have made to their accomplishments. You know someone like that, don’t you?  It’s so frustrating to experience that again and again and feel powerless to change the narrative.

But you can.

Sharing your successes, increasing your influence and Impact without being “That Person”

Here’s a suggestion to get you started on a new path to sharing your own successes and, as a result, increasing your influence and impact.

Let’s use your leadership staff meeting – the one with your peers and boss – as an example. Almost everyone holds these on some regular basis….as much as they are often dreaded as just a round table of sharing updates.

Here are two actions I’d like you to consider:

1. If this is a regular meeting, you likely know the format or what the agenda is. In advance of the meeting, identify at least one item you are going to contribute. Make sure it has value for the participants: how does it support one of the key objectives the team has and is of particular importance to your boss? And be sure to acknowledge your team and anyone else who was part of making this happen.
2. If someone has an update that you contributed to and didn’t acknowledge you, use this opportunity to expand their update by repeating a couple of words they shared and adding your own comment or observation.For example: your peer Janet reports out on a project she led, one she specifically asked you to contribute to but never acknowledged you.You can say: “I’d like to add to what Janet said about “x”. My team was asked to contribute to this project, and we found it very interesting in our research that “y”. So, you are adding to the information that was shared, expanding what it means for the team through your own insight.This says:

• • We worked on this as well.

• • We have an additional perspective that the team should know about.

It may take a little practice, but this is one technique for sharing the good work that you and your team are doing with integrity and in a thoughtful, collaborative way.

Promoting your team and the work you are leading them in is one of the most important responsibilities you have. Don’t expect others to do it for you.

To support you in calling your own game, I am offering my 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link at the bottom of this post and sign up now!

If you and your team have ever come up with a smart solution to a problem but have a “play it safe” boss who’s too risk-averse to present it to senior leadership, you need to watch this week’s “Calling the Game” video. You’ll learn some strategic options you can employ to break through a fear-based company culture—and make sure the hard work your team has put in shines through.

Strategic Options for Breaking Through a Fear-Based Company Culture

If you have been in your leadership role for a while, your career advancement has been based on several things: your functional expertise, domain knowledge, business acumen, and ability to influence decisions – particularly when you are asked to present options to senior leadership.

This is where the sum of all you bring to your role is put into play to support the business while also increasing your influence and impact.

But it is not always this straightforward, is it?

What if your boss doesn’t have the confidence in their own position, the political currency, or maybe even the courage to present your recommendations to senior leadership – particularly ones that may be controversial, that oppose current thinking, or suggest a different path than what has been pursued in the past?

Like when your boss says: “We can’t propose that because she (the senior leader) won’t like or accept it”.

Well, that can take the air out of your sails.

You are thinking: “Why am I in this role as the ‘expert’ and asked to present options if I’m going to be shut down? What’s the point?”

Yes, what is the point? It’s no surprise to any of us that the higher you rise in an organization, the more personal agendas come into play, the more protective executives become of their position, and the less open they are to take risks. It’s a sad commentary but a real one, particularly in these times of instability and uncertainty. The watchwords become: Play it safe.

So, how do you respond to a play it safe boss?

I believe you have two options.

Option 1:  follow your boss’ direction and just propose what she feels is the “acceptable” option. Now, that’s not going to feel very good to you or your team, assuming they participated in this work. It undermines your confidence and makes you question your value contribution to the organization.

Option 2: Push back a bit by asking your boss why only limited (i.e., acceptable) options can be presented. Isn’t it part of your job to objectively evaluate what is best for the business, taking the enterprise view? And, is this a one-off situation, or is this the way all senior leadership recommendations will be made?

Now, I get that this can be tricky and that all situations are different. But this general guidance is designed to help you better understand the reasons behind your boss’s request and what it means for the future – and for you.

Political dynamics and personal agendas abound at the top of any organization, particularly during times of uncertainty when fear-based behaviors take over more rational responses.

You must decide how much you want to push aside your own values, reputation, and personal integrity for the sake of someone else’s. That’s the bottom line.

To support you in calling your own game, I am offering my 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link to sign up now!

Agency: the fifth element in VUCA Ready® Leadership

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

This week, we continue our VUCA Ready® Series with the fifth and final element in building the leadership ability to normalize the unexpected and tackle whatever curveballs are thrown at you.

And that element is “Agency”: do you understand that making mistakes is now part of the process? How confident are you to act without knowing the end results?

This is a tough one for most leaders. With so much change and uncertainty facing us in a VUCA world, we crave certainty. Making a decision and heading down a path we have never been on can be a scary proposition, one that could put your career in jeopardy.

But acknowledging and using your agency is a very important element of leading in a VUCA world.

Let’s look at one contemporary issue that exemplifies the need for Agency

Every major organization I know of is dealing with its RTO (Return to Work) policy, one of the most complex, emotional, and controversial issues for today’s leaders. Even if your organization has defined a policy, it is still an “active” discussion for many leaders around implementation, employee pushback, and exceptions.

This is an issue that is ripe for waiting, ignoring, denial…anything but taking action. No one is certain what the answers should be, what will work, and how they should proceed. And what the professional consequences could be.

One of my clients recently found herself in a decision dilemma surrounding this issue that I believe can be instructive.

She leads a global workplace safety and security organization for a growing technology company. The company was still not clear on laying out a definitive RTO policy; although they had shared some general goals, they were guidelines with a lot of room for interpretation and “exceptions.”

Against this backdrop, she had an opening in her senior leadership team that was crucial to the success of her organization. It was a role she held prior to being promoted to run the entire global operation.

Her task was to hire someone who was highly qualified for this specialized role and a great cultural fit, but importantly, who could work from corporate headquarters and build a team located there.  This would send a signal that the company’s RTO guidelines were more than just that – they were serious considerations in hiring for any senior leadership roles.

This presented a dilemma for her since the most qualified candidates were remote from headquarters, which was a top consideration for many people involved in the interview and hiring process.

In the end, she had the confidence to hire a leader who was highly qualified but would be remote. The new leader committed to traveling frequently to the HQ location and would make hiring her team there a priority.

Was it a risky move for my client? Some would say so, particularly given the highly charged feelings around the headquarters hiring directive. But she knew what she needed in a new leader – someone who was very experienced and to whom she could quickly turn over the reins; someone who was aligned with her personal philosophy on how the role should be run; and someone who could be her potential successor.

Was she concerned about the pushback that this new leader would not be in HQ?  It was a factor in her selection, but she also knew that she couldn’t defer the decision with all that was at stake. She used her personal agency to move forward – when others were questioning her choice – and did everything possible to ensure this new leader’s success.

Will it all work out? Time will tell; for now, the choice appears to be a very positive one. That doesn’t mean there might not be implications down the road, but my client was prepared to deal with those if they arose.

In today’s VUCA environment, many leaders are faced with choices they have never had to make and where the outcomes are not clear.

That’s why understanding that this is now the “new normal” and that using your agency can often produce a more positive outcome.

As part of this VUCA Ready series, I am offering my quick 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link to sign up now!

Okay, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

Impact: the fourth element of VUCA Ready Leadership

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

This week we continue our VUCA Ready® Series with the fourth element in building the leadership ability to normalize the unexpected and tackle whatever curveballs are thrown at you.

And that element is “Impact”; meaning, what does your influence in the organization look like? Are you continually assessing the strength and breadth of your network of allies and advocates?

We all know the importance of building a strong, evolving professional network to support you and your team’s success. Your network is part of your value and currency as a leader, particularly during these times when companies are looking for cross-functional leadership to solve the organization’s most complex problems. Add to that the consequences of ongoing reorganizations and layoffs – the increasing velocity of network change – and you might find that entire parts of your support structure have disappeared. That is why continually developing and curating your professional network is critical to building your Influence and Impact in your company and “staying in demand” in the market.

How do you create Impact in an ever-changing VUCA environment?

Let me share an example from one of my more network-savvy clients. He was leading an internal venture that works cross-functionally to support the company’s social responsibility and philanthropic work. So, by nature, he had to build strong working relationships with leaders across the organization to meet his goals and achieve the company’s mission.

However, he went beyond the transactional nature of his work with other leaders to really understand how he could help them achieve their goals and show the value of connecting their leadership and teams to the broader company vision to be a socially responsible community partner.

With this “value-creation” approach, he earned a reputation as a leader who always focused on how he could support others in the organization, continually nurturing established relationships and reaching out to new leaders to see how his team could help them. As a result, he was often tapped for high-visibility, cross-functional, high-leverage assignments where he could apply his organizational knowledge, problem-solving, and masterful relationship-building skills.

Now that’s Impact!

This Leadership Impact resulted in a C-Level role leading a newly established function that was the perfect fit for him, one that would not have been available to him if he had not taken a very strategic and selfless approach to building his network, and consequently, his Impact and Influence in the organization. This type of Impact is such a critical element in becoming VUCA Ready®.

As part of this VUCA Ready series, I am offering my quick 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link at the bottom of this post and sign up now!

Okay, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

[ICYMI] See the previous posts in this VUCA Ready® Series:

1. Leadership Readiness: 5 Elements of a VUCA Ready Mindset – Master the mindset that turns organizational challenges into opportunities
2. Initial Response: The First Element of VUCA Ready Leadership – Mastering your first reaction to getting hit with a curveball
3. Is Your Confidence Infecting Your Team? (In a Good Way!) –  Contagion: The second element of VUCA Ready leadership
4. Is Pushback Derailing Your Leadership Vision?

FREE Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty Course →

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2. Setup account

3. Unlock the course free

Pushback: The third element of VUCA Ready leadership

Hi, this is Bobbie LaPorte, back with another week of “Calling the Game,” where I share my own experience and insights while giving you valuable tools you can use to call your own game…and plan the best moves for you and your team.

This week, we continue our VUCA Ready® Series with the third element: building the leadership ability to normalize the unexpected and tackle whatever curveballs are thrown at you.

That element is “Pushback.” Do you have coping mechanisms for what always happens with change? How do you engage your peers who may doubt your approach?

This is definitely a tough one for most leaders, even in change-hearty organizations. We are wired for certainty, and peer pressure can be hard to overcome when you are facing stiff opposition to change.

Navigating the Element of Leadership Pushback

Let me share a case where challenging the status quo played out.

One of my clients was leading a large, customer-facing field operation at a major utility company. The company was facing many significant challenges. Internally, they were dealing with major financial issues, employee departures on all levels of the company, and unions pushing back at budget and operational cutbacks. Externally, suppliers, customers, and regulators were pressuring the company to become more customer-focused and accountable.

A new leadership team was driving a highly unpopular but necessary transformational process—moving from a traditional, slow-to-change organization to one that was more agile, flexible, and responsive.

My client was facing all these challenges, plus the need to restructure her own operation. It was an uphill battle: She faced significant resistance throughout the organization, from members of her own leadership team to front-line workers. Even when she shared her new approach and how it would benefit all stakeholders, the naysayers kept saying it couldn’t be done.

They relentlessly focused on the negative, amplifying the impossibility of every move she suggested, lobbying for the status quo, and continuing to create a case that would secure their own position and perceived value in the organization.

But she refused to give in and give up. She understood that the only feasible path forward was to rise above the negativity and help people see the possibilities in this situation. She made sure her own personal mindset was focused on seeing what could be.

She was relentless in making her case, and slowly, she brought people along, including some of her peers, even though she knew her future in the organization could be derailed.

Happily, her efforts resulted in record-setting results for her team, unprecedented cost efficiencies, and recognition of her work by senior leaders in the company.

I realize that not all major change initiatives have such a happy ending. It can be very tempting to take the easy route and just do the minimum to resist and hope the whole situation will go away. There will always be pushback on multiple fronts. Your team needs you to have the courage and VUCA Readiness to take it on.

As part of this VUCA Ready series, I am offering my quick 30-minute online Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty course free to viewers for a limited time. Click on the link at the bottom of this post to sign up now!

OK, that’s it for this week’s “Calling the Game.” Hope this helps you gear up for a great week and navigate any curveballs that may come your way!

[ICYMI] See the previous posts in this VUCA Ready Series:

1. Leadership Readiness: 5 Elements of a VUCA Ready Mindset – Master the mindset that turns organizational challenges into opportunities
2. Initial Response: The First Element of VUCA Ready Leadership – Mastering your first reaction to getting hit with a curveball
3. Is Your Confidence Infecting Your Team? (In a Good Way!) –  Contagion: The second element of VUCA Ready leadership

FREE Introduction to Navigating Uncertainty Course →

1. Click The Link

2. Setup Account

3. Unlock The Course Free