SigmaU Blog

We’ve all done it! Someone’s behaviour is driving us nuts. Day in and day out it grinds on our nerves. We’re triggered when we see them or hear their voice and yet we do nothing about it! Guess what leaders, you’re not alone! Most of the leaders that I’ve spoken with hate confrontation and, you know what, I did too. It wasn’t until I learned how to have them in a different way that I learned to embrace them and have them on a regular basis. Like any muscle, the courage muscle - once stretched - becomes stronger and it’s a muscle required in a leadership role.

Defining courageous conversions, feedback and confrontation in a different way

Courageous conversations: are conversations which take you outside of your comfort zone. They may make you feel exposed or vulnerable and typically something important is on the line.

Feedback: is simply bringing awareness to a pattern in someone’s behaviour so that they can improve future performance.

“Many of my successes have come on the back of pain”! I heard this on a podcast this morning and I thought about the season that we’re in right now. Many people were hopeful that with the turning of the clock and an official new year that our pandemic-adjusted lives would be drastically different. By now, the reality has most likely hit, and we realize that life is pretty similar to what it was a few months or a few weeks ago. There is, however, the same gift available to each of us during this season and that is the gift of GROWTH!

G – Gratitude

Despite what is happening all around us, there is so much for each of us to be grateful for. We can either use this time to see the bad around us, fill our minds with so much negative news that our heads are spinning, get caught up in the discourse and drama of politics or we can focus on what we can control: our mindset. Having an attitude that is focused on all of life’s blessings, despite our current...

Getting started is often the hardest part about accomplishing a goal. We know what we want but the task seems like a huge undertaking and daunting. We start doubting ourselves and our capacity to take on the challenge and another day slips by with our dream of becoming a new person! I’ve been there and so I wanted to share a few steps you might consider taking to make your next goal a reality!

#1 - Act right away!

Take one small action immediately after you set a goal. Example. I’m going to pay my house off by 2025 is a huge goal! Its great to have that on our vision board, read it out loud daily but if we stop there chances of paying off that bad boy is slim to none! One action step that could be taken right away would be to cancel your weekly cleaning services and have the $125/week come out of your chequing and go directly on to the principle of your mortgage. Now you’ve taken action on that big goal with a small task that will reap huge rewards!

#2 - Set...

My mentor Bob told me, “Hire slowly and fire quickly Nikki”. While I’d love to stand here and tell you that I took his advice and acted accordingly every single time, I didn’t! There were times that I waited WAY too long to pull the trigger. Perhaps you can relate.  Few leaders have ever thought to themselves after firing someone, “Man, I wish I kept him/her around longer.” When we know, we know.

The role of values in your hiring process

What brings an extra level of clarity to the decision is when you base the decision on culture and core values.  They become your compass and North Star and there’s total clarity which happens very quickly when you’re basing decisions on this type of alignment.

We recently did a “Core Values in Action” workshop for a small team. They have never sprinkled core value questions into their interview process. We mapped out exactly how core values would show up in how people would...

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t wake up every morning with a spring in my step and an eagerness to serve others. In fact, there are some mornings that I want to roll over, pull up the sheets, snuggle my basenji and let someone else be the boss for the day!

I’ve experienced some of my darkest times as a leader during COVID. Battling negative conversations in my mind about the future of the economy, will our savings run dry if this continues for years, will I have to lay people off if there’s a second wave, will it just be Friday already! Anyone else relate? Bueller, Bueller?

Gratitude: a powerful remedy

All that said, I will share with you a powerful way to remedy a funk and that is by practicing gratitude and setting intentions. I started doing a gratitude journal about four years ago and it is a fantastic way to rebalance and reframe your thinking. At the end of the day, while this year has been a rollercoaster ride, there is still SO much to be grateful...

This came to me in the shower this morning, no really! I should back up. I’ve been working my way through several weeks of pre-work in preparation for a Certified High Performance Coach™ training that I’ll be completing by the end of November. During one training session we studied the importance of fitness and nutrition for peak performance and high energy. We learned the benefits of cold water and having cold showers. Since I don’t feel right teaching a curriculum I’m not following, I took the plunge! I’ve been ending each shower with a minute on the coldest setting that I can handle. And guess what? It’s not as terrible as I thought AND you reap the rewards of a boost of intense energy!

This morning I was tempted to skip the cold setting. I had just completed a fantastic 5km run and the hot water felt so good. I literally thought to myself, “just keep it cozy” and immediately stopped myself and said “Nikki, cozy...

According to Wikipedia, “Work engagement is the ‘harnessing of organization member's selves to their work roles: in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, emotionally and mentally during role performances.’"^[1]:694 Three aspects of work motivation are cognitive, emotional and physical engagement.^[2]

When I read this definition, a few things come up for me. I’m reminded of the importance of seeing the “whole” person not just the worker bee on my team. I love that this definition includes the emotional and mental expressiveness of importance. Better yet, it seems that equal value is given to each area of the employee’s self. As leaders, we can often forget that optimal performance can only be met when team members are actively engaged in all areas.

Sadly, for many organizations, engagement to them means recognizing a birthday with a digital card, or a work anniversary with a letter from the...

When I was growing my business and added support staff, I didn’t have a clue about leadership. I was too caught up in the day-to-day selling in order to keep the business going to even stop and be intentional about my role as a leader.

As I started shifting my focus to learning about how to become a better leader, I uncovered 5 myths about leadership. 

Myth #1 – Leaders are born that way!

While some of us do have leadership abilities which we display as children they are typically linked to old-school thinking of what a leader is. Meaning that, we display behaviours of taking charge, being the loudest or being the biggest risk-taker. Becoming an effective leader takes time and discipline. For me, it was listening to podcasts, reading books and attending courses and workshops to learn how to effectively communicate with my team. What I discovered was it wasn’t at all about how loud or in charge you were but how to serve your people and have difficult...