Whether you’re a new or seasoned leader, this is your guide to modern leadership. Learn to develop & own your leadership with these strategies, resources, and tools.

Getting the balance between micromanaging and hands-off managing was a lot harder than I anticipated.That's what I wrote about in my most recent article for Harvard Business Review, where I offer three red flags that you're leaning too far to either direction—and what you can do to offer your team the support and direction they need to succeed.

Top athletes and prominent politicians do not drop out. When they do, it’s big news. That’s because stepping back can be seen as a sign of weakness that leaders must avoid at all costs—a sign that they’ve failed. But knowing when and how to step back is actually a sign of maturity and effective leadership. It’s a leadership skill that we need to see modeled more frequently. Here are three lessons we can learn from Biles and Biden...

There are all of these moments in life that are incredibly defining– that create a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. Starting a new job, ending a relationship, moving to a new city, etc. So many of them I wasn’t aware of in real time. Today might be the first time I’m fully aware of the fact that yesterday was ‘before’ and tomorrow is ‘after’.

In my grief I wondered: How am I going to show up for work tomorrow?

At Penney Leadership, we often ask clients what surprised them most about their answers in a Career Navigation assignment. The first thing that pleasantly surprised me about the Values Assignment was how effective it was at allowing me to quickly home in on 4 words that resonate as my core values–the beacons of light that guide my life journey with fulfillment, meaning, and purpose. The first three words that emerged felt like no-brainers. As a career coach, it’ll probably come as no shock to you that three of my core values are engagement, purpose, and connection. My fourth core value is grit, and here’s why I wasn’t expecting it.

All athletes know that rest days are essential to our ability to push harder and increase our strength, skills, and endurance over the long-run. Without the rest days, our bodies would fight back and fail us, resulting in chronic pain and serious injuries. This is true not only for formal athletes, but anyone who maintains a regular workout schedule–we’re athletes too!

The same is true for the white space in all types of art—it’s the unseen but crucial component that helps create the beauty we experience, whether it’s in the form of visual art, music, dance, film, theater, or literature.

So why is it so difficult for us to apply the same “white space” to our lives?

All the little choices I had to make—bottles, pacifiers, sleep training, going back to work, childcare, the list goes on—felt like some kind of an algorithm that added and deducted points, spitting out a calculated score on the Good Mom barometer. I was always tallying the score. And as a result I always felt anxious and guilty.

When I was first promoted to a management position, it wasn’t much different. I put so much pressure on myself to be a Good Manager—I wanted so badly to do right by my team. (None of us want to be one of those Bad Bosses, right?) But, like so many new managers, I was learning management skills on the fly. It was as new to me as changing diapers.

I'm a major fan of the word "practice." I've even considered getting it tattooed on my arm.

Because that's what everything in life is, really: practice.

In our leadership journeys, we often focus on the destination that we're aiming for: that role we've set our sights on, the moment when we step into leadership by managing direct reports or a heading up a big project, or a specific achievement that we think will give us the sense that we've finally "arrived."

But leadership is not something that suddenly kicks in when you reach a destination. It's a practice that happens all along the way.

Late last summer, I received one of the most lovely emails I've ever gotten—and it was from someone I didn't even know. Jessica didn't expect a reply. But she wrote so wholeheartedly that I knew I needed to meet her. Now, I'm so proud and excited to introduce you to her as the newest member of the Penney Leadership team. That's right—Penney Leadership is shifting from a "me" to a "we"—a coaching practice with two Certified Professional Coaches.

A few weeks ago, I submitted an audition video for a TEDx event.

Speaking at TEDx has been calling to me for a few years now. The idea of getting the opportunity (and the public speaking coaching) to share a powerful, resonant idea with a room full of people sounds scary to me in a good way—the kind of scary that calls me into a greater version of myself.

In the end, I didn't get it…and here’s what that made me realize.

What's your unique leadership style?

There are hundreds of (often expensive) assessments available to “discover” your leadership style. But my approach is built on the belief that YOU are the expert on you.

I believe that taking the time to capture how you uniquely show up as a leader should be a generative process.

I've got Leadership on the mind this President's Day.

The presidency is, in some ways, the ultimate leadership position.

I heard somewhere that there is an equation for confidence:

Confidence = Time + Experience

Like Whyte's piece of paper metaphor, there is no shortcut or blast to get there—instead, it's about steadily building the work, one piece of paper at a time, until one day you look and it's a solid stack with heft and weight.
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I can point to it now and say: I've built a track record with my audience, but I've also built a track record with myself.
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Here's what I've realized about professional confidence:
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​1) There is an element missing from the equation.
​I propose a change:

Confidence = (Time + Experience) + Permission

Today I'm spilling on why I'm obsessed with Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.

A lot of it boils down to this: I was inspired by her at first, but once she fell from grace, I realized there was a lot to learn from her and similar "unicorn leaders" like Adam Neumann of WeWork.

I believe there is an important lesson to be learned about visionary leadership here:

Visionary leaders invite us into a picture of possibility—what the future could be if we work together to make it real. Visionary leadership is literally about something that doesn't yet exist. It's essential to any cause worth fighting for—a sense of what we're moving towards that is inspirational and motivating.

So where is the line between welcoming others into a vision for the future and outright fraud?

As we reflect on Dr. King's legacy today, I'm thinking about his role as a visionary leader.

It reminds me of a simple but powerful concept called Creative Tension, which was formed by Peter Senge, a professor of organizational learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

One of my clients is in the process of earning her graduate degree in organizational leadership and learning.

She’s taking a course this summer on leadership development, and she shared with me that the course materials included a list of 45 must-have core skills for leaders. She wondered about my take on the topic.

My eyes bugged out of my head for a second.

I definitely have a take: 45 core skills for leaders is an impossible standard. It sets all leaders up for failure. It’s unwieldy and overwhelming. And it puts leadership in a place where it will always be just out of reach.

My own leadership philosophy took a while to crystallize, but it's quite simple…

“Let’s start with some introductions,” he says, getting the meeting going.

Cue the cold sweat. My mind starts racing.

Instead of listening to everyone else share their backgrounds, I'm internally panicking about how I'm going to communicate who I am as a professional.

Does this happen to you?

I hear it from my clients all the time—they're not really sure how to articulate who they are professionally.

Our default is to blurt out our job title and company, but we're so much more than that…

Listen in as Muriel Wilkins coaches client Daniela on how to show up to her leadership role as confident, calm, and credible in this episode of HBR’s podcast: Coaching Real Leaders - Finding Your Leadership Voice.

It doesn’t come just by thinking “act confident!”—it comes with supportive mindsets, skill, and physical preparation…

Toughing through the hard stuff is part of our work as mission-driven leaders. But too often, we push it too far.

We hold resilience up as a virtue that we all need more of—we are rewarded for muscling through, for sacrificing in service of the mission.

Here’s how we’re getting the meaning of resilience wrong, and a more useful definition that supports sustainable leadership…

We are living in a time when careers aren't just work—they are an opportunity for self-expression.

We want more from our jobs than a steady paycheck and stability; we're looking for meaning, an opportunity to make a difference.

This might sound like the type of statement that would make the higher ups start rolling their eyes and lament about those darn high-maintenance millennials. But I believe that it's not just a millennial trait. Our larger American work culture is changing, and the age of purpose is a part of that shift...