Blog - Epic Careering | Leadership Coaching and Executive Branding

Making Executive Decisions – Intuition vs Data

Posted on by in Conscious Leadership, Leadership, Mindfulness, Talent Management | Leave a comment

It seems there are forces drawing me to address a quandary – one that is directly critical to conscious leaders.

I was asked by Susy Jackson, LinkedIn editor, to share my thoughts on whether decisions should be based on numbers or intuition after journalist, Reeves Wiederman, used WeWork as a potential example of when intuition can steer a company down a drain.

Ever since I ran the Conscious Decision Challenge for Conscious Leaders in August, I have had this exact topic in my queue for blogs, so why not take this invitation as a sign that it’s time to address the elephant in the room.

In the past, I have included intuition as a required strength for conscious leaders, while my challenge solely addressed data and external input-driven conscious decision protocols. So, am I promoting the following processes that use data as the primary driver of decisions, or am I more in support of leaders developing intuition as a critical tool for decision making?

The answer: Conscious leaders learn, apply, and teach data and input-driven conscious decision protocols AND hone highly attuned abilities to use intuition to identify outlier situations that threaten desired outcomes.

The reasons for using data and input-driven decisions is multi-pronged. The protocols I teach as part of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint account for the volatile, unpredictable, ever-evolving world that we live in. These protocols engage stakeholders in the decision-making process, as well as the solutioning and execution, and create transparency that is integral to building trust in leadership that is sorely lacking right now. This lack of trust in leadership is causing confusion, dissension, division, and resistance – all of which kill innovation and progress.

However, intuition is necessary for innovation. Past data will keep us looking solely at the past to predict the future, which will just perpetuate more of the past.

This explains why there are odds and a spread when betting. Past data is not a 100% prediction of the future. Winning big is more associated with identifying the outlier result.

Intuition creates greater ease, time, and money. When you have several options that need to be tested, intuition can guide you as to which options to test first, saving on the usual cost of trial and error. Intuition offers wisdom as to which actions will be the most meaningful, impactful, and productive. Effectively applying intuition also looks like seeing all of the data and sensing that there is a need to delve deeper.

There are some intuition landmines leaders need to be aware of, such as the one that led to the ultimate demise of WeWork. Wishful thinking – wanting something to be true – is a hazard many entrepreneurs fall victim to. Entrepreneurs are often extreme optimists. Optimism, just like any other quality, can be a strength and a liability if it’s not balanced.

On the other end of the spectrum, fear is also often mistaken for intuition, as is bias. Being able to distinguish the differences between bias, fear, and optimism for intuition takes acute self-awareness and objectivity few are able to achieve.

Intuition doesn’t always align with the truth you want. Being able to accept intuition when it’s in direct opposition to what you want means you have to literally override your natural neuro-tendencies, which are naturally resistant to discomfort, pain, dissonance, and change.

I’ll be honest, in these times of chaos and volatility, every leader alive will need to be vigilant in their habits to achieve and maintain the clarity and mindfulness necessary to consistently make these distinctions. This is why in the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint, not only do we teach mini-practices that even the busiest of leaders can integrate into a full schedule, but also teach habit hacks to help leaders accelerate the reinforcement of neural pathways to make these distinctions more automatic.

What if intuition and data are in complete conflict with each other?

It takes guts to use your gut as a leader. If you have absolutely eliminated the possibility that your intuition is actually bias, fear, or optimism, I fully support using intuition. It will always be a gamble, however, and you should expect to have to answer to stakeholders who are vehemently in disagreement with your decision.

What decisions have you made using intuition that have paid off?

Have you mistaken intuition in the past?

Jewel – Intuition (Official Music Video)

“Intuition” from the album ‘0304’ – stream/download: https://Jewel.lnk.to/0304 Subscribe to Jewel’s channel: http://bit.ly/jewelyoutube FOLLOW JEWEL https://…

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

When Confidence Becomes a Liability for Leaders

Posted on by in Branding, Conscious Leadership, Human Resources, Leadership, Talent Management | Leave a comment

We all feel best when we’re confident, but that good feeling can become a critical obstacle to being a conscious leader.

Our brain’s basic survival instinct makes us hard-wired to seek out pleasure and avoid pain. Both our learning and conditioning depend upon receiving love, and the hormonal releases associated with that feeling that tell our brain we want more.

We all want love. We crave love, and we don’t thrive without it. Thriving is not the same as succeeding or prospering. When I refer to thriving, I don’t mean as individuals. If you are alone and wealthy, you are not considered thriving. Thriving means excelling and achieving balance in multiple, 12 in fact, realms of your life. Those areas are Love Relationship(s), Parenting, Family, Social, Intellectual, Health, Career, Financial, Spiritual, Emotional, Quality of Life, and Life Vision.

Many of these realms rely upon how an individual relates to others, both interpersonally and communally.

The measure of leadership is shifting from successfully getting people to complete tasks to creating self-sustaining leaders who help companies achieve sustainable success, as in not merely financial success, but profit that does not come at a cost to people or the planet. This new definition of leadership is based on major shifts in our society over the last 100 years and various movements from industry to family dynamics to social justice.

The connotation of confidence in leadership is changing dramatically. In the past, there there was a hierarchical power structure, where the top of the organizational pyramid possessed the most power. Now, we are shifting to more of a shared power structure, which more closely mimics what America’s founding fathers had in mind – power to the people. This power shift is causing a lot of conflict everywhere, which we are seeing and even being impacted by down to the individual level.

When the power goes from the top-down, people at the bottom need to be able to rely on the primary leader, or a small group of leaders, to make decisions. In this structure, there is value to having confidence in a leader. Without having any power in decisions, these workers did not have to operate in, or worry about, ambiguity because there was authority. They could surrender their power to someone else and they could focus on the tactile, pragmatic work.

Leadership has been challenged like never before since failures of corporate leadership impacted every individual on the planet in 2008 in varying degrees. Social media has given a powerful voice to people whose voices would otherwise barely be heard by people at the top. What used to happen behind closed doors in a boardroom is now front and center and viral on Twitter the next day.

If you look at the corporate landscape as a whole, now that more of us are clued in to just how prevalent unconscious leadership is, and just how detrimental it can be to everyone, there is little trust that when a leader projects confidence, there is actual substance backing it up. Closed boardroom doors are now an ominous signal that decisions are being made that will adversely impact the majority and benefit a few.

The world of talent, which is essentially what makes corporations run, is realizing that bias and assumption drive division and create branding liabilities that threaten short-term and long-term profit.

Leaders are being forced to question everything. So, how can a leader even have confidence in an environment like this, where we have unprecedented events that no past corporate leaders have previously navigated, let alone have successfully navigated, in order to lead to any level of confidence? Even data and science are moving targets.

Confidence is an enigma. It feels awful to be uncertain about your ability to lead, to not have certainty that decisions and actions will have positive outcomes. It feels awful to be constantly questioned and scrutinized. The reinforcement that humans need in order to learn and grow is severely lacking.

What can leaders do to inspire future leaders – the leaders we will need to solve tomorrow’s problems?

The answer is self-love.

Traditionally, we don’t associate love with professional success, but it is quickly becoming visible as the exact void that needs to be filled in order to navigate the volatility and ambiguity being forced upon leadership today.

The difference between self-love and confidence is that confidence relies upon certainty and self-love is unconditional. Corporate training has been pushing ethics as the way to combat corporate conflicts that threaten sustainable profit. However, that effort has proven ineffective and emotional intelligence is quickly taking its place. This is because neuroscience has developed.

There have been several major discoveries the led to this shift. We have discovered:

  • The parts of the brain responsible for emotional intelligence, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, do not fully develop until the third decade of life.
  • The brain is plastic, and parts of the brain can be developed just like muscles with the right nutrition and exercise.
  • Self-criticism, personal trauma, and stress inhibit emotional intelligence.
  • Self-love and mindfulness enhance emotional intelligence.
  • People cannot simultaneously be operating in ego while also operating with emotional intelligence – they are at odds.

Knowing this, leaders can feel certain in their ability to lead in uncertain times by making self-love and mindfulness a habit. The ego is our protection, and confidence is run by the ego while our level of emotional intelligence is directly correlated to our level of self-love. In a state of confidence, that good feeling can cause our brain to block out any new information that threatens that good feeling. This causes leaders to be resistant to feedback, input, external ideas, and change – high risks for companies today as the pace of change accelerates.

What do I mean by self-love?

I don’t mean a sexual kind of self-love, though I’m not excluding sexual self-love from self-love practices, either.

I mean the emotional self-love – the ability to fully accept yourself unconditionally, to feel worthy of love, to feel lovable, to acknowledge that you are flawed – there is room to learn, develop and grow, and that wherever you are on that journey is perfect, and to see your mistakes as ways to learn.

So many leaders are self-critical, and the outward expression of being self-critical is being critical of others. Even well-meaning, well-intended leaders are unconscious that their criticisms come through at an energetic level and a non-verbal level. Even the most well-trained leaders are trained more in manipulating tone and posture to be non-threatening, which just comes across as passive-aggressive, than in achieving an actual state of acceptance.

Leaders, if you haven’t bathed yourself in love and appreciation for yourself lately, don’t be surprised if when you try it, you feel a powerful release – like a damn breaking. You may cry, you may even feel angry for times way back in the past where you didn’t get the love that you needed. Whatever you feel – allow it! Self-love means also accepting that you are an emotional being with a range of experiences from traumatic to divine.

In the first six weeks of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint, a year-long certification program for corporate leaders aspiring to make better decisions, expand influence, and contribute to calming the chaos in our world, participants get to learn, try and create habits around self-love using mini-practices that can be done in less than 5 minutes daily, yet have exponential rewards that transcend professional performance and success. They are completely transformative to how leaders achieve peace of mind, interact with the world around them, and shift from a paradigm of lack and volatility to abundance and benevolence.

We are currently filling our next case study to start next month. Schedule your consultation today!

Demi Lovato – Confident (Official Video)

Demi’s album CONFIDENT available now! http://smarturl.it/dls2 Amazon http://smarturl.it/dlams2 Google Play http://smarturl.it/dlgps2 Stream http://smarturl.i…

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

Renewing Your Team Bond With Personal Branding and MT/EQ Training

Posted on by in Branding, Conscious Leadership, Human Resources, Leadership, Talent Management | Leave a comment

It may seem pretty simple to state this, but the thing that brings people together more than any trust fall is understanding.

As a client’s team member said yesterday during her personal branding consultation, everyone is a product of their experiences and everyone who has an opinion has it for a reason.

What if we gave up the idea that one person’s opinion is more valid than another’s? It’s true that some opinions are more educated than others, but if we stayed open to the idea that even educated opinions are still opinions, not facts, society might make leaps and bounds in innovation. Science is not static and few cause-effect relationships are linear, especially when it comes to people.

For employers who are committed to protecting the health of employees and who are sensitive to their concerns about COVID, team building during a pandemic has to evolve from in-person venues to virtual venues. This may feel like a challenge. The good news is there are equally, if not more, effective virtual options that can not only renew team bonds, but also create greater harmony, increase productivity, elevate engagement, and even help leaders discover new ways to leverage the talents, experiences, and passions of their team members.

Companies already understand the value of corporate branding, even if they don’t invest in it or implement it. For many companies, providing personal branding services may seem like a way to make talent prime for the picking by competition. However, engaging a personal branding expert to help employees, especially executives and front-line, customer-facing employees, hone powerful personal brands has a quadruple bottom line that can solve issues many managers are most pained with right now, such as low engagement, loss of identity, disjointed teams, and risks of or realized turnover.

When a company invests in personal branding, included is an assessment of alignment with the corporate brand. Any deviation from alignment causes exactly the pains described above.

When you combine personal branding with Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence mini-practices, training, and coaching, employees gain clarity on who they are, why they are there, how they relate to each other, and the greater vision of their future with the company. They learn how to integrate the mini-practices into full-capacity (in terms of time/energy or both) schedules.

In fact, while strong time management is usually given credit for people’s effectiveness to deliver on time, especially during now with the world’s volatile state, energy management is the skill employers want to enhance if they are finding that their employees are not able to work at full capacity, whether at home or in the office, especially if the suggestion or mandate that they will be doing additional training or team building feels more like a burden than a benefit. In fact, energy management training is what most employers can do to alleviate immediate pain and create capacity for additional training.

Ethics training has proven ineffective. However, thanks to breakthroughs in neuroscience, we know exactly what part of the brain is responsible for emotional intelligence, that the brain is “plastic,” meaning that you can develop parts of the brain like a muscle, AND various techniques to accelerate the development of emotional intelligence. Every day I hear people in my HR and recruiting circles talk about the growing importance of hiring for soft skills and developing hard skills, but there are just are some experiences that can’t be replaced. In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, including a story a client told me two days ago, that someone was tolerated by a company because the benefits of their experience outweighed the risks of their behavior. Hiring for soft skills may work for entry-level and junior positions for which you expect to train the employee anyway, but it’s just another hiring fantasy to think that it would be at all cost-effective or beneficial to the company in the short or long-term to hire a senior person who has the right people skills and turn them into subject matter experts. It’s generally accepted that a professional will make an investment of ten years (K. Anders Ericsson) or 10,000 hours (Malcolm Gladwell) to become an expert.

Now, when a company combines on-the-job training with personal branding and MT/EQ training, it has all it needs to realize its vision and mission.

The last quarter of the year is here, and slots are filling up. Schedule a consultation today.

Together or apart – Lissie

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

Conversational Intelligence – Answer The Call To Conscious Leadership

Posted on by in Conscious Leadership, Corporate Consciousness, Hiring/Recruiting, Human Resources, Leadership | Leave a comment

As usual, our topic for this month’s Answer the Call to Conscious Leadership event was voted on by our C3 community as something people wanted to know more about. One of our members, Phil Williams, actually mentioned it in his comments in last month’s event, and through that engagement, he was asked to be a panelist this month, which is really an ideal path we would like all of our members to take advantage of. I, then, used my sourcing skills to secure another expert, and I have to say I hit the jackpot in finding Gabriela Herrero, C-IQ Certified Conversational Alchemist.

This month, we shifted our platform to make it possible for people outside the C3 community to attend live and access the replay, though unless you were connected to Lawrence Henderson, you would find it hard to find that replay. We encourage you to invite other conscious leaders and aspiring leaders to request membership in the C3 community to watch the full event, which this month lasted about 40 minutes.

In that time, we covered:

  • The 3 levels of building trusting relationships
  • The 3 stages of elevating trust in conversations
  • The #1 step to enhancing conversational intelligence
  • Why conversational intelligence is a vital skill for conscious leaders
  • Why some leaders fail to communicate and how to overcome that challenge
  • What ho’oponopono is and how it relates to emotional and conversational intelligence
  • How to accelerate the path from self-awareness to being consistently conscious
  • The role of neuroscience in building conversational intelligence
  • Some of the hidden syndromes from which leaders often suffer subconsciously
  • How to ensure that you are being thoughtful in your conversations
  • What is needed for leaders to gain self-awareness
  • What conscious leadership is really about
  • Why a having a coach is the key to continual growth in conversational intelligence
  • How various cultures use language, build trust, and perceive feedback
  • What feed forward is and why it is a more palatable alternative to feedback
  • How co-creation becomes a source of renewal for leaders in a time when energy and time are extremely limited resources
  • What resilience is all about and why leaders need it
  • The importance of resilience and flexibility, and which comes first

This is not even an exhaustive list! As you can see, this hour that we co-create together provides tremendous value, and our C3 community continues to grow and increase in engagement.

We want to promote your intellectual value! We want your conscious leadership solutions to reach the people who need them!

If you haven’t already, please share your expertise with the community and suggest topics for which you could be a panelist. Answer the Call to Conscious Leadership topics are decided on by our community according to what are the most relevant and intriguing topics, which means that YOU could be our next panelist.

You can also be a host, so if you want to try your hand at that role, we want to offer you the chance to facilitate these amazing co-created conversations.

Check in with the community today!

Peter Gabriel – Come Talk To Me

The opening track off the DVD film based on his Secret World Live video. Pretty much the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

How to Go from a Boss to a Conscious Leader

Posted on by in Career Growth, Coaching, Conscious Leadership, Corporate Consciousness, Leadership, Work/Life | Leave a comment

Recently, I read a post from a business owner who was asking human resources professionals for advice about an employee who requested not to be contacted after work hours or on weekends, except in the event of an emergency. 

He explained that he “made it clear” to the employee that she is not required to respond to anything not urgent after hours or on weekends, but affirmed his “authority to send emails to their work email address for items that may cross his mind after hours so he doesn’t forget. He sent this employee an email over the weekend. She “politely and respectfully” reminded him of her request. “I really would like my time and space respected during off-hours.” He pushed back. She pushed back. 

“You may not like me setting boundaries but this is important to me. If you respected me and my time, you would understand that an employee should be allowed to have a reprieve.”

His perspective was: “As the boss and owner of the company, I should be the one who sets operations and not the employee… She is setting (or changing) the business guidelines and protocol, and it does not sit well with me.”

Many people advised this leader to let her walk, his way or the highway, and he was very much in agreement at the time I read and responded to his post. This advice and his source of discomfort were very much coming from ego rather than empathy. 

Here was my response: 

“Look, everyone is doing the best they can to cope in difficult times. This requires MORE self-care than ever. The only solution isn’t to send emails anyway because it works for you and she can just opt to ignore them. She obviously has notifications on to deal with emergencies, so she will get every email, and even though she may not be required to respond to non-emergencies, she still may feel compelled by a sense of duty and obligation that adds pressure (self-imposed, yes) when she needs to be disconnected. Need – as in, a physical need to manage stress for overall well being. By insisting on your way and not respecting her boundaries, you are communicating that what she needs is less important than what you want. Self-care = putting your needs over someone else’s wants. Selfish = putting your wants over someone else’s needs. What kind of leader do you want to be? Can’t you create the drafts when you think of them and send them off Monday morning? Yes. You can. If you don’t value her, let her go. If you do value her, respect her boundaries. Be the leader she needs.”

He responded, “Fair and well put.”

While he was in ego at the time of posting, he was also open to really hearing other ways to look at this problem. 

I’m not sure how he’ll handle it, but I am glad that he was open.

He said, “I want to do what is fair and just, which is why I came to this group! Thank you!!”

At that moment, this boss/manager had a choice to move into conscious leadership. He was able to do so because his intention was to be fair to his employee. He was open to guidance and new self-awareness, and if he does decide to accommodate his employee, he will have moved from ego to empathy and compassion, which is empathy in action.

As a leader, you have multiple points throughout their days, weeks, months, and years that give you the opportunity to make similar choices. 

Like forming any habit, and what I love about habits, is that once a habit is formed, doing that thing becomes a compulsion rather than a choice. You are pulled to do it, rather than having to push. However, that time in between the self-awareness of the habit that needs to develop and the time that the habit is developed, the push is a challenge for most people. 

Join me for a free online masterclass on Wednesday, September 30th at 2:00 PM EDT to find out more about how you can create more speed and ease during that in-between period so that you can become more consistently conscious as a leader.  

What would you have advised this leader to do? What would you do?

*****************************************************************

If you’re dedicated to making a meaningful impact in the world through your work, I invite you to join my LinkedIn group for conscious leaders. Join C3 now to be a part of future free events, watch replay recordings of our past events, interact with the conscious community, speakers, and experts, and have your chance to share your expertise by becoming a future guest panelist for upcoming events. Remember that without you, meaningful change is not possible.

Dashboard Confessional – Bend And Not Break (Lyrics)

Lovely band, lovely song, lovely album Album: “A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar” – 2003 Lyrics: I catalog these steps now Decisive and intentioned precise …

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

If You Really Want to Build a Talent Community, Try These Tips

Posted on by in Coaching, Hiring/Recruiting, Human Resources, Leadership, Organizational Transformation, Professional Development, Talent Management | Leave a comment

I first heard of talent communities circa 2012 from Mahe Bayireddi as he was founding Phenom People. Had I still been in recruiting at the time, I probably would have been all over it, as it seems like a great, easy way to pluck talent on demand that is already engaged with your brand. Having been trained in branding as a recruiter in 2005, it really would have aligned with what we were taught – to establish long-term relationships by being strong resources and adding unique value from our experience.

Perhaps, having had an entrepreneurial interest, I would have helped my firm launch a branding and talent community-building service for our clients. It might have helped my firm establish itself, but I’m skeptical that it would have really done anything to accelerate or improve hiring for most of our clients, and I’d like to explain why.

By 2012, I had been working with and for job seekers rather than companies (with a few exceptions.) When you see the hiring process from the candidate’s perspective, you realize candidates aren’t buying into this whole talent community thing.

Even though coaches like me have spent the last 20 years teaching corporate professionals to compile and research target employers and conduct a campaign that is proactive, the vast majority of candidates conduct reactive job searches. They look for job postings when they’re ready to change jobs and use the method that is immediately in front of them – applying through job boards.

Companies have traditionally favored recruiting talent from its competition, but it’s not great career management to jump ship because a company you vied to work for when you were looking is finally ready to hire.

Last week I attended Talent Experience Live, a live LinkedIn event hosted by Natalie McKnight and Devon Foster of Phenom People. The topic was talent communities, and Randy Goldberg, VP of Talent Acquisition Strategy at MGM, was also there to share tips.

I took the opportunity to ask these experts a couple of questions, such as how they measure success and which metrics they track. Goldberg advised running your talent community initiative combining engagement efforts with marketing best practices, such as using technology and segmented messaging.

So, using traditional marketing tools, they create various groups of talent, create tags, send customized e-mails to each group, A/B test various messages, and track the number of e-mail opens, along with the number of clicks on apply links. Using these tools, he said MGM has achieved an 80% open rate, which is amazing.

Building a talent community is not as simple as setting up some great automated tech and hiring some marketing people to post on social media or send out a company newsletter. You can do that, but ROI will escape you…unless…

Your company has already established its brand as an employer of choice. Admired companies and industry leaders like Disney, Google, Marriott, Apple, and MGM will be able to implement technology and marketing to build talent communities because they are on people’s radar as a place where they can work among the best and brightest. While marketing directly to people, they can also market to any number of startups or competitors.

If you really want to build a talent community, you have to first brand your company as an employer of choice. Your talent must be perceived as the best and the brightest, and your policies and culture as lifestyle-friendly.

One of the other questions I asked Goldberg was whether executive branding was part of their talent community strategy. He said that executives are doing more publishing and public speaking – keynotes, panels, podcasts, and live events (obviously), such as Talent Experience Live.

This is a great way to make your company superstars more accessible, but it’s just one small component of executive branding.

Executive branding is a multi-tiered strategy that, to be truly effective, will require you to brand at the macro AND micro-levels. Praise and promote your front line just as much as your C-Suite. Also, show your prospective talent that employees have an admirable lifestyle. Show them who they are outside of their company identity.

Goldberg had a good point about not sending e-mails from a “do not reply” e-mail address. Offer a channel for your audience to connect with a REAL person. This demonstrates great empathy with job seekers.

The other thing that your company will have to fine-tune if you are going to be successful at attracting future superstars to your candidate pool is the candidate experience. The experience MUST match the hype! Goldberg mentioned that MGM allows its talent community to interact with its alumni. That’s employer brand confidence.

This requires standard operating procedures followed by every stakeholder involved in hiring. This includes non-automated, HUMAN standardized follow-up protocols for candidates who interview, rolling out position status updates to applicants, transparent salary negotiations, and comprehensive onboarding and training. Acknowledge and fix what people complain about on Glassdoor.

Furthermore, your company had better offer opportunities for diverse, dynamic (hard + soft, professional + personal) development, be proactive about succession planning and development planning, and practice transparency in communications throughout the organization.

Do not invest in building a talent community until your employer, executive, and employee brand are solid!

When you do, think not just in terms of marketing metrics, but also make sure that you have a way to tie this campaign with time to hire and the quality of hires, because what good is attracting candidates already engaged with your brand if they don’t land and succeed.

Are you realizing that your company needs to develop its executive branding? Schedule a consultation today!

New Edition – Cool It Now (Official Video)

Revisit New Edition’s number 1 songs here: https://UMe.lnk.to/NewEditionNumberOnes Listen and follow the New Edition Best Of Playlist: https://UMe.lnk.to/New…

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

Mrs. Huller is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

Never Forget, for Gen Z and Me

Posted on by in Change the world, Changing life experience, Life changing experience, Mindfulness, Work/Life | Leave a comment

9/11 impacted me on a deeper level last year than it had in the past, thanks to my students.

You might think that 18 years later the impact of an event like 9/11 would fade. Actually, I realized in reflection that the trajectory of my life shifted significantly because of that day.

Last year, while planning the semester’s coursework and assignments, I saw that I had a class on 9/11. I didn’t think much about it. Even the weekend before when I saw that 9/11/19 was going to fall on a Wednesday, I made what seemed like an insignificant mental note and refocused on my to-do list.

Most days, my to-do list feels like a bunch of obligations I feel compelled to take care of, and the sense of responsibility outweighs the pride and joy I might otherwise take in my to-dos.

Class starts with 10-15 minutes of a mindfulness and/or self-awareness journaling exercise. When I lined up each exercise with each class during the summer, I was mostly thinking of progression and pairing with class topics.

On my way to class that morning, the DJs on the radio were recalling where they were when they heard the news. The female DJ shared that her mom woke her up with a call that morning and told her to turn on the news. She was annoyed, but once she realized the severity of the situation, she felt awful for being annoyed by her mom calling.

She was in college at the time and went to class because she didn’t know what else to do. She tried carrying on as though things were normal, but they were not. The professor told her to go home and call her mom. Then another student showed up and the professor told that student to do the same thing. “No one knows what to do right now.”

I had thought that I would let the day slide by without mentioning it, until I was on my way to class listening to the DJs recall their thoughts and emotions, forcing me to recall mine.

*****************************************************************

No one knew what this meant, if we would ever feel safe again, or if we were just watching the beginning of the end of life as we knew it. We knew that civilians and first responders were dying in scary and awful ways.

Many of us thought about people we knew living or working in New York City, or those we knew were supposed to fly somewhere that day. My brother was flying to the west coast that day. I was frantic until I heard from him that his flight was grounded in Pittsburgh.

I was a young professional, finally having found my path in recruiting, eager to get to the next level, and interface with clients and candidates. But it was taking too long. I was starting to get bored. I was yearning for change, but I wasn’t doing much to actually change things, like looking for a different job.

I loved my boss and the other women in my office. I was sure I would eventually learn new skills from them if I stuck it out, but I was more excited by my lunch break run than by the work I was doing.

Then one seemingly average, beautiful day, a call came in for the managing director. I remember overhearing her voice as she was on the call. She sounded shocked. My first thought was that something terrible must have happened in her family, but then she shared the news with the rest of the office. Shaking with tears in her eyes, she told us that a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center, and they think it was on purpose.

I can barely remember what happened next. I know that we dropped everything to search for news online. I might have found a live stream. The managing director went out to buy a TV to bring it into the office.

I had been working on a call list of management consultants in the DC area at that moment. There was no chance I would be reaching anyone now.

I remember calling my brother. I called my mom, dad, and boyfriend.

Another plane hit. We knew for certain now that it was a terroristic attack. Fear and shock left us bewildered.

What do we do? What can we do?

By 11 AM, we were told that we could go home if we needed to. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to take my run in a national park. Who knew if they had other targets. Eventually, I went home and tried to process what was going on.

Returning to work felt strange. I had called candidates who were working on the exact floors where one plane hit. How could work ever seem important again for me or them?

There was a universal sentiment – what we had previously thought was important, may not actually be that important. Everyone thought twice about what they were doing with their time. Everyone assessed what was really most important in their lives.

Armed Forces enrollment spiked, as did the number of people quitting their jobs, even in the midst of impending economical impacts.

*****************************************************************

By the time I got to campus that day last year, I was in tears struggling to compose myself. I thought for sure that I should make mention to my students of such a significant day in our country’s history, but also wondered how I could keep from ugly crying, which I felt like doing at the time.

As class began, I assessed my composure and decided I would introduce that day’s journal exercise by talking about 9/11. It wasn’t until I spoke that the synchronicity of the events, to me being there with them at that moment and what I was dedicating my career to, that the journal entry clicked. And the tears came, but I didn’t fight them.

This particular day, I challenged the students to think about Brules that they were following – BS rules made up by someone else about how to be successful and happy that are not authentic or in alignment with what would really make them successful and happy.

I told them how a good percentage of my clients come to me after or in the middle of successful careers because something is missing – some joy, some impact, some contribution that hasn’t been made after building their career, as meaningful as they thought it was at one time. I urged them to make sure they were defining their own happiness and success. What they were learning would help them make sure that at any point in the future, they could reinvent themselves and their definition of success.

These students were just kids when 9/11 happened. Some of them may have no memory of it because they were too young, and the older ones probably weren’t old enough to be told the truth of what had happened. Surely, at some point, as they got older, they learned about these events from a 3rd party observational perspective.

Today, though, I wanted them to tune into that universal sentiment – If it all, life as we know it, our financial model, our sense of safety and responsibility, changed today, what would really be important for you to do with your time? What beliefs that you adopted from others could you let go of now, and replace with what serves you and your own definitions of success and happiness?

My mission of making work a worthwhile way to spend time away from what’s really important was solidified by 9/11, both the day and the aftermath – the recession, my layoff, my struggle to land meaningful work again, and my realization that I no longer wanted to reject candidates – I wanted to help them.

I was only 27 when I started Epic Careering. Credibility was something I had to fight to establish, but I knew that I didn’t want to waste another year making a handful of placements while thousands of candidates stayed stuck and disempowered.

I knew that, like my parents, there were working parents everywhere coming home exhausted, overworked, and stressed out – wanting to have the energy to engage at home, but needing to disengage just to recover.

*****************************************************************

Even the best work is going to present challenges. Innovation and progress can’t happen without those challenges. However, if people are going to spend their time away from their families and loved ones, at least that time can be meaningful, fulfilling, and well-compensated.

If 9/11 hadn’t happened, I would probably not have been laid off, and I may not have had the personal experience of long-term unemployment that made me understand and help people going through the emotions of that experience. In fact, I may have continued to go through the motions of a job I was growing bored of, waiting for a chance to learn and do something more.

And if it hadn’t happened:

  • Would I still feel called to this mission?
  • Would I have gained such insights about what great talent craves if I had not gotten to know them as clients, only candidates?
  • Would I be consulting to companies on how to be better employers for sustainable, conscious growth?
  • Would I be teaching emerging students how to navigate the job market and become conscious leaders?
  • Would I volunteer my time to nurturing young entrepreneurs in an effort to spark future economic growth and innovation?

Likely not.

My to-do lists are mostly things that I GET to do in support of my mission. I am seeing that now more clearly, and I am grateful that my time, energy, and efforts are making a meaningful difference to others.

Coincidentally, my students were awesome at sharing their realizations. They went deep. They brought their emotions to the surface and learned that this was okay.

I saw that for them, 9/11, a day when too many tragically died, had birthed a new vision of how they can apply what they are learning in college to craft careers that help make the world a better place.

This blog is dedicated to my students, Cabrini COM Cavaliers, social justice warriors!

*****************************************************************

If you’re dedicated to making a meaningful impact in the world through your work, I invite you to join my LinkedIn group for conscious leaders. Join C3 now to be a part of future free events, like our next Answer the Call to Conscious Leadership event, taking place on Thursday, October 1st at 1:00 p.m. ET, where we will discuss Conversational Intelligence. By joining C3, you will also get to vote on upcoming training topics, watch replay recordings of our past events, interact with the conscious community, speakers, and experts, and have your chance to share your expertise by becoming a future guest panelist for upcoming events. Remember that without you, meaningful change is not possible.

Van Halen – Right Now HD.flv

one of the best videos eveR……..wud remain true for any decade i guess

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days (bit.ly/GetFocusIn30). She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly. 

Organizational Leadership – Answer The Call To Conscious Leadership

Posted on by in Conscious Leadership, Corporate Consciousness, Hiring/Recruiting, Human Resources, Leadership | Leave a comment

This past Tuesday’s Answer the Call to Conscious Leadership event featured insightful takeaways about organizational leadership.

Along with the added expertise of our guest panelist, Geralyn Smith, HR and Leadership Development Consultant, we discussed:

  • The steps to take to start building relationships with organizational leaders
  • How the human resources discipline has evolved, why, and where is it going
  • Where human resources professionals tend to want to grow midway through their career
  • Why organizational leadership has become such a niche focus
  • How to get human resources a seat at the table
  • How to explain the strategic role human resources can play vs. the tactical role many leaders perceive HR to be
  • The top tools and methods to use to demonstrate the value that HR has to offer
  • The best ways to reconcile the company expertise of HR with the functional/technical expertise of hiring managers
  • Why corporate leaders circumvent human resources and the resulting costs to the organization, as well as how can HR prevent this
  • What job seekers can do to engage HR as a facilitator rather than a gatekeeper
  • What an HR Business Partner is and why companies need one

You don’t want to miss this replay! Join our amazing LinkedIn Group, C3, for instant access. Geralyn is also a member of the group, so you can tag her and ask any follow-up questions you may have!

Our next Answer the Call to Conscious Leadership event will take place on Thursday, October 1st at 1:00 p.m. ET. Get into C3 now to be a part of future live events. Joining C3 also gives you the opportunity to vote on upcoming training topics, watch replay recordings, and connect with other conscious leaders.

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

Curtailing COVID Turnover – Answer The Call To Conscious Leadership

Posted on by in Conscious Leadership, Corporate Consciousness, Human Resources, Leadership, Personal development, Professional Development | Leave a comment

As voted by our C3 Community, this past Tuesday’s Answer the Call to Conscious Leadership event was all about curtailing COVID turnover, but we covered quite a bit about mitigating it altogether.

Our panelists, Kelly Robinson, CEO of Talent Acquisition and Recruiting Consulting firm Panna Knows, and TaJuanna Taylor, Corporate Compliance Project Consultant, had very different, but complementary perspectives on:

  • Why people resist being involved in change projects and how can you engage them
  • The definition of UNculture
  • The critical questions to ask to make sure that your company is talent-ready
  • Where in the talent cycle the turnover is highest, and if it is preventable
  • The top warning signs that your talent needs a check-in
  • Why talent is jumping ship from “secure” jobs in the middle of a pandemic
  • The recommended systems companies can implement in order to stop turnover before it starts
  • How companies can leverage assets they already have to engage and retain talent
  • The critical metric some companies are NOT measuring
  • The risks of hiring talent that is doomed to be disengaged and jump ship during this time
  • The front end measures that need to be taken to make sure that the talent you consider truly represents the talent your company can retain and who will thrive
  • How to give yourself permission for self-care as a leader
  • The long-term impacts of not taking care of your talent
  • When to make concessions in your talent requirements
  • How to get to a point of sustainability in your talent strategy
  • The qualities that leaders need to express in order to master the long-game of retention
  • The crucial difference between managers and leaders, and what’s needed right now
  • The balance leaders must strike between neglect and micro-management
  • The counter-intuitive problem of having a wide talent pool

Wisdom bombs galore, folks! You definitely want to watch this replay! Get in C3 now for access.

I don’t know about you, but I love this event and I love this group. Am I allowed to say love in a corporate setting? Yes, I am! Because this is what we are creating.

We are collaborating to create a more conscious, HUMAN corporate landscape. There are only gains to doing so. The more people who join in, the further and faster we go.

Get in this community and be on the front lines of a movement that is sure to make work better for more people…and the planet. Be one of the founding 100 members, and then when you recognize how powerful it is to connect, commiserate, and collaborate with other conscious leaders and facilitators, invite your people.

The faster we grow, the further we go.

Remember that the next free training in this group is the 3-Day Conscious Decision Challenge starting Wednesday, August 26th at noon ET. Over 3 days, you’ll discover 3 frameworks to determine the course of action that is in the highest good and that will get your people enthusiastically onboard. Register now and see you in C3!

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

What Is Conscious Leadership and Why Do We Need It NOW to Save Tomorrow?

Posted on by in Change the world, Coaching, Conscious Leadership, Corporate Consciousness, Leadership, Mindfulness, Professional Development | Leave a comment

Yesterday, Vishen Lakhiani spoke at an online “I Am The Change” event hosted by Lisa Nichols, my former coach. Vishen is responsible for birthing Epic Careering’s newest offer, the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint.

When I saw him speak in San Diego in August of 2017, he opened up the event by challenging everyone in the room to only have or work for a humanity+ business. He showed a video of Tom Chi, Google X Co-Founder, answering a futuristic question, the answer to which I don’t think most of humanity was ready to hear: if consciousness doesn’t outpace innovation, we will destroy ourselves.

We need good people at the top, making decisions and leading future leaders toward a better world – right now! I wrote about this even before COVID, even before George Floyd, even before Beirut.

More than ever, we need people RIGHT NOW to wake up, speak up, stand up, step up, and lead us all to rise up, as Lisa Nichols laid out in her 5-day virtual event.

Vishen quoted MLK yesterday, in perfect context for what is happening right now in our world:

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

The old models of leadership have failed, and are making way for new breeds of leadership. It might feel confusing, overwhelming, or trite, but don’t let it make you apathetic.

“Apathy is the enemy of democracy.” In other words, by being indifferent, you could end up giving all your power to whoever sees fit to use it.

Here’s a little cheat sheet of three of the leadership styles emerging to disrupt the oligarchy:

  • Situational Leader – Adapts leadership style to individuals
  • Servant Leader – Hires the best talent, gets out of their way, and makes sure that they have what they need to do what they do best
  • Conscious Leader – Answers the question, “What is for the highest good for all?” with acute self-awareness

All of these leadership styles require emotional intelligence, compassion, and ego-checking. They can also all be applied simultaneously; it’s not a “this or that” thing.

However, when applying situational leadership, watch out for people feeling as if you might be favoring one person over another with extra time.

With servant leadership, you have to balance taking full accountability for the performance of your team and setting strong accountability expectations so that you prepare your team members to become leaders who can step into your place.

With conscious leadership, you have to deal with your baggage. It’s hard work. You have to be committed to continually increasing your awareness of how your beliefs, insecurities, fears, and biases influence your impact and performance, how you are perceived, the decisions that you make, and the state of mind that you’re in.

“What is for the highest good?” seems like such a simple question, but when leaders are not all of the above, they may justify unconscious decisions. They may choose glory over good, or self-preservation over the preservation of company values.

In order to be conscious, leaders of today need better tools for leveraging data while integrating intuition into decision-making, managing conflict with compassion, and inspiring over convincing. They need to develop personally just as much, if not more, as they develop professionally.

If you feel there is much more you can contribute through your career if only you knew how to influence change…

If you are concerned enough about the future to take action…

If you want to be able to tell your kids and grandkids you did all you could to preserve a better world for them…

The time is now.

Alesso – Heroes (we could be) ft. Tove Lo

FOREVER – The Debut Album Available Now http://Ales.so/forever Featuring “Sweet Escape,” “Heroes” feat. Tove Lo, “Cool” feat. Roy English and more Follow Ale…

Karen Huller is the creator of the Corporate Consciousness Ripple Blueprint and author of Laser-sharp Career Focus: Pinpoint your Purpose and Passion in 30 Days. She founded Epic Careering, a leadership and career development firm specializing in executive branding and conscious culture, in 2006. 

While the bulk of her 20 years of professional experience has been within the recruiting and employment industry, her publications, presentations, and coaching also draw from experience in personal development, performance, broadcasting, marketing, and sales. Her solutions incorporate breakthroughs in neuroscience, human performance optimization, bioenergetics, and psychology to help leaders accelerate rapport, expand influence, and elevate engagement and productivity while also looking out for the sustainability of the business and the planet.

Mrs. Huller was one of the first LinkedIn trainers and is known widely for her ability to identify and develop new trends. She is a Certified Professional Résumé Writer, Certified Career Transition Consultant, and Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with a Bachelor of Art in Communication Studies and Theater from Ursinus College and a minor in Creative Writing. Her blog was recognized as a top 100 career blog worldwide by Feedspot. 

She was an Adjunct Professor in Cabrini University’s Communications Department and an Adjunct Professor of Career Management and Professional Development at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business  She is an Instructor for the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA) where some of her students won the 2018 national YEA competition, were named Ernst & Young’s America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneurs, and won the 2019 People’s Choice Award. 

She is board secretary for the Upper Merion Community Center and just finished serving as Vice President of the Gulph Elementary PTC, for which she received recognition as a Public Education Partner and Promoter from the Upper Merion Area Education Association. She lives in King of Prussia with her husband, two daughters, and many pets, furry, feathered, and scaly.

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