Anecdotes to Evidence

By Andrea Chilcote Compassion, courage, and humility. It’s been more than a year since the release of my book, What Leaders Need Now, a work in which I posit that these three leadership qualities are simultaneously essential for healthy, thriving organizational cultures—and in dangerously short supply.

The Burnout Complexity

By Andrea Chilcote How are you feeling right now? Energized or drained? Lively or bored? Engaged or burned out? I am blessed to do work that I love. Yet there are times when I’m feeling tired, rundown, and in need of…something.

Becoming Who We Are

By Andrea Chilcote
As we grow through life, do we change “who we are” or do we become ourselves? I remember being asked by a potential client, “What do you do, really, as a coach?” He seemed earnest, so I answered sincerely. “I help people become themselves,” I replied.

So, You Have an Executive Coach…Now What?

By Andrea Chilcote
This article was born from my latest podcast episode in which I interviewed two clients about their experience with executive coaching. David Clapp of CarterBaldwin Executive Search and Virginia Neiswender of Cox Enterprises kindly spent time with me to help other leaders understand the benefits of coaching and share some of the best practices for maximizing its impact.

Now is the Time to Engage

By Andrea Chilcote
Have you recently heard (or spoken) the phrase, “There’s a lot of fear out there”? I have heard it a lot, though I’m in the unique position in which people often confide in me the conversations they have only with themselves in the middle of the night.

What We Carry – The Journey of Self Compassion

By Andrea Chilcote

Calling all worriers. You know who you are.

There was a time, many years ago, when I believed worrying was one of the means to success in my growing business. I believed that my continual creation of what-ifs and contingency plans B, C, D, and on through the alphabet, were what kept me from disaster. Thankfully, I learned that this behavior was simply a mind trap of sorts, a condition of allowing my mind to summon imaginary impending doom, then conceive of a host of solutions until satisfaction (or mental exhaustion) was reached.

What We Carry – The Journey of Self Compassion

By Andrea Chilcote

Perfectionism. It’s a label thrown around often, sometimes carelessly. It can be used in a pejorative way yet can be worn as a badge of honor. Perfectionism is not a mental health disorder—it’s a personality trait. And like any personality trait, taken to an extreme, it can be debilitating.
In this series, I seek to help readers lighten the load of the burdens we all carry, often unconsciously, that cause us to be less than compassionate, kind, and loving toward ourselves.

What We Carry – The Journey of Self Compassion

By Andrea Chilcote

Do you genuinely care about the people in the team or organization that you lead? One of the messages readers have found most affirming in my new book, What Leaders Need Now, is the idea that compassion is a legitimate and essential leadership quality in a world in which the majority of employees are “quiet quitting” (not engaged), according to Gallup’s 2023 Global Workplace report. One client put it simply: “Times have changed, and people need people who actually care.”

The Way I Carry Things

By Andrea Chilcote

A moment of truth is defined as a critical or decisive time on which much depends – a moment when a person or thing is put to the test. I was put to the test in January 2014, caught in Atlanta’s epic snow storm that paralyzed the city and left thousands of people stranded overnight in cars, grocery stores, and hotel lobbies.

Raveling

By Andrea Chilcote

It was early evening on a Friday night. I replied to an email from a client, stating that I had been traveling all week and would get her what she was requesting on Monday. Shortly after hitting send, I glanced at the preview pane and noticed a typo. I had told her I had been “raveling” all week.