Traditional models of employee relations are rooted in highly transactional models: a person is hired and sells their skills and time for a wage and (maybe) some additional protections like health insurance, life insurance, retirement, etc. In some cases, they receive a bonus if they perform exceedingly well. In the employment life cycle, agreements around these transactions are central to negotiations and offers, but employees and employers often fail to account for the other costs.

For employees, this can look like the costs to their mental health and energy or the impacts on other important life roles like being a friend, parent, or partner. We fail to account for the emotional costs of the ways our identities can become entangled in our work the insidious ways our jobs strain our ability to maintain fulfilling lives that have purpose, meaning, and joy.

If you’ve been following along, you know that 2025 is the year I’m reading as many airport books as I can tolerate. Last week, I finished the classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Written by Dr. Stephen R. Covey, it was first published in 1989 (36 years ago!), and its popularity resulted in a flurry of subject-matter spin-offs with the same premise and framework. Covey’s books have sold over 40 million copies in 50 languages.  

That is a popular book. 

Naturally, my cynicism expected to hate it. I expected to read some nonsense, such as antiquated leadership drivel, that would explain the terrible people management behaviors I’ve seen from leaders over the years. I expected to find a piece of the puzzle that would help

One of my favorite parts of my business is career coaching. I’ve been interested in it since my early days working on my counseling master’s degree, where I was especially curious about career decision-making processes and influences and wanted to work specifically with women in career change who had initially chosen careers they were socially conditioned into. At the time (and still), I was heavily influenced by the work of Linda Gottfredson and her Career Theory of Conscription and Compromise, which posits that we are influenced by the pressures of social norms and expectations of identity (think: gender, race, socio-economic status) starting very young, then we make compromises in our career choices that adhere and align with that socialization and perceived limitations. 

We all know change is hard, but one of the most challenging (and overlooked) experiences in the change process is grief. As a society and culture, we too often reserve grief for losses like deaths, and maybe we’ll associate grief with other kinds of loss like divorce, moving house, or the end of a relationship. 

In early April, I’m headed to my undergraduate alma mater with a few of my former classmates to discuss careers and what students can do with a Fine Arts degree in theatre performance. I’m so stoked. SO stoked. 

This will be the second time I’m doing this, and I’m excited to share with the group 1) the expansive ways they can use their performing arts degree, but especially 2) how they can use other experiences and fields to enrich their work as artists, actors and performers...

OK, I’ll just come out and say it. We don’t use rotary phones in the workplace anymore, right? Our computers aren’t running on MS-DOS. We aren’t saving our work to floppy disks. We don’t listen to the dulcet tones of the model dial-up as we log in to our AOL. I don’t travel to visit my clients in a horse and buggy. 

Why? Because science and technology have improved, and we utilize the newer, more efficient tools available to us. 

So whyyyyyyy are we still cool with accepting outdated leadership strategies? Ineffective at worst and harmful at best? 

I saw a post on LinkedIn some time ago that I can’t stop thinking about. It was written by Bob Sutton, an organizational psychologist and Stanford Professor. The post explored the pitfalls of having 40+ years of experience in a given role or field—specifically, the potential to fall into entrenched thinking rather than continue to question norms and long-held standards with curiosity and compassion. It’s an excellent read. 

However, the part that stuck with me was his quote from his former student, Andrew Hargadon, now a professor at the management school at UC Davis. He said…

Ok, I’m kidding. I love yoga. Truly. I have three mats: one for home, a slightly thinner one for studio travel, and a 1.5mm foldable mat for suitcase travel. I even got my yoga teacher certification a lifetime ago before I started my master’s in counseling. I wanted to learn more about how yoga can help with mental health. Ahhh, youth. The joy of wonder.

I'm sorry, 20-something-year-old Laura! While yoga has tremendous benefits for individuals, it’s ineffective as a workplace well-being intervention.

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

Something I see all too often is leaders who are overwhelmed with too much on their plate and not enough time or capacity to develop their teams properly. The result is an unbalanced workplace, where the leader or manager carries the load while their team feels unfulfilled, underdeveloped, and resentful. Leaders also resent carrying the load—creating narratives that “No one can do it better than I can,” or worse, “My team is so incompetent that I have to do the work for them.” 

This scenario is obviously not great. Big yikes. 

We're entering the holiday season, and with Thanksgiving just a few days away, we're seeing the inevitable chatter about gratitude. Gratitude can be an extraordinary tool to improve our mental health, as it reframes our current situation so we see how abundant our lives are instead of focusing on what's lacking. Having a gratitude practice works, meaning it helps us emotionally regulate and relieve stress.