When you think about leadership, what comes to mind?
Do you picture someone leading a cause, marching ahead with a clear vision, tackling challenges with focus and determination?
Or perhaps you envision a leader setting the course, bringing people along, taking risks, and empowering others?
These images are common representations of leadership — but they aren't the whole picture. Leadership happens in many forms, and it doesn't always come from the front.
What kind of impact do you intend to have today?
It’s one thing to mean well — it’s another to actually create the impact you want.
Setting clear intentions (whether for yourself or with your team) saves time, energy, and resources while bringing focus and alignment.
You are always making an impact, and you have the power to consciously set an intention for how you want to experience each moment and how you show up for others. If you don't set a conscious intention, the default, unconscious intention takes over — leading to the feeling that "life is happening TO me."
The IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence®), created by Anese and used by Active Choices, Inc., includes the 5 Steps to Intentional Impact to help you show up intentionally and create the impact you want.
With packed schedules, back-to-back meetings, and dynamic challenges, it can be hard to stay present and intentional. That’s why these five steps are so valuable to practice personally and with your team.
Happy 2025! As we step into a new year, I want to begin with a heartfelt thank-you for being here and for engaging with this work. Today, I’m sharing some reflections, a look at recent changes within our organization, and an invitation to consider how you’re choosing to lead this year.
Transitioning from remote work to in-office collaboration isn’t just a logistical challenge — it’s a leadership challenge. For a 14-person UX leadership team at a Fortune 100 company, preparing for an impending return-to-office (RTO) mandate brought a unique set of hurdles: adapting to new dynamics, managing the energy required for effective in-person collaboration, and integrating leadership presence with demanding workloads.
Recognizing the stakes, the team pooled their professional development resources to pursue a transformative learning experience — the IEP Method® Foundations community membership and self-study programming.
Here's how they made it happen:
Lately, I've noticed that three common myths about presence often disempower and exhaust leaders:
There are other myths to address, but for now, I'd like to focus on these three and invite you into a way forward...
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