Becoming Works

09/11/2026

I had the pleasure of this interview with by sharing my unique angle on effective communication. We cover ants in my pants 🐜 AND read to the end for my Top Five Essential Communication Techniques! Link to article in first comment. Thank you Beverly!

09/09/2026

I had the pleasure of this interview with Authority Magazine by Medium sharing my unique angle on effective communication. We cover ants in my pants 🐜 AND read to the end for my Top Five Essential Communication Techniques! Link to article in first comment. Thank you Tavares BeverlyAuthority Magazinee of this interview with Authority Magazine by Medium sharing my unique angle on effective communication. We cover ants in my pants 🐜 AND read to the end for my Top Five Essential Communication Techniques! Link to article in first comment. Thank you Tavares Beverly!

09/05/2026

I’m carrying identity-first leadership 🤎 from my two speaking sessions at SHRM KY to SHRM Tennessee in ONE week! My TEDx style talk is ready to inspire and equip my HR colleagues committed to real-life meets deeper for leadership development that works! See you SOON SHRM Tennessee. I’m bringing the 🍫!

08/31/2026

Three years ago, Dolly inspired my TEDx talk (linked in comments) to my own east Tennessee community. I challenged us to consider the parts of our identity story, individually and collectively, that we are proud of... AND... not to ignore the parts of our story that may be harder to acknowledge.
Dolly unashamedly rooted her story in a bigger one, "...I’d still believe in God, because I believe we need to believe in something bigger and better than ourselves... I just think that everybody’s got to have something to believe in.” I personally believe that her trust in an identity story Bigger than her own fueled her gracious generosity and her confidence in her own unique gifting, message, and way of being in the world.
While she lived and led from her inside out, she rooted her story of self in connection to Other and to others. The most steady, gracious, and sustained leaders I support do the same. Too much identity clarity devoid of connection to others or Other, whatever your bigger-than-you foundational purpose is, can be just as unhealthy as not having any idea what is your unique story, leadership approach, or purpose.
Thank you Dolly, for inspiring me then- and now. And for your example of identity- first leadership, of gracious and generous and human-centered business practices, and for your invitation to all of us to, "Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

08/28/2026

HR professionals face big challenges in balancing metrics, outcomes, organizational priorities AND equipping high-functioning, satisfied, healthy workforce teams! I loved meeting so many committed professionals at - we strategized together how to connect performance to identity disruptions across the career journey. It’s a tough and sometimes thankless job - grateful for the opportunity to translate identity-first leadership and workplaces to HR real life! Super fun to have my amazing assistant Seilah Pickering who did an amazing job running support!

08/25/2026

’Twas the night before
And from all through the state,
HR pros came to the ’Ville,
To pause from making workplaces great.
Ready to learn, connect, and have a little fun-
While I tweaked my slides … again…
(yep, the Enneagram One 🤓)

I’m SO excited to meet, learn with, encourage, and hopefully inspire these amazing HR pros with ideas for practical integration of my identity-first leadership approach!

08/19/2026

Is your leadership style in a pro flow state? Work-related flow state (absorption + deep focus) and its cousin, employee engagement, are one part organizational and one part employee / leader self. A recent study by Geldenhuys et al. (2026) demonstrated connection between self-leadership and work-related flow- yes!

AND:

If flow is the desired outcome and self-leadership is the tactical, behavioral ex*****on, then IDENTITY-FIRST LEADERSHIP is the foundation. It builds the capacity for both the leader AND the organization to identify best-fit strategies for increased work-related flow state.

I shared my thoughts with Christian of connecting flow to decreased burnout and the need to expand this conversation to the organizational level. Link in the first comment- !

08/14/2026

In case you missed it!

Organizational Psychologist Natalie Pickering offers us some great information on how we can keep the human side involved when it comes to using AI for business! Please take a moment and watch our …

08/14/2026

Tune in to Daytime Tri-cities for my segment on AI in the workplace and important conversations organizations need to be having! See you in the morning!

07/30/2026

I've had a few variations of this conversation with high-performing leaders in recent weeks. It's a painful reality when you've accepted the leadership role, taken the career pivot, joined the new team and discover that amidst your new responsibilities is... a mess.

It might be a burned-out team or broken trust. Maybe there are remnants of unresolved conflict and deep wells of change resistance surrounded by weeds of non-psychological safety.

The instinct is to jump right in and fix it. But I'm an advocate for pressing pause not only to strategize (my Enneagram 1 is shining through) but also to ask some important questions: How do I? How have I stepped into a mess like this? Some leaders start with creating structure systems. Some focus on building relationships or asking questions. Some quickly see the patterns.

Your leadership identity shapes how you naturally respond -- and this is a strength. But it can also be where many leaders begin to lose themselves. They bring questions to coaching like: Why can't I get this team moving? or Why don't they trust me? or Why can't I fix this? and even deeper, Maybe I'm not the leader they need. I respond by suggesting if there are other questions for us to consider...

The trap for leaders is the automatic ingesting of a team or organizational identity that isn't theirs... yet. That story remains to be written, but defaulting to "why can't I..." is an automatic internalization that needs to be checked. You inherited the responsibility but the story and the history happened before you.

There's a big difference between taking responsibility and taking it personally.
One builds leadership. The other erodes it.

The goal isn't to become a different leader because the situation is difficult or because the messy demands it-- although and of course different situations require some agility-- but I believe the more worthwhile and foundational keep-it-forever goal is to become a more intentional version of yourself.

While you don't get to choose what you inherit, you do get to choose how you lead and who you're becoming as you tackle that mess.