Here’s the main message I want to give you today: You can’t change anyone else. If you’re having difficulties with relationships at work, the only control you have in any situation is how you respond.

Today, we’re talking about the unique challenges so many of you are facing as a direct result of the pandemic. Some of you continue to work from home, while others have returned 100% to the office. Still others have devised a hybrid model that combines the two. Specifically, I want to address the challenges of getting acknowledged for your contributions when you aren’t in the office every day – and how to set yourself up for promotions and new opportunities as a remote worker.

We’ve all had to work with difficult co-workers. Of course, what makes a co-worker difficult to work with for one person may not be an issue at all for another person – maybe they even view that co-worker’s idiosyncrasies as a strength. The most important thing to understand here is that YOU CAN’T CONTROL ANYONE ELSE. Today, we’ll talk about what this looks like.

Today, we’re talking about the signs of job burnout and what to do. The first thing I want to say about this topic is that there is the job burnout you can recover from without leaving your current job, and there is the job burnout that will require you to move on. Some of you KNOW you are burned out. For others of you, it may be like lightbulbs burning out one by one – you don’t realize the room is dimming until the last bulb goes out and you are in complete darkness.

Emotional Intelligence has been a hot topic for some time now. To my mind, this focus on emotional intelligence is recognition that it isn’t just what you can do for your employer that is valuable, but rather how you do it. How you show up for your coworkers, your boss, your direct reports, your customers, your vendors. Today we’ll talk about the competencies and how they connect to your work environment with IQ, EI, and technical expertise.

Today’s topic is How to Work Around a Debilitating Boss. Notice that I didn’t call it a Toxic Boss. There’s a fair amount of overlap between what we might call toxic and debilitating. Rather than focus on whether your boss’s behavior is toxic or debilitating, let’s instead focus on bad boss behavior and what to do about it.

In today’s episode, I want to talk about when to tell your boss you’re looking for a new job. This topic came from one of my clients, who reached out to ask me this question. There’s isn’t a simple answer, so I want to lay out the considerations for you.

Today, we’ll talk about how you can have difficult work conversations in a way that doesn’t leave one or both parties feeling like you’ve been run over and left for road kill. The purpose of this exercise is to move the relationship forward, not to convince the other person that you’re right and they are wrong. There is no upside to having a winner and a loser. Be willing to be wrong…or at least not right.

Today’s guest is AmyK Hutchens, and we’re talking about “How to Handle Tough Career Conversation.” AmyK covers how to handle three particularly challenging career conversations: the job interview, dealing with a difficult co-worker, & asking for a raise. AmyK also provides you with her three top tips for handling any tough career conversation you may face.

Today we’ll be talking about the questions that can be useful during a first meeting with a boss. This is your chance to determine what your boss’s expectations of you are, what criteria he will use to measure your success, and what is most important to your boss. This is also the perfect time to clarify job responsibilities, as well as things like work hours, dress code, and expense reporting. For the boss, this is an opportunity to understand how to motivate and communicate with the new hire.

Today’s podcast is based heavily on the getlighthouse.com blog, specifically the blog titled “18 Questions to Ask Your Manager to Improve Your Relationship and Better Manage Up.” Whether you are trying to improve your relationship with your manager from bad to okay, okay to good, or good to great, you can work with your manager to improve your relationship and make work much more enjoyable for both of you.

For this episode, I leaned heavily on the article “7 Essential Tips for Effective 1 on 1 Meetings with Your Manager” from the getlighthouse.com blog. In a perfect world, 1:1 meetings with your boss should be something you have regularly, and actually look forward to. Done well, effective 1:1 meetings are an opportunity for feedback, coaching, relationship-building, & goal-setting. Here are some tips on how to have a more successful 1:1 with your boss.

Today, my guest is Carson Tate of workingsimply.com, and we’re talking about our work relationships. Carson is an employee engagement expert, and we talk about why relationships at work are so important. She also gives us tips for re-engaging with our coworkers now that many of us are going back in the office.