Resident Writer Casudi (Caroline) Di Diego Posts for #bealeader

Is leadership part of your DNA? I had a very unusual childhood, so much so that Anna Freud yes, the real one said to my mother that I would not grow up to be normal, in fact chances were I would be quite damaged! My parents bought a large country house outside London, and created [...]

I recently had an engaging conversation with Diane Byrne entrepreneur, journalist, accomplished online publisher of the Megayacht News , and founder of RedHedInk The distillation of what I came away with was, if you really make the effort to understand your audience, you can be successful in just about any industry, even as a woman [...]

I don't consider myself a leader. It's just that I take the lead from time to time. I don't mind being the first on the list, the first to comment or answer a question or the first to cross the brook on the log-bridge, which I did when I was 10 years old and everyone [...]

Elisabeth, Catherine and George were all excellent communicators, outstanding in fact, considering the times in which they lived. If their inclination to network and communicate is any indication as to how they might thrive in Social Media today, I believe they would all embrace it passionately, and adapt to the challenges of Leadership in a [...]

When you decide to create your legacy, it doesn't always have to be a billion-dollar mega foundation ala Bill Gates, raising millions or billions of dollars to implement huge and expensive projects, to do good. A simple yet creative idea, driven by a small, nimble group of individuals, can create a ripple effect, and ultimately [...]

Originally published on Designing Success Blog ~ Your Personal Stage is a "designed", or a well chosen "backdrop". It can be an important part of your personal (or corporate) branding. It is where you Hangout, Skype, Vlog, or video conference. Done properly, it makes a definite positive statement about who you are and what you do!

The Chemistry of Leadership is a delicate balance between what is in a leader's psychological make up, and those skills and expertise which if they are not present can be developed or learned. When I say " leadership is in your DNA," I mean your "psychological being", not necessarily in your genes.

Entrepreneurs face challenges everyday as a part of doing business. The ability to 'turn on a dime' or 'pivot' can be the difference between failure and success. Plenty of reasons for pivoting; in business and even in ones' personal life, these are most likely driven by the need to improve results.

When the customer experience meets or exceeds expectations, one embraces the entire organization, including the leadership. Would this be Zappos? When the customer is disappointed with the product or service or their experience, it reflects badly on the organization and on the Leadership. Would this be Blackberry?

There is a fine line between failing as a credential or failing as an excuse! No excuses in this post which I wrote about a start up "fail" of mine "Is there such a thing as successful fail ?" I first heard 'fail' used as a credential, when my start up co-founder Alex was in [...]

Leadership is tough if you want everyone to like you. The purpose of a leader is to lead or guide the company, community, or even the country to success. Success can be described in many ways, but generally it is the realization of a vision, or implementation of goals; and might include making election promises [...]

It seems every time I turn around there is a new online chat, online community or blog focused on Leadership. Is leadership in "style" or "fashionable", or turning into a cult? Why is there this fascination with leadership? If everyone was actually practicing what they are preaching in chats, communities and blogs, we would be [...]

Where can you meet 150 leaders in person; and network and mastermind intensely with them? Where is there a powerful convergence of Leadership that is open to everyone who is motivated? The Successful Online Business conference; #SOBcon, happening 2X a year, is a great example of the convergence of leadership.

I regularly talk with lots of guest bloggers, and I've done some guest blogging myself; about 25 of my guest posts have been published this year for several different blogs. My personal guest blogging experiences have varied quite a bit, and the same appears to be true for others.

In my opinion, the biggest pay back you can ever receive is from helping someone else overcome some obstacle preventing success in their personal or professional life. In other words your success is my reward. This is my personal spin on Leading with Grace.

"My life will be easier because my mentor will give me great advice which will solve all the problems impeding my path to success." WRONG! Committing to a mentor, which means working together to meet known & unknown (and often challenging) objectives or goals, may in many respects make your life harder.

Posts Written by Casudi (Caroline) Di Diego for #bealeader

They say experience is the best teacher;....but only if you can learn from it. So here are a few personal experiences as a basis for extrapolating some key ingredients of successful collaborative leadership. My first company: was designed to produce environmental documentaries for television. My founder-partner; a brilliant unknown creative.

Hindsight is easy; predicting the future, not so much.... It's relatively easy to look back, distill, analyze, and draw what we hope are cogent conclusions. In the best-case scenarios we learn from our mistakes so we don't repeat them in the future, and we understand the intricacies of why things turned out successfully so we can duplicate our success.

To me immediately usually means, by return email/SMS/tweet and almost instantaneously. I live online and most of my associates and friends do, however I often have to depend on others who certainly don't have the same understanding of "immediately" Two weeks ago I made three calls; one to Apple Care, another to Adobe Support and the third to a Microsoft connection...

Twitter chats are a valuable way for you to engage and network on Twitter. To make the most of twitter chats create a strategy , or at the very least, a flexible plan based on 'trial by twitter'.

But let's look closer; just because something is old doesn't automatically mean it should be deleted, as just because something is new, isn't a good enough reason to embrace it instantly!

You're ready to take the plunge, and get started on the most winning "visual" social media platform! Just as you should with everything else in social media, align your Pinterest strategy at the very get-go with your online marketing goals, to produce maximum benefit for your business.