This blog post is shared with the permission of my PhD supervisor, who was part of these conversations. I had disability accommodations for a PhD milestone this year. It’s not something I’ve opted for often (or for a while), and it ended up being a positive experience. A colleague who was encouraging me from the…
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What does it mean to be values-based? On process and visibility
A few weeks ago, a colleague and I struck up a conversation about values in the context of leadership. It felt like a full-circle moment. A few years earlier, I’d shared with a colleague that I was worried about losing my sense of being values-based as I progressed in my career. 2 They came back…
What happens when strengths-based leadership becomes strategic neglect?
I’ve always prided myself on taking strengths-based approaches (toward myself and others) and finding creative solutions that allow people to move forward. Strengths-based approaches focus on what a person can do, rather than what they cannot do, emphasising a shift away from deficit models. Yet, something I often hear in conversations with disabled and neurodivergent…
Brains in motion: When to step forward and when to step back
Over the last year, the most popular blog post I’ve written has undoubtedly been Brains in motion: Navigating confidence and belonging. It felt like a massive risk at the time, even with an incredibly positive reception. Amusingly, the motivation for this second post is almost exactly the same as for the first post and follows…
The problem with solutions
I intended to work on my thesis and a paper today. But, instead, I’m thinking about expectations and problem-solving. Whether identifying, establishing, or communicating expectations, this has been a passing topic in several chats over the last few months. In the past three years, an expectation I’ve had for one of my team’s was documentation,…

