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Strategy Leadership

What Does Powerful Leadership Look Like These Days?

Typical leadership models focus on masculine skills

Typical leadership models focus on masculine skills. Think about it,  even the most powerful women and women-identified leaders lead with this masculine model. Women contort themselves to focus, compete, drive & strive and work with limited resources. 

Women have become successful with this typical model and have had to, up until now. 

Now? 

It’s time. 

It’s time for women to use their natural strengths

Combining women’s natural strengths with masculine skills raises leadership to a whole new level. 

How powerful leadership really works

Working with your natural gifts is key to being a successful leader day-in and day-out. When you’re fighting your natural tendencies, leading becomes draining. So many women are working against their innate gifts, so operate in suboptimal capacity and become aggravated or burn out. 

It’s true for men too, but they may not realize it as readily as they are still operating within their natural skill set. 

However, how many men feel powerfully successful as leaders

I can tell you as I’ve worked with hundreds – not many

Why is this true? 

Men are working against the energy available to them. 

Let’s look at the most powerful leadership energy. 

The most powerful leadership quality

The most powerful leadership quality is the combination of the feminine and masculine traits. 

This powerful quality is available to everyone and works with both the yin and the yang simultaneously. The feminine trait is the yin to the masculine’s yang.  These combined traits propel you into powerfully successful leadership, if you let them.

You require both to be wildly successful. 

How can you use both the feminine and masculine traits? 

Recognize the feminine traits are different than masculine. It’s just that simple and complex. Feminine traits are cyclic, receptive and commanding. Masculine traits are static, forward moving and demanding. 

Working with both is the key to powerful leadership success.

I’ve created a simple formula to combine the feminine strengths with the masculine skills and I call these The 5 Power Pairs.

The 5 Power Pairs

Integrating the two trait signatures makes for powerful leadership. The feminine strengths involve intuition, potential, cyclic rhythms, collaboration and creation. While the masculine skills involve logic, purpose, expansion, competition and production. 

One attribute set is no better than the other, but each requires both to get lasting results. Powerfully successful leaders are brilliant, influential and leave a legacy while making tremendous impact and living in financial freedom. 

What is the simple formula that can make you a powerful leader too

Here are five power pairs of the masculine skill + feminine strength to give you the resulting outcome. 

  1. Logic + Intuition => Brilliance 
  2. Purpose  + Potential => Influence
  3. Expansion + Cycles => Sustainability
  4. Competition + Collaboration => Impact
  5. Production + Creation => Prosperity

If you are curious about learning more about cultivating powerful leadership success, subscribe to my Intuitive Leader Insider newsletter on Linked In

Being a powerfully successful leader makes you irresistible

When you incorporate the combination of feminine and masculine energies into your leadership strategy, you become irresistible to the marketplace. 

Who doesn’t want to work with someone who is equally collaborative and appropriately competitive? Who attracts abundance easily and readily?  Who produces and creates amazing services and products and gets results?

When you blend both the feminine strengths with the masculine skills, everyone wants to follow you and hangs onto your every word. Your influence becomes known in the marketplace. 

As you elevate your standing, you increase your sales conversions because your prospects have already convinced themselves of your worth. As you increase sales, you command more authority to make greater impact. 

The growth cycle is obvious and it all begins with combining the feminine strengths with the masculine skills. 

The time for powerfully successful leadership through the 5 power pairs is now. The stars say so, and as I’m on a first-name basis with the stars, I have to say now is the time.  

Looking for more? Click here to listen to my Podcast. I’ve got so much more to share with you.

xo, Kim

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Strategy Leadership

Why the True Know Like Trust Factor of Business is Way More Than Marketing and Sales

In another article, I’ve mentioned the Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ® (KLT) Factor as a revolutionary secret to being a huge success. We’ve all heard about (or are very familiar with) the KLT factor in business and how necessary it is. Experts say that having your audience know, like, and trust (KLT) you is the most important thing you can have in business. While it is important, my belief is there’s a different place to start. 

What if I told you the starting point was actually knowing, liking and trusting yourself first? Just like bringing the Divine into your business (more on that here) is a matter of internal power giving you power externally, knowing, liking, and trusting yourself first works the same way. The Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ® KLT Factor is all about knowing, liking and trusting yourself first before your audience/customers do. Once you know what it truly means to KLT yourself, you can bring in the typical KLT the business world has ingrained into our heads. 

The KLT Factor the experts say we need

The typical KLT model for business says that in order to be successful you have to get your audience to know, like and trust you before you can even think about converting sales. There are a lot of classes, webinars and workshops in marketing that teach  this concept and how to do it just like the experts. And, the experts aren’t wrong.

To have success in business, you have to convert sales or get clients to buy your services and/or products. So of course your audience needs to KLT you. Being genuine, transparent and honest is important and it’s a good way into the hearts of your audience.

Think about your favorite brands, stores, authors or anyone you’ve done business with that you keep going back to. Why are you going back to them? Our favorite brands have a certain reputation perhaps or position among the market. They are the best of the best. They might command respect. They might be the top leader or visionary. I don’t believe they became giants with stark raving fans simply because they were just trying to get sales. They know, like and trust themselves and their products/services, what they stand for and what they are all about, first and foremost. 

There’s a way to make the depth of KLT even more delicious and magnetic and that’s to truly know, like and, trust yourself first. KLT is good. It’s necessary. But Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ®  is better. Here’s what Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ® can look like. 

Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ® 

Ask yourself this: How are you going to get anyone else to KLT you if you don’t KLT yourself? If you lack trust, confidence or belief in yourself, how do you expect someone else to do it for you? Everything starts internally and it is necessary for the traditional external KLT to work. I break each section down so you can understand the internal portion of KLT.

Know

What is it to know yourself fully? You want to step into that self-awareness of yourself. So when you do that, you absolutely want to be looking at things you are comfortable with, satisfied with, and thrilled with. Things you want to be really proud of and their strengths and their super powers and all that groovy-goodness. It’s taking that mirror and going in; when that mirror is reflected back at you, what do you see? Think about what you are passionate about and what makes you happy and how you find your joy. Those are three different questions and three different answers. These are all things to know about yourself. What I often ask my group members when talking about this is: Who are you at midnight when no one is watching? 

Like

When we like ourselves, we accept ourselves—the good, the bad, and the ugly. We can be really, really open about talking about ourselves and who we are. I bet you like yourself a lot. I bet you can say, “You know what? I really like myself. I like my friends, the life I have. I like myself as a person.” But what it boils down to is this: How much do you show yourself that you like yourself? Do you take care of yourself? Do you date yourself? Do you let yourself be enchanted? Do you ever pause and celebrate yourself? How much you show that you like yourself, whatever they may look like, is the real indicator as to how much you like yourself now.

Trust

Trusting your intuition is 100% something you can do on your own. You can practice doing it by making decisions with authority and when you see it come to fruition it proves to yourself that you were right. Each of these moments of “proof” fosters inner trust.  But trust, real trust, is not something you can do on your own. Trust is between people. Trust is totally in the heartspace. The mind is the reflector of trust. The mind is a good measurement, so to speak. The mind brings you into judgment, fear, doubt and the fear of missing out (FOMO). It’s following somebody else’s path because it worked for them and they were successful. 

When I talk about trusting yourself, I say it’s all about you and your uniqueness. Every single pathway to success is different. If you’re judging people for having a lack of integrity, look at yourself. If you’re judging people because they are gossipy, look at yourself. I’m not saying you are a gossip, I’m saying it’s trust. And it is a lack of trust in yourself, when you are looking at people externally. You have to look internally. When you build trust in yourself, you can build trust in others. It’s a beautiful lattice that just builds on itself. 

Using Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ® to help increase your marketing and sales

When you truly KLT yourself, you become a magnet. Your sales become beautiful. You become the brand, speaker or author people are attracted to and come back to for more. This is where you turn back to the typical KLT factor in business. It will come naturally to your audience because you fully know, like and trust yourself. Imagine the power you will have! You won’t have to get your audience to KLT you because you’ve done all the work for them. Stepping into the world and your business, saying YES to yourself will only make your audience say yes to you, too. 

Following your instincts, developing your intuition, and listening to your inner voice is all part of the true KLT factor. This is the starting point. You must look internally in order for the external to be powerful. Things in business will come easier to you when you are truly the person you are meant to be and have that power. Your audience will be drawn to you, and your teams or employees will LOVE working with you. That translates into a full, satisfying, delicious life and business—which is what you want right? 

Want to know how you Know, like and trust yourself? Take the quiz I’ve got so much more to share with you. The results give you so much about your  Do You Know, Like & Trust Yourself ® quotient. It’s information all about YOU. 

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media

Kim Woods: 5 Things You Need to be a Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

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Strategy Leadership

The best business partner is the Divine Business Partner

Have you been living your life based on the definitions other people made about what success is and what it looks like? Have you been building and operating your business based off of someone else’s roadmap? 

Believe me, you’re not the only one. We look up to those who are successful in business and decide that since they did it this way, this is the way it has to be done. If you have found success that way, that’s great. Who doesn’t want success? I’m not knocking on that, but I do want to let you in on a secret (one of three actually). There is another way you can reign in even more success and fulfillment then those you’ve been following. Doesn’t that sound delicious? 

I want to begin by addressing mindset. There is a lot of talk out there about mindset. Mindset is beautiful and I love it; but mindset is only the first step. We have to leverage the power of our mind with the power of the Divine. Stick with me here. 

How would it feel to be fully confident in yourself and the decisions you make for your business, life and opportunities that come your way? What if I told you that passion, power and prosperity integrated with your business strategy, leadership and growth were the key to unlocking more success? Intriguing, right? Having the Divine as your business partner uplevels you and your business. 

Mindset is Only the Beginning

If you have a closed mind, or a mind filled with doubt or fear, you are not going to be leaning in and saying “show me the money” right now. You are going to be weaving and rolling around with that doubt and uncertainty. Having a growth mindset or open mindset to receive abundance, joy, success, that is the first step.

Mindset is a beautiful gift but also a weapon. When I talk about that, people tend to take a step back. Our mind is programmed to protect us. As our mind is protecting us, our mind doesn’t want us to deal with anything unknown, or anything uncertain or anything unfamiliar. Think about what is going on right now, everything is unfamiliar, uncertain, and unknown. The mind is in overdrive. 

We can love our minds because it is doing its job, but its job isn’t about taking that leap of faith. Its job isn’t just going with the flow and saying everything is going to be groovy-good even though it doesn’t actually know. The mind tends to freak out on us. 

I love that people are talking about mindset. It is gorgeous. But it’s also only 30% of the equation. Because even if you’re open minded (or growth-minded) to receive more, the trust and faith you need to do the thing that will actually bring more to you, well, that’s where the brain is going to go “Hold up, I don’t think so.”  So, yes, get your mindset taken care of. Make sure you’re open. Make sure you’re ready for growth. Then, take the next step. That’s where all the goodness lies.

Shifting the Paradigm

As I’ve said before in a different article here, the typical paradigm for business is to be entirely cognitive (or in your head/mind). We use data, rationalizations, quantifications, and formulas for business decision-making and strategy. And we establish goals and ways to accomplish those goals. We get formal training that tells us how something should be done, because “that’s the way it is done.” These are all great tools, but it leaves out instinct, feelings or other sensory input we can receive if we cultivate it. Here is where I bring in the Divine. 

I define Divine as the unknown, unseen, and unfamiliar presence that is felt and can be accessed when you truly connect. It’s the gut feeling that you have when making decisions and taking action. Making those decisions based on values and personal goals, dreams, desires and intuition. This is where you can have the Divine as a business partner. You need the Divine in your business. 

Connecting to the Divine can give you superpowers. Now, I’m not talking comic-book superpowers, but individual power. You will have power in:

  1. Decision making
  2. Aligning with support and opportunity
  3. Creating products and service offerings
  4. Attracting your Soul-Mate client
  5. Drawing raving fans

With all those superpowers, how are you not going to see success in your business? So here’s how these two really work together. There are three pairs. 

How the Divine Meets your Business in Application

There are three Ps I connect to the Divine (remember, that’s  the unknown, unseen and unfamiliar). Those Ps are purpose, power and prosperity. But how do you apply those words and integrate it all into business? I partner each of the Ps with a business aspect. 

Strategy/Purpose

The business aspect of strategy focuses on your mission, vision, values, philosophy approach and the pricing matrix. It is very straight-laced and corporate. To merge your strategy with the Divine is for you to get into your purpose, intuition and to not be the tumbleweed that is rolling down the desert road. It isn’t just about mindset. It is getting into making clear/definitive decisions, having clear focus, being aligned with the flow so you can be in your lane. People talk about values but they don’t make them a pillar of their business strategy. What values do you embody and what values do you intend? What is your purpose on this planet? And you have to be really aligned with the Divine to answer that question. The Divine gets you crystal clear and focused which informs your business strategy. 

Leadership/Power

Typical business aspects of leadership focus on the 10 roles of a manager – only two are about work and eight are about people. There are also varying leadership styles around communication, decision-making, authority and organizational structure. To merge with the Divine, you have to own yourself. You have to have confidence and know your self-worth so you are clear internally that you have the authority to make stuff happen. It isn’t focused on caring about whether or not people like you. Yes, you can care but it isn’t a big deal anymore. It is more about being respected and that empowers how you lead, make decisions and stand in your own authority. 

Growth/Prosperity

Business is all about growth, scalability, marketing, outreach, external communication, visibility, being a money machine, having something that you can sell. Now, that is a great list and yes, they are all important but having growth, just for the sake of growth, isn’t going to lead to prosperity. You have to be in alignment with opportunity and support. Being an unbelievable collaborator and working with others brings you tremendous growth and prosperity. You have to actually be on the impact side of being generous, giving referrals, testimonials, and moving into a position of influence. Command your own stage and have influence over it. Trust your stage and get rid of the money issues. When you are in abundance (personified) and have love and are open to your creativity, you will uplevel the power of the business aspects that we know of as growth. Focusing on the internal will only make the external more powerful. 

You don’t have to live the status-quo

You have the choice to operate your business and your life differently. Break the mold, change the pattern and shift the paradigm. There is no reason to lack passion, fulfillment and ease because someone once said (or you told yourself) that there is only one way to do things. Or because someone else said that success was accomplishing ‘this’ or ‘that.’ It starts with you. 

Starting with your mindset is important, but it isn’t where you stop. Having the Divine as a business partner completely changes and scales your business. You shift the paradigm from “it’s how it has always been done,” to using the superpowers of the Divine. Marrying the three P’s – purpose, power and prosperity – with your business applications will inform your strategy, leadership and growth. 

With the Divine as your business partner you will reach your dreams. This transformation starts with you—the internal only makes the external more powerful.

Looking for more? Click here to  check out my Rich and Powerful Leaders Academy stepping stone program. I’ve got so much more to share with you.

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Just for Fun

My two dearest friends, one a Majestic Queen and one a Creatrix, kill me – almost daily.

They stretch me beyond imagining and I can’t envision life without them.