Author Archive

Last week I had the privilege of delivery the keynote address at the Leadership Summit of ALPFA Hartford club. ALPFA is the largest Latino association for business professionals and students and has over 16,000 members across the USA. Their mission is to expand Latino leadership in the global workforce by creating opportunities, adding value, building relationships for its members, the community and its business partners. Learn more about ALPFA by watching this short video.

The theme of the ALPFA Leadership Summit was an intriguing one to me – Everyday Leadership: Finding the Leader in You. To prepare this new keynote, I interviewed five leaders in my network that I respect and admire.  I asked them two simple questions:

1. What does Everyday Leadership mean to you?
2. When did you first know that you were a leader?

Before I share their insights with you in this article, I want to encourage you to have this same conversation with people in your network, particularly with leaders you admire. It is as simple as asking these two questions. The conversation will flow from there. The result of having this discussion, you will not only garner important wisdom and insights, but you will deepen your relationship with this leader. Please action this suggestion. You will be pleasantly surprised and rewarded by doing so.

• Want to read what AlPFA members had to say about Everyday Leadership? As part of an ice-breaking exercise in my keynote talk, I asked the ALPFA members to write down words and ideas about what everyday leadership meant to them. They then shared this with their neighbor and we got the conversation going. Click here to read what these Latino leaders had to say about everyday leadership….

Here’s what my clients and friends had to say about Everyday Leadership:

“Everyday leadership is a way of life. Everyday we are faced with situations and opportunities to demonstrate a leadership role, be a role model, pass on wisdom…. it’s not a conscious action but rather a natural reaction.” – Aleida Herzog – financial services professional and board member of the YWCA Hartford.

“Everyday leadership is the moment-by-moment, day-by-day activity of providing purpose and direction for a team. It’s the multitude of small acts and decisions that accumulate into a leadership position, persona, perspective or whatever you want to call it. I like the term “subtle”…not big, brash, take-the-hill stuff (although there is a time and place for that as well). Most leadership happens in small doses, daily interactions that have consistency and integrity to them.” – John Madigan- President and CEO of Executive Talent Services

“It’s all about everyday leadership. Everything you do as a leader is being WATCHED by the people you are leader, including your language, your timeliness, your attention to detail. You must Lead by Example and excel at the ‘little things’ as well as the ‘big things’.”- Christine Harvey – retired Lt. Cornel in the US Army after 25 years of service; now working as a program manager with Sikorsky Aircraft

“We are all LEADING our lives, and some of us are doing it unconsciously. We all have an opportunity to come into conscious awareness of that leadership. Take more responsibility for your leadership. See the possibilities you have with your personal power and influence. Just because you have a title of authority doesn’t make you a leader. You must gain follow ship!”- Princess Bola Adelani – the Total Success Coach, entrepreneur, television host and motivational speaker

“To become a leader you must put yourself in challenging situations. You must TRY and do even when you are not comfortable. It starts with the kid in the classroom who raises his/her hand even when they are just a little bit uncomfortable doing so. That’s a leader.” – Jim Marlor, Jr. managing partner, New England Financial Group, and formerly military officer with the US Army

Here’s what I’ve decided about leadership….

After reflecting deeply on the topic of everyday leadership, factoring in the ideas above and my own experience and career lessons, here’s what I’ve decided about leadership:

“There is no set mold for leadership. Leaders come in all different sizes and shapes, colors and ages, sexes and races. They have for centuries…

People are NOT born leaders; people BECOME leaders. Everyone has leadership potential – you just need to invest in it, groom it, polish it, improve on it, showcase it, AND above all, practice it everyday!

It’s not about finding the leader in you, it’s about MOTIVATING the leader in you to come out and lead! ” – Kathy McAfee, America’s Marketing Motivator

Twelve tips to help you practice leadership everyday

The core of my keynote address “Everyday Leadership” to the AlPFA Hartford group consisted of twelve practice tips to help them hone their leadership skills over time. I grouped the tips into three buckets:

1. Lead Yourself
2. Lead the Business
3. Lead Others

Lead Yourself

This is perhaps the most important area of leadership of all. If you can’t lead yourself effectively, you have no business attempting to lead others.

• Self-Awareness
• Well-Being
• Attitude
• Product Improvement

Lead the Business

You don’t have to the CEO of a company to exercise leadership on the job. High potential leaders strive to practice and perfect the following:

• Know Your Stuff
• Learn the Business Fundamentals
• Ask Tough Questions and Make Difficult Decisions
• Communicate Effectively

Lead Others

Having authority over others is not true and lasting leadership. They might comply with your demands, but that doesn’t mean you have their allegiance. True leadership captures not only their cooperation, bu their hearts and their minds. As as leader, you might want to practice the following leadership tips:

• Leaders Eat Last
• Make it Right
• Listen, don’t just talk
• Let Others Lead

Hear the entire program on audio

Now available for purchase as an audio program in digital download format – “Everyday Leadership with Kathy McAfee” – a 34-minute keynote presentation that will motivate and inspire you to continue to develop your own leadership skills and those of others.

To book Kathy McAfee as your keynote speaker for your next meeting or conference, please call her (860) 408-0033 or visit her official speaker web site - MotivatedSpeaker.com

When you see a gifted facilitator in action, it is a thing of beauty.

L. Kay Wilson possesses this valuable professional skill. She is a masterful panel moderator, a dynamic motivational speaker, employment attorney,  and a pretty fantastic writer as well. She is also a certified practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

I asked Kay to give her me thoughts on what it takes to be an effective facilitator.

Please enjoy these insights from Kay on the art of facilitation. Put them into practice so that you too can become a skillful facilitator.

“Facilitation requires us to get out of ourselves, and delve into the thoughts and feelings of others.

It takes a light touch and a balance of prodding and provoking.

Gifted facilitators are able to elicit from people their best thinking and motivation, and are not afraid of the silences that may come after provocative questions.

Pure facilitation is not about injecting yourself, your agenda or your opinions into the mix.

It is about being a catalyst for people to authentically express themselves in an environment that is safe and fair.

Facilitators help enforce the ground rules, after having drawn them out of participants.”

About L. Kay Wilson: Kay is an employment attorney, executive coach, facilitator and motivational speaker whose expertise is in the areas of communications, persuasion, intentional leadership and professional development.   She is also a thought leader on issues surrounding workplace environment improvement and has designed numerous training interventions for the prevention of litigation.

Her most recent innovation is a coaching process for people with powerful personalities, called Charm School for Mavericks.   You can reach Kay at kay@kaywilsoncoaching.com or direct dial, 860-559-3733.

Yesterday I attended the Harriet Beecher Stowe center’s big tent jubilee in honor of Harriet’s 200th birthday. I was inspired by the hundreds of change agents and social entrepreneurs that gathered to honor the woman who helped to bring slavery to an end in America.

As part of the festivities, the Stowe Center has created a literary award with the first recipients being Nicholas Kristof  and his wife Sheryl WuDunn, authors of Half the Sky: turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide. Kristof and WuDunn were honored with a prize of $10,000.

The birthday celebration kicked off with a Inspiration to Action Fair featuring multiple non-profit organizations helping locally and globally; a panel discussion with Kristfol and WuDunn, plus Congresswoman Laura Richardson who serves the 37th district of California, Eva Hausman, co-founder of the Mothers’ Day Movement and 17-year old Shannon McNamara, founder of SHARE organization that has built four libraries serving over 8,000 students in rural Tanzania, Africa.

The Stowe Center will be conducting a 24-hour read-a-thon of  Harriet Beecher Stowe’s first book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This “must read book” written over 160 years ago is still relevant to the many social injustices that exist today, including the modern day form of slavery which is human trafficking – an unjust social travesty that is happening in nearly every town, city and country in the world.

The little woman who wrote the book that started this great war

According to history, when President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, he said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war”. This book gives evidence to historical fact that Harriet did meet President Lincoln in 1863 at his Gettysburg Address. Her son, Fredrick fought in the Battle of Gettysburg.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin out of a burning need to “do something” about the infamous Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 that required Northerners to assist in returning enslaved men, women and children to their owners.

In an article written by Barbara Sicherman entitled “Women Who Changed the World” in the magazine Connecticut Explored (Vol. 9, No. 3, Summer 2011), she explains that “by any measure, she succeeded. Published first as a magazine serial, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) galvanized anti-slavery sentiment in the north and in England and become the  best-selling book of the century after the Bible.  Its success made Stowe the most powerful voice in the anti-slavery movement.”

“I just HAD to do something”

L to R: Eva Hausman, Kim Hausman Athan, Stephanie Norton, Trish Hazelwood (not shown is co-founder Erica Buchsbaum)

In the spirit of Ms. Stowe’s activism, there was a panel discussion of “Real Stories of Social Change.”  My good friend Eva Hausman, co-founder of the MothersDayMovement.org, was one of the panelists. She and her founding team of women (shown in photo to the right, missing is Erica Buchsbaum) were able to raise $135,000 in less than two weeks to help the non-profit organization, Shining Hope for Communities that  runs the Kibera School for Girls in Africa.

With this money Shining Hope for Communities will be able to build 16 new classrooms with teachers, nurses and others services to help the impoverished girls and families in the Kibera slum in Nairobi in Kenya, Africa.

I worked with Eva to prepare her to give her presentation. We recorded her 9 minute speech in a practice session and produced this MP3 file for your listening pleasure.

Click through to download an MP3 file of Eva’s speech at the STOWE Prize panel discussion.

It gives her powerful story of why she was moved to action and how she and her small team of social entrepreneurs were able to raise such a significant amount of money so effortlessly.

Personally, I am in awe of Eva and her team and am studying closely how they do what they do.

We can all do something!

In her closing words, Eva reminded us that “Each and everyone of YOU can make a difference. No one person can do everything, but we can all do something.”

I encourage you all to “do something” – activate yourself and your network behind a cause that you feel passionate about and change the world for the better!

Our recent Hair Raiser was a complete success and blast. Watch this beautiful video that Dom Piccini Productions created to capture the spirit of this fund raising event that benefited Shining Hope for Communities that operates the Kibera School for Girls in Africa.

A total of 10 people shaved their heads for charity: Kathy, Kathleen, Byron, Alberto, Wilberto, Michael, Ivan, Doug, Kathy and Bill. Thank you! My immediate family – husband and two sons – joined in to show their solidarity. My parents, who live out of state – also shaved their heads to help support me and my fight against cancer!

We had about 60 guests at the Hair Raiser event in West Hartford, CT on May 13, 2011. The energy was fantastic. It made shaving my head a happy event rather than a pity party that it might have been.

We raised over $3,000 for Shining Hope for Communities.Isn’t that great!

If you’d like to help to raise more money so that we can educate more girls in Africa, go ahead and donate $25 or more to https://shininghopeforcommunities.org/support/

Photo Gallery

Please enjoy these photos from the Hair Raiser event on May 13, 2011 at the KUR Hair Salon & Academy in West Hartford, CT. All photos courtesy of Marge & Dom Piccini.

Fund Raising Goals

So far, we have raised $2,365 versus our goal of $3,000. Just a little bit more to go.

You can help us do the happy dance by making your financial donation at www.MothersDayMovement.com. Be sure to type in “MDM-kathy mcafee” in the purpose box, so we can do a proper accounting.

All the proceeds will go to Shining Hope for Communities, a 501 (3)c non-profit organization that is building a tuition-free school for girls in the Kibera slum located in Nairobi, Kenya in Africa.

Students attending the Kibera School for Girls in Africa will benefit from the proceeds raised at the Hair Raiser

There is so much need to keep these girls in school. It helps to protect them from sexual trafficking, abuse and violence, early marriage and pre-mature death. It helps give them more social and economic power so that they can become respected members of their family and community. Educating girls has proven to be a great solution to end the cycle of extreme poverty.

• Help us to help the Kibera School for Girls by providing funds to keep the tuition-free school going and change the lives of these girls and their families.
• Follow their story – like them on Facebook

Special thanks to our sponsors and supporters of the Hair Raiser event:

• Karen Roche, owner of the KUR Hair Salon & Academy, who shaved all 10 heads!
• Soroptimist International of Farmington Valley CT who educates, informs and activates women to help other women and girls locally and around the world;
• Marge Piccini and Dom Piccini Productions who provided the photography and videography;
• Susan Nolte of the May Cookie Co. who donated the delicious, wholesome cookies!
• YWCA Hartford Region who helped with the beverages;
• Rachel who provided the delicious food!
• Schon Designs LLC to provided the T-shirts for the brave souls who shaved their heads;
• Sandy Centorino from CUREchief.org foundation who donated the colorful head coverings for the shaved volunteers;
• Mary Jones, host of the Mary Jones Show – who provided the pre-event radio interview, publicity & great connections!