Pamela Thompson: Leadership Challenges & Lessons Learned. Inspiring Others with Your Speaking

Pamela Thompson is a certified life and business coach, speaker, facilitator and consultant. She is passionate about supporting women to thrive in life and in business. She has a diverse background and experience in North America, Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. Pam has created two successful management consulting businesses since the early 1990s. She is author of the soon to be launched book Learning to Dance with Life: A Guide for High Achieving Women. Leadership across the globe The idea of “leadership” has changed over the 10 – 15 years. Before, it used to be more hierarchical, especially in communist countries. Today, leadership is perceived very similarly across the globe. Social media and global marketplaces have helped this. Leaders must have a clear vision, be able to articulate that vision (Simon Sinek’s “Why”), and be able to inspire others. Leaders also need to be clear in their own values and live their lives in alignment with them. Leadership Challenges & Lessons Learned Pamela’s biggest challenge was creating and maintaining work/life balance. She had been working hard since very young, and she was feeling fulfilled until 2012. At that time Pamela had the opportunity to work in Afghanistan on a project with extremely tight timelines. During that year she got pneumonia twice and had other signs that her immune system was telling her to slow down. However, soon she joined another organization to work across Africa. One year later she felt like a “lemon that had been squeezed dry” and decided to take a break. It took her time to stop feeling weak, but months later she found the balance and also creativity to start writing a book. The life lesson was that there is a different way, that it’s possible to create healthy and balanced lives. Another challenge she faced was when working in Kabul. In the middle of a training, one of the participants received a call,