CHEs LOUNGE - Leadership Reflections on Courageous Curiosity

What Manufacturing Leaders Get Wrong About Frontline Engagement

What Manufacturing Leaders Get Wrong About Frontline Engagement

A manufacturing leader got six weeks ahead of consultants — and the numbers barely moved. Here's why.54% of manufacturing HR/ops leaders report low confidence in frontline leaders' AI readiness (PwC Q3 2025).The problem isn't competence — it's design. Leaders solve for teams instead of with them.R³ (Reflect, Reframe, Respond) used forward designs for stacked goals: results + relationships + learning + future capacity.Practical questions to shift from single-win instinct to team ownership this week.
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AI Leadership Curiosity: Breaking Old Defaults in New Tech

AI Leadership Curiosity: Breaking Old Defaults in New Tech

AI & Leadership, Leadership
AI adoption can expose old leadership defaults such as over-control, performative certainty, and over-functioning.Courageous Curiosity helps leaders question what they may be missing instead of treating AI as a threat to their value.R³ (Reflect, Reframe, Respond) turns that insight into an intentional leadership choice.The post gives technology and AI-driven organization leaders a practical question for leading change: What problem are we really trying to solve?
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What Manufacturing Leaders Get Wrong About Burnout and Default

What Manufacturing Leaders Get Wrong About Burnout and Default

Culture & Change, Leadership, Teams, Trust & Psychological Safety
Shows why manufacturing leadership burnout and default drive more firefighting, not better diagnosisUses Gallup’s 54% manager burnout stat to frame the pressure on mid-level leadersExplains how misdiagnosed “people problems” and quality issues are often past-pattern defaultsIntroduces R³ (Reflect, Reframe, Respond) as a daily habit to correct diagnosis and reduce reworkGives manufacturing-specific examples: third shift, handoffs, quality defects, retention
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Breaking Leadership Default Patterns: Why Your Past Is Running Your Team

Breaking Leadership Default Patterns: Why Your Past Is Running Your Team

Culture & Change, Leadership
Names the real driver of leadership burnout: outdated, safety-based default patterns, not weak effort.Uses 2025–2026 data: 22% manager engagement, 20% global engagement, $10T productivity loss.Introduces R³ (Reflect, Reframe, Respond) as a diagnostic lens on the past.Gives a simple, repeatable exercise to identify and reframe one costly leadership pattern.Written for event planners evaluating Cheryle Hays as a keynote speaker on courage, curiosity, and leadership.
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How to Reduce Rework in Manufacturing by Leading by Design

How to Reduce Rework in Manufacturing by Leading by Design

Leadership, Teams, Trust & Psychological Safety
Why manufacturing leaders stay trapped in rework and firefighting loops.How a 45.9% defect-rate reduction illustrates the potential of designed quality systems.How Courageous Curiosity and R³ help leaders surface concerns without weakening accountability.Practical questions supervisors can ask after a quality escape or near miss.
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What Is Courageous Curiosity and Why Every Leader Needs It

What Is Courageous Curiosity and Why Every Leader Needs It

Culture & Change, Leadership
Manager engagement dropped to 22% in 2025—the steepest decline of any workforce group (Gallup 2026).75% of organizations updated leadership programs but aren't seeing results (Gartner).Courageous Curiosity℠ is an operating system, not a framework—upgrading how leaders think, choose, and respond.R³ (Reflect, Reframe, Respond) is the execution engine that makes the OS actionable in real time.Leaders gain clarity, make faster decisions, and build psychologically safe, high-performing cultures.
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Lazy Employees or Burnout? What Leaders Need to Notice

Lazy Employees or Burnout? What Leaders Need to Notice

Culture & Change, Leadership, Teams, Trust & Psychological Safety
Explains why “lazy” employee behavior may signal burnout, unclear expectations, depleted capacity, or an overloaded work system.Uses Gallup and Dice findings to place disengagement and technology-worker burnout in current workplace context.Introduces R³ (Reflect, Reframe, Respond) as a way to examine assumptions and act with clarity and accountability.Gives leaders practical questions for capacity checks, clarity resets, ownership conversations, and direct follow-through.
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AI & LeadershipCulture & ChangeLeadershippsycological safetyTeamstrustTrust & Psychological Safety

Meet Cheryle Hays

I am a leadership and business activator, dynamic speaker, advisor and coach, with a purpose to encourage and equip leaders for success.  I bridge data-driven strategies with a people-first approach to prepare leaders and teams for this new AI-driven, paradigm-shifting world.  
My 25+ years’ journey experience in male-dominated fields, reflects a "yes-and" career philosophy, embracing many varied roles culminating in the creation of InPower Strategists.   I am guided by my Christian values and commitment to ethical leadership in all I do, seeking to help others understand themselves, their choices, and their impact on others.  With my love of business, the natural outcome is to equip leaders, align teams, impact culture, engagement and the bottom line.  
I'm a new author, currently working on a new book, working title "Aspire to Lead", laying out my philosophy and Leadership Success Model.  I was blessed when my first, co-authored book 'People Fusion' reached #1 top seller list in 10 Amazon categories'.   My motto, 'Be In-Powered to Be Empowering,' both defines this foundation, and the value individuals, teams companies and the world receive when we choose the right leadership.

3 Personal Things About Me:  
Everyone has a life less ordinary, if only we look at it the right way.  My lies in my choice of the outcome I wanted, even in the face of the many un-welcome events that could have negatively impacted my life forever.  Everyone's journey is unique, as is what we do with it.  When people hire me, whether to help their company and teams, or for personal insight, no matter the products I sell, such as The Predictive Index, which I love, they are really hiring me, what I bring to the table, whether I can help solve their problem, make their load easier, and help them achieve the future they want.  So, I figured you should find out a little more about 'Cheryle'.  Here are three aspects of my character that help illustrate who I am, and why I strive to inspire those around me.
1.    My Pioneering Spirit:  I've been blessed to live a renaissance life, or, according to one of my favorite books, a "Yes, And" life. Striving to succeed in the 1990's, in male-dominated fields, coupled with my upbringing - nothing in that said "be more".  That came for my internal drive, even with others seeking to kill that aspect of me.  My initial response is always "yes, I can; then I figure out how,  Which means I also believe in using all the brains I have and all I can borrow.  2.    Persistent Curiosity & Evergreen Mindset:  I'm an enduring optimist, always seeking to uncover new possibilities, challenging myself and others to become more, do more, achieve more through breakthrough discovery, mindset change and choice. 
3.    Adversity as a Catalyst: It's easy to stay a victim, so many do, but the rewards are so much greater when you move through victim, survivor, thriver and overcomer and realize those words still had me looking back, living only an "in spite of" life.  I choose to be a visionary, living my "because of, forward looking" life.


Now, for 3 Personal Things About Cheryle:
  1. I love my 1 husband, 2 kids, and my 2 1/2 cats, but am glad I have a sense of humor 
  2. Great times require great people, but fine wine, fine food, fine chocolate (it worth a separate mention!) don't hurt!
  3. I use all of who I am and what I've learned, whether in business, with my husband, with my kids, with my friends, and when connecting with others.  You do too, whether you realize it or not, so it's a great thing that the people who love us have a sense of humor as well.
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