A New Approach to Feedback: Think Like a Coach
What is it about feedback that can feel so bad? Just the word makes us cringe. Unfortunately, many of our experiences with getting feedback haven’t been pleasant or productive; so we avoid giving it and detest getting it. Helping develop others is a fundamental skill of leadership – yet we practice it annually or monthly…
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Interview: What is Coaching Anyway?
People spend millions of dollars every year on career coaching to help them realize their fullest potential. But what exactly is coaching, and how does it differ from consulting, therapy, mentoring, or training? And is it time and financial investment the right move for you and your career? Learn how coaching works and how it can help transform you and your organization in the changing workplace…
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Leadership Challenge: To Engage or Exhaust?
Too little too late for an exhausted workforce that had kept things afloat during a prolonged downturn and why this – and why now? This often happens during the stress of a business transformation. Leaders shift their attention from human systems that are charged with emotion, to non-human assets where savings and efficiencies can be…
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Empathy is a Skill of Leadership
Empathy. What is it – and why is it a crucial skill of leaders? “Empathy is the capacity to sense, and to respond with appropriate emotion and action to another’s emotion and thinking. It involves the ability to imagine what another person is experiencing from within the context of their mental, emotional, and physical. “…
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Have You Reached the Point of Burnout? Move from Tipping Point to Turning Point
As an executive coach, I get to work with tremendous people. These leaders work in everything from multinational companies to private equity groups, and not-for-profit organizations. And in times B.C. (before covid) to present – I’m seeing the impact of burnout showing up at levels I’ve not seen before. I’ve seen leader fatigue in the past resulting from long travel,…
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The Power of a Private Life
“There are many dimensions of political life – love, contempt, war – all of which are real but none of which have the power of the love that is possible in private.” There is much that can be said but doesn’t need to be about the recent events surrounding our country’s leadership. Many of us…
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Facing the Embers of Uncertainty
On the night of 8 September, 2020 flames engulfed Europe’s largest refugee camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece leaving 13,000 people homeless. With no physical space to absorb the communities, thousands trickled into the gaping hills nearby while one concrete capillary opening ushered others onto streets of the surrounding village. Few had warning; all…
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Being Resilient amid Uncertain Times
The SCARF Model Unfolds Dr. David Rock, Director of the Neuroscience Institute and Author of Quiet Leadership developed what’s termed as the SCARF model. The model identifies five domains of human social experience to which the brain responds. The response will be in a continuum of more or less defensive response depending on the degree of risk we perceive within…
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Change: The Non-binary of Self Evolution
The reality of change saturates our every day. From the materialization of a 21st century pandemic to Kanye West running for president of the United States, our expectations of tomorrow are shattered by the reality of unforeseen developments and shifting trends of today. Often, we have little say over whether changes will occur, both small…
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Change: A Growth Mindset
(Photo provided by Miltiadis Fragkidis via Unsplash) The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States is rising. Yet, when I open my social media, the photos posted by friends seem like replicas of summers from years past. While most around the globe accept the reality of COVID-19’s existence, hundreds have refused to process the…
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A More Inclusive Workplace
Demonstrations have expanded across over 20 countries in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Thousands in Nairobi, Dublin, London, Berlin, Milan and Warsaw have organized and mobilized demanding racial equity, justice and a system change. As events continue to unfold, one prominent element of the demonstrations I’ve witnessed is the collective fabric of the…
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A Revolution of Inclusivity
COVID-19 is an Inarguable Milestone of our Lifetime We have been shaken by its unpredictability and battered by its effects. Yet despite the catastrophic aftermath of the hard-swinging virus, much of our reality remains unapologetically the same. The canon of murders by U.S. police officers of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd — along…
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