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Good coaching is rooted in compassion, support, respect, rapport, and encouragement. Clients are on a personal journey to discover new pathways in their lives and create new realities. Sometimes the most compassionate and supportive thing for a coach to do is speak the raw truth. And sometimes that honest, unvarnished truth hurts—it can be painful for the client to hear. So out of our good intentions, we may be reluctant to cause pain. It certainly doesn’t feel

Help your organization thrive in a constantly changing business environment with executive coaching. I recently came across Robert Safian’s thought-provoking article in Fast Company titled The Secrets of Generation Flux. The article explored how chaos, when properly managed, can lead to overwhelming success. Safian highlighted successful companies such as Nike, Intuit, and Foursquare that thrived because of their ability to nimbly respond to constant change in the business world. The article further states today’s thriving organizations focus

Harness female brainpower by providing mentorship and coaching to women leaders. I was fascinated by an article in the October 15th issue of Fast Company titled Empowered Women Hold the Key to a Business’s Success. According to this article, a study done by Credit Suisse’s research division found that of the 2,400 businesses they have tracked since 2005, the shares of companies with at least one woman on the board are outperforming those companies with all male

Seven lessons entrepreneurs can learn from the Shark Tank, and how to refine these lessons through leadership coaching. I love the show Shark Tank. I find it inspiring, shocking, entertaining, provocative, and, above all, instructional.  I feel like a business voyeur watching these inventors and budding entrepreneurs parade their sometimes great and sometimes idiotic ideas in front of deep-pocket investors who could hold the key to their future success.  Inevitably they have passion, but they don’t always

Learn how to successfully navigate office politics with executive coaching. It’s nice to finally turn on the television or radio without being bombarded by campaign ads or election blather. No doubt, this election felt like the longest and most tedious one in my lifetime. Dubbed the “Social Media Election,” we were treated to a steady stream of up-to-the-minute news on Twitter and Facebook about each candidate’s mistakes and achievements. According to the Pew Research Center, 66% of

In Webster’s Dictionary, trust is defined as “the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” But while we can package the word “trust” neatly in this definition, it’s rarely so easy to determine why we are or are not trusted, why we trust someone or we don’t.Maybe that’s because trust is ultimately an emotion. We decide we trust someone after we feel that trust. Make sense?Trust is important in all areas

My entire corporate career was spent in a male-dominated business world. So I was particularly intrigued by Esther Wachs Book’s Why the Best Man for the Job is a Woman: The Unique Qualities of Female Leadership. In it, the author tries to figure out what makes female executives successful. She studies 14 well-known, successful female leaders, and while this is not a statistically valid sample, I think her conclusions are provocative: Women take risks and are more

Remember family car trips when you were young? How many times did you ask “Are we there yet?” And if you are a parent, didn’t you hear it too? I sure did, and it drove me nuts! This familiar inquiry presents an interesting and challenging dilemma. On the one hand, the most successful people set goals for themselves—often pretty aggressive ones. I still chuckle when I hear the acronym “BHAG”—Big Hairy Audacious Goal. When I set specific

In today’s uber competitive business environment, you are likely to get some serious points for being creative. Whether you’re creating a new service or product or figuring out ways to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace, creativity counts. But what does it mean to be “creative,” and how do you use creativity to your advantage? I was pondering this very question a little while ago when I remember reading a great Fast Company article by Chris Grivas and Gerard

It seems harmless enough. You share some personal yet titillating information one co-worker told you in confidence with other co-workers. What’s the big deal? According to a provocative post by Dan Wisniewski in HRMorning.com, gossip at work is way more common than you think it is. Consider some of the staggering statistics in the article: According to a study done by the Georgia Institute of Technology, 15% of all workplace emails include gossip. Gossip is 2.7 times more

In Ram Charan’s brilliant post in the Harvard Business Review blog titled “The Discipline of Listening,” (http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/06/the-discipline-of-listening) he claims that one in four corporate leaders has a listening deficit! He goes on to give a series of tips that will help improve listening skills. I’m just wondering—do we take listening for granted? Is it even a “skill”? After all, listening doesn’t really require much action. All we need to do is be present and not talk while someone is talking,

An executive coach can help you make the type of intentional career choices that ensure you’re doing what you’re meant to be doing. As an executive coach, I often work