Our Blog Posts
Emotional Intelligence – Strengthening Your Empathy
Our previous blogs on Emotional Intelligence (EI) discussed being more self-aware and better regulating your emotions in difficult circumstances. The next element in EI shifts the focus from yourself to others. Being “empathetic” means you fully tune in to...
Emotional Intelligence “EQ” Part 2
Understanding and working with the elements of Emotional Intelligence gives you skills that make difficult interactions easier in the work place (and elsewhere). Last issue we looked at self-awareness as an element of EQ. The second element of EQ is self-regulation –...
Accountability
The best coaches motivate their staff so the staff hold themselves accountable. While that’s ideal, not everyone can achieve that. Even highly motivated staff can get overwhelmed and fail to meet targets. Supervisors working from the coaching framework need to address...
Emotional Intelligence 101 – Part 1
Understanding emotional intelligence can help us communicate more effectively in the workplace (and in life!). The term emerged from research by Daniel Goleman, who first coined the term “Emotional Intelligence”. He referred to this as EQ as opposed to IQ. One of the...
Coaching
Coaching is a powerful leadership strategy that builds employee competence and commitment. It’s the commitment that sets a coach apart from other leaders. Wouldn’t it be great if all of your employees were happy to follow your lead? The key to that is that they...
The 10 Keys to Motivation
While more money and better benefits make employees happy, it turns out that these motivate them to show up, but are not as effective at motivating employees to perform well. The only exception is piece rate pay or commissions where people’s pay each day is based on...
Strategic Listening
Why do you listen? Most people will respond: to hear the other person’s message or to get information. A strategic listener, listens one level deeper: We listen to build a connection. This is essential if you want to build strong collaborative relationships with...
Making America Great Again… a Different Path
I was recently asked in a communication skills training, “How do we bring the two sides of our country closer together?” My response was simple, but sad … “I don’t know”. America has not been this divided in many years, maybe back to the Civil War – which was...
Challenges in Giving Feedback: Dealing with Resistance
Even when we give highly skilled, well thought out, constructive feedback… the recipient is likely to get defensive. At that point, they are no longer listening and we may call them “difficult” or “resistant”. In our blog Giving feedback to a difficult person we...
Help your staff fully develop their skills
Everyone is under pressure to do more with less and do it faster. As a result, leaders often focus on giving directions rather than engaging employees. It’s faster and easier to tell people what to do… but that means you’ll always have to tell them what to do. Very...