A December Wish List

Wish #1 – Committed Listening “December is a month of joy and happiness and to finish what you started.” What a year we have had, a year we shall never forget. A year that has enveloped us with uncertainty and a huge range of emotions. And here we are, since everything changed in March, we…

Read More

The Speaking Up Continuum

NLI sorts speaking up into three distinct categories: sharing your ideas, questioning other people’s decisions, and challenging other people’s behavior. These categories sit on a continuum – known as the Speaking UP Continuum – which ranges from least threatening to most threatening. One reason this continuum is so important is that if people can’t speak…

Read More

What We Miss When We Don’t Speak Up

Ethical breaches loom large in people’s mind, but the reality is they happen much less frequently than the speaking-up moments that produce new ideas or refine strategy. These are the moments, we argue, toward which leaders should devote the bulk of their attention. In one study… 40% of people who didn’t speak up during a…

Read More

Why Speaking Up Matters

As societal challenges impact us at every turn, how we speak up and listen is more important than ever. The ability to use our effective communication skills are essential now with emotions and uncertainty at every turn. As readers, you know that we have and continue to hold the NeuroLeadership Institute in the highest regard…

Read More

What Else Can We Do?

cheerful school children

As school leaders we must continually reflect upon school representation. It matters. As we walk through our schools, how are all students represented, how is the staff represented? How real and relevant is our content? What are the ways we align our instructional outcomes with current facts in history and culture? How are we exploring…

Read More

Courageous Conversations

diversity equality respect

The things I have loved about Coaching are the powerful, never perfect, progressive communication skills. How to be a better listener. How to respond in a way so that the other person feels heard. How to be self-aware of my own feelings and emotions and manage them in conversations. One thing I know for sure,…

Read More

Let’s Talk JOY

In continuing our focus on JOY – here are a few more possibilities for your consideration, and coming from my own book on Joy, first expressed over 37 years ago. From the Three Hours to One Day section: …sleep late and stay in PJs all day long…address Christmas cards with notes to far away friends…bake…

Read More

Pure Joy!

Let’s talk JOY! All of us can sing the wonderful song from the movie, Sound of Music, “My Favorite Things.” Joy is like that. Little things that in an instance, in a moment, bring joy. I love the mountains. I love being in them, looking at them, the splendor, the majesty explodes my joy. The…

Read More

The Gift of Joy

Joy. How do you feel it? What brings you Joy each day? How important is it in our daily lives? May I share some thoughts and experiences? Recently, while leading one of our seminars, I was struck by the weight of stress, physically visible on and within the participants. This has become such a common…

Read More