Listening
Listening – Let’s “Just Do It!”
Listening is a magical tool that is essential for our hectic, crazy, stressed world. Listening offers a pathway for others to breathe. So many come to us in distress – so much stress that it creates a cry for help that looks like they need an emergency exit from the pain or pressure and are…
Read MoreYour Prescription: Determine Ways to Increase Your Ability To Listen with Commitment
LISTENING is an act of caring and generosity. It seems so easy, yet consistently it ranks the lowest rated behaviors in the 360-degree feedback assessment for leaders. Dan McCarthy says it’s a leadership disease – PLS – Poor Listening Syndrome. Listening first to understand is one of the most important skills of ‘coach leaders’ to support growth, reflection…
Read MoreManaging our Biases
We define coaching as being nonjudgmental. Yet we know that we do have judgment, biases and filters that pop up as interference from time to time as we are acting as thinking partners with another. The first step in managing our own biases, filters, judgments, and assumptions is to recognize that we have them and…
Read MoreWays to Blab Less
Summer Reading Connections – Part III The last author, Dan, from Saturday Solutions offered a catchy title: Clarity without Blabbing. It caught my eye for the very reason that a reflective leader was working on self-assessment and decided he wanted to blab less and so he wrote Dan requesting some strategies. He was very wise…
Read MoreFive Ways to Reduce Blind Spots
We talked earlier this month about possible blind spots in our current view of reality related to our workplace culture. Here are a few thoughts on ways to reduce blind spots. These ideas are embedded in our soon to be released Results Coaching Next Steps: Leading for Growth and Change. Listen to understand from the other…
Read MoreOrganizational Culture – A Living Definition of a Shared Reality and Overall Success
When you look out across the dynamics of your workplace culture, what do you see? And, as you describe what you see, how clear is your view? How does it compare with those who live and work within the same culture? Where, if anyplace, might there be obstructions in your view – obstructions that are unintentional…
Read MoreFeedback AND Evaluation: Two Pieces of the Growth Puzzle
Imagine teachers saying . . . “give me more” . . . “your feedback is critical to my ongoing growth as a professional.” Well, that is a reality in more and more schools. Schools are making the shift to a coaching culture with a growth mindset that presumes positive intent. And, they are using the…
Read MoreChoosing When to Give Feedback
As educators, our days are full of opportunities for giving reflective feedback. Typically, one of two situations appears as the time for giving feedback. One is the cycle of listen and give feedback; the other is observe and give feedback. Both are opportunities for growth. Listen and Give Feedback. Listening and giving feedback is an…
Read MoreIt’s Time For A Feedback Revolution
In February, Karen Anderson shared the opportunity to review and reconnect to the most essential and required skill in your everyday use. The ability to give skillful reflective feedback influences others to: keep working, reconsider, reflect, see possibilities, study more, give more effort, think about another point of view, desire more learning, be affirmed, get motivated,…
Read MoreStop Giving Feedback – Start Asking for Feedback
Continuing with what the Neuroleadership Institute found in their research on FEEDBACK, here are a lot of common misperceptions: We think we hate feedback. When someone asks if they can give us feedback, we hear, “Can I criticize your work so I can feel good about myself?” It’s best to focus on errors. The brain…
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