Archives: 2010

Women lead with insight and compassion…

October 27th, 2010

Don’t know if this is pc or not.  Calling out what I just keep noticing over and over again, in all kinds of industries, in all types of positions, across the six different decades I’ve had the good fortune to work with/for others.   Women make better leaders than men.  Maybe not managers… but maybe that too.  Definitely better leaders though.

I base my assertion on what appears to be a generally higher level of emotional intelligence, more intuitive decision making, more effective communicating and a cohort that is better able to motivate others through both personal and organizational connection.
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Another season change…

September 29th, 2010

Summer to fall, leaves dropping all around along with the temperature. A good time to check in with myself and take stock of all the things I’ve committed to over the past year, notice what’s grown, what’s gone fallow and what needs some attention.

Is it just me or do you notice too that we live in a culture that just doesn’t seem to value contemplation and reflection?

I’m not talking about the ‘stop and smell the roses’ kind either… though I sure do appreciate it when I take the time to do that. More of a ‘stop the presses’ kind of thing.
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7 months into 2010… looking back at ’09

July 16th, 2010

no way jose,

not in any way, shape, form, flow, or feeling…

no matter how you shape it, shake it, even bake it, it always comes back to 2009 was just an INSANE year…… on pretty much every level, though certainly not on every level.  But so many of the big ones – close friend & neighbor dying after a feisty, fierce, sometimes funny but mostly heart wrenchingly Fellini film-like unfolding; workload going from best-ever to slower than molasses; blended family issues galore; and the list goes on and on.  Really too bizarre to even remember them all much less take the precious time to write them down, and then maybe even share them far and wide, in the world-wide kinda way that blogging seems to be.
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The 3-legged Stool of Leadership

March 27th, 2010

This particular line of reasoning was originally inspired by an educator, Parker Palmer (http://www.couragerenewal.org/), who wrote a few books on this theme, Courage to Teach and Courage to Lead.  His hypothesis goes something like this…

Good teachers are good at two essential elements of teaching – they know their subject (content experts) and they know how to teach it (pedagogy).  All well and good.
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Buddhism and Business… intersections and intentions

February 19th, 2010

As an executive coach, serving a diverse array of organizations, I have the opportunity to witness the world of business (both for and not-for profit types of businesses) from a very interesting perspective; kind of inside/outside.

Often it’s not a pretty sight.

High drama masquerading as management. Disregard for family life, work/life balance. Positions of power wielded as weapons. Lack of acknowledgement for work well done. A general disregard of individual contributions, and/or team efforts. Lack of accountability. Failure to speak the truth. The list goes on, but I’m sure you know it all too well.
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Leading from within, and without…

January 31st, 2010

Authentic leadership… a term bandied about quite a bit these days.

And for good reason. It is exactly the kind of leadership we hunger for — in our politicians, our sports heroes and at work.

But what exactly is it? Maybe, like pornography, hard to define but we know what it is when we see it. Lately, especially in the political and sports arenas, leadership has seemed more pornographic than authentic.
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