Category: Work & Life Balance
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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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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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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December 11th, 2009
If you missed my last entry on Navigating Doula Polarities, let me bring you up to speed on my current thinking, vis-à-vis managing the sometimes seemingly ridiculous paradoxes, conundrums and ambiguities of life. I think you know what I’m referring to. For instance… on the one hand, we want to preserve our core values, hold onto those traditions and rituals that bring a smile to our face and joy to our heart. That bind our family together. The healthy habits that make it easy to love our loved ones.
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November 12th, 2009
Well… first, polarities. That paradoxical pairing of seemingly incompatible opposites, that, it turns out, are more often than not just two sides of the very same coin.
For all of us, the only universal polarity is life and death. We all were born. We all will die. Now, is it just me, or do you notice that, even though this is the ONLY thing we ALL have in common, it rarely, if ever, gets talked about! The death and/or dying part anyway, unless we’re talking about someone else’s funeral.
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October 29th, 2009
Having grown up on Paine Ave., as in Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense and an all around rabble rouser kind of guy, I am partial to clarity. Clarity of words. Clarity of thought. Easy to say, often hard to do.
As an executive coach, and organizational development consultant, I get an often intimate, inside look into individual lives and their collective communities. From where I sit, it looks like the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
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