Tag: Leadership Development
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Saying “No” Using the Three Centers of Intelligence
In “The Wisdom of Saying No,” a presentation I give for women in leadership, I talk about the importance of knowing your very own values, and how saying “no” is often a way of honoring those values. But saying “no” is not that easy. It can trigger us to have our core values challenged, and…
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Coaching as a Parent
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Revolutionary System Changes with the Enneagram
At this year’s Enneagram Global Summit, James Flaherty spoke with host Jessica Dibb about the inextricability of humans and systems. They delve into how each Enneatype can develop their engagement with systems to revolutionize them at every level, from personal to organizational to global. This is James’s third appearance at this annual event and, as…
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Coaching Circles: from One Coach to Many Coaches
There is something both awesome and disturbing about the idea that a bunch of people could be coaching you, all at the same time. It’s hard to imagine how coaching conversations, typically one-on-one affairs, can happen any other way. Yet, working together to support a colleague or peer in breaking through a difficult issue or…
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Embodiment Frees Us
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A Sense of Belonging
The need for belonging I am just back from a trip to Europe to visit my family, my country of origin and my soul’s home. Coming back to California I once again felt torn between all the places I could call home and all the people I know, love and miss. It brought up two…
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The Writer and the Written: Adult Development in Leadership
Dr. Robert Kegan postulates that there are five stages of adult development. The first two, Impulsive Mind and Imperial Mind, are mostly seen in children (or those who act like children!). Stage 3 is the Socialized form of Mind, where we look for external validation and allow the opinions, beliefs, norms and behavior of others…
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Waiting to Know
Waiting until you know for sure what’s going to happen – where people are involved – means waiting for ever. With machines, it’s easy. With sufficient understanding of mechanics you can often predict exactly what’s going to happen. Cause and effect, straightforward to establish. But human situations are nothing like that, even though we pretend to ourselves…
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Power of Empathy
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Gateways to Conversation
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Three Myths to Give Up on If We Want to Grow Up
At the times when the world has shrunk to its smallest horizons, when I have been most despairing, desperate, or alone, or when I have found myself working and pushing much too hard, it usually turns out that I have been living in thrall to one or more protective myths about life that I have carried…
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The Real Lesson in the Taoist Farmer Story
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.…
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What You Think You Need—And More
After I returned to my yoga practice after a longer-than-usual break last year, the teacher said something that kept sticking in my mind: “Get more props than you think you need.” In a yoga class, props are objects like blocks and straps and blankets that help you bridge the distance between, let’s say, your hands and…
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Where Horizontal and Vertical Coaching Intersect
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How Deep Can You Go as a Coach?
How deep we go in as a coach may well come down to three factors: how open and capable of deep exploration our client is the depth of presence and skill of the coach the intention of the program. I guess as you read this there are a lot more than three factors in the…
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Of Not Knowing
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Integrating What Is Broken in Us
We are all broken. In some circles, this is a radical thing to say (“Hey, some of us are doing just fine, thank you!”); for others, it’s a downer (“That’s a pretty negative view of people”). But for me, this is an uplifting truth and a fundamental tenant for coaching. For most of my youth,…
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Responding to our Times, Part 2
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Balancing Judgement and Mercy
Whatever we say we’re most committed to, a great many of us live as if judgement were the primary human value, judging ourselves mercilessly and without respite. And, when we live in the stream of harsh judgement, no effort is enough, no achievement worth much, and our efforts to help seem to us nothing but disguised…
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Choosing a Coach Training Program
My path into a coach training program Eight years ago I found myself entering a life transition. Up to this point I was making a living as a technical consultant, working just enough to stay financially stable, while I devoted the majority of my time to nonprofit work. Specifically, I was part of organizations that worked…