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Circles of Concern and Taking Control
Do you ever feel stressed, anxious or overwhelmed? I’ll confess – I do, at times. Sometimes my clients describe their stress or the breadth of their worries with telling metaphors like - “it's like trying to herd cats” or “counting pebbles on the beach”. So, I’d like...
7 Essentials For Communicating With Impact
Communication is a key life and leadership competency influencing all our relationships. Here are 7 essentials skills to make sure you communicate with impact.
10 Women’s Leadership Myths Debunked
10 Leadership Myths To Let Go Of! In my women’s leadership coaching practice, I come across a number of self-limiting beliefs about leadership that hold women back from being their best selves. Here are the ten most common myths – debunked by some gentle reminders for...
Building Your Emotional Intelligence Through Self-Reflection
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle Cultivating Self-Awareness – Make it Your Own As many of you know, I am a big fan of cultivating self-awareness. I think that doing this is one of the most important levers for our personal and...
From Comfort Zone to Growth
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” Abraham Maslow Are you sitting comfortably? Maybe that’s the problem! Leaders need to step out of their comfort zone and...
Design Your Best Year Yet!
Now that the new year is fast upon us, I invite my coaching clients – and you! – to set your intentions for the coming year. And to help you do that, I’ve produced a valuable download: Design the Year You Want! It gives a step-by-step process to aid you as you begin...
When to Coach and When to Manage
Obviously, there are professionals, like myself, who specialize in coaching people; but coaching skills are valuable for everyone – parent or CEO. As a leader, you will find yourself in the position of managing projects and staff – and needing to coach people....
My 10 Favorite Leadership Quotes
Leadership is dynamic and constantly changing. Now, we are living in an era when leadership is becoming more relational, with a stronger focus on people, their diversity and their wellbeing. There are now more and more opportunities for women …
10 Powerful Coaching Questions To Get You Started
"Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen." – Pete Carroll What if I gave you some key coaching...
Honoring Yourself – Giving Yourself the Gift of Being Listened to
Listening – and feeling that we are being heard – are fundamental to any meaningful relationship, whether personal or professional. But how good are you at listening to yourself and hearing what your mind, body, heart, spirit – and the context – are telling you? I’ve...
10 Tips to Level Up Your Listening
“To say that a person feels listened to means a lot more than just their ideas get heard. It’s a sign of respect. It makes people feel valued.” – Deborah Tannen, author and professor of Linguistics, Georgetown University. I’ve written a lot about listening, because...
Developing More Women Leaders – One Intervention To Prioritize!
It is Women’s History Month and although there have been some positive gains in women’s participation in leadership (global figures put women’s representation in senior and CEO positions at 32%) – there is still much work to do. Just to be clear, leadership and gender...
Conducting Your Visibility Audit – 4 Key Questions to Ask
4 Key Visibility Questions to Ask Yourself Much has been written about the importance of visibility for your career progress, and about ways to achieve it with authenticity and integrity. In fact, I’ve written a lot about these issues myself, both in this website and...
6 Ways to Leverage the Fresh Start Effect
New year isn’t the only time for a clean slate, making resolutions, changing your behavior or achieving a goal. How many times have you heard people say ‘tomorrow is another day’? There is always time for starting anew. Many people use a specific date to set their...
Celebrate Your Accomplishments & Journal Your Journey
As the holidays start and this year comes to an end, I want to stress the importance of celebrating your accomplishments over the past year and using journaling as your self-reflective process to help with this. At the end of each year, I always write articles like...
5 Things You Can Do To Expand Your Network
Much has been written about the benefits of networking – sharing information and ideas, making connections, influencing people, building relationships and finding support or collaborators. Ultimately, networking is key to your career progress and crucial to your...
20 mini-actions pour prendre soin de soi, très rapides et très efficaces : vous n’avez plus d’excuses !
Si l’on part du principe que prendre soin de soi, c’est faire le nécessaire pour mener à bien toutes nos missions dans les meilleures conditions possible, on comprend que ce n’est ni un luxe ni un caprice, contrairement à ce que beaucoup pensent. Au contraire,...
6 Reasons Your Leadership Brand Matters
How do you articulate your leadership brand? Does it convey what you contribute so that you have the impact you desire? Having a strong leadership brand allow you to stand out from the crowd. It makes you known to your colleagues and other stakeholders for...
10 Ways to be Seen AND Heard at Work
In my previous post, we talked about how to build your personal brand, and the importance of being able to articulate who you are, and your skill-set. This is also a really important tool in pursuing greater visibility. Much has been written on the advantages of...
Designing Your Self-Reflection Leadership Practice – Guided Writing Prompts
Making time for self-reflection is a vital element in your leadership development, supporting your career progression AND your personal growth. Self-reflection is a great tool to boost your leadership and emotional intelligence by strengthening your self-awareness. I...
How to Develop Your Personal Brand: 101
What is your personal brand? And how do you communicate it? Think of a successful, reliable brand – of computer, or supermarket, or training shoe, and certain names will pop straight into your head, because they are ‘trusted’ brands. It’s not just about millions of...
Women and Networking: Reframing for Results!
In my experience of coaching hundreds of women all over the world, there is a potent tension when it comes to women and networking. On the one hand, from an extensive body of research and practice, we know that networking is very important for career...
Managing Your Energy, Self-Care, and Leading with Resilience Workshop
Save the date for this interactive workshop... A hands-on, interactive workshop webinar to practice managing your energy, make time for self-care and intentionally lead with resilience. Date: 22 July 2021 Time: 2-4 pm CET Price: €75 Self-care and resilience are...
Celebrating Accomplishments Along Our Collective Pandemic Journey
What a world-wide whirlwind the last 16 months has been! But now, perhaps it is time for us to see life through the lens of gratitude, and celebrate. It’s been a hard time for many of us, and without dismissing the genuine fear and loss that some of us have had to...
Women’s Networking Workshop – Save the Date…
Building A Virtuous Network For Women Leaders What do you think of when you hear the term “networking”? For many, it brings up all sorts of negative connotations and associations. Yet successful leaders recognize networking as an important leadership activity...
Values-based Leadership: Your North Star
“The most important thing about leadership is your character and the values that guide your life.” –Brenda Barnes Our values are the things that we hold as being important to us: the qualities, states, people, systems, and institutions we believe to be literally...
International Women’s Day: Some Insights on Women’s Leadership Development
I have the pleasure of serving as faculty on a number of different leadership development programmes - some exclusively for women and others mixed. As part of celebrating International Women's Day, I would like to share some of my observations both teaching and...
Save the Date – Values-based Leadership Workshop
The essential characteristic of values-based leadership is the belief that the welfare of people is the end of leadership, and not that people are the means to a leader’s goals. Frederic Labarthe What are your core values, and how do you live them? How do you lead...
Cultivating a Growth Mindset
Do you have a fixed or growth mindset? Do you believe that ability can be developed, through learning or motivation? If so, you are more likely to believe that the mind is flexible allowing you to learn, growth, and develop as you lead. Read on for some tips on how to...
Managing Your Inner Critic and Engaging Your Inner Mentor
‘The critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our “inside critics” have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots.’ – Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK) This is an update building on the...
Mentor and Mentee Checklists For Getting Started
Whether you are a mentor or mentee you want to get the most out of your mentoring experience. Here are some guides to get you started so that you make the most out of your experience.
Leaders – apprenants – Apprendre: la compétence ultime
Le leadership est une expérience formatrice ! Profitez-vous de chaque jour pour apprendre quelque chose et sortir de votre zone de confort ? Un leader ne cesse jamais d'enrichir ses connaissances et celles des autres. Quelques conseils pour les leaders-apprenants.
Leaders as Learners – the Master Skill
Leaders are learners. Leadership is a learning journey! How are you learning every day and stepping out of your comfort zone? Leading is your opportunity for continuous learning - for yourself and for others. Here are some tips for being a leaders who learns...
Making Time for Your Leadership Self-Reflection
Leadership Reflection When was the last time you carved out some time and space to think about your leadership? And what do you want do your leadership to look like? Leadership development experts agree that making time to to engage in self-discovery and...
How to Navigate Difficult Conversations
As a leader, you need to manage your staff’s performance – which often involves having difficult conversations. Enter Covid – plus working and leading remotely – and this just got a whole lot more complicated. Knowing how to provide development feedback is an...
Taking stock and celebrating your accomplishments since the pandemic
By now, most of us have settled into ‘the new normal’ of ‘pandemic life’ – so, it could be a good time to take stock of where you are, and what you have accomplished within the current context. And time to celebrate getting through, thus far. After a period of...
Développer son intelligence émotionnelle pour renforcer son leadership
En matière de leadership, comme dans la vie de tous les jours, l’intelligence émotionnelle est reconnue comme une compétence essentielle. L’IE est considérée comme l’une des compétences de leadership les plus importantes et compte parmi les 10 compétences...
5 conseils pour tisser des liens à chaque rencontre
En tant que jeunes leaders, qui avez un message important à délivrer aux personnes de pouvoir, vous devez être capable de tisser des liens étroits afin de faire passer votre message, de négocier, d’exploiter vos réseaux, d’influencer et de guider les autres. Tisser...
Small Acts of Self-Care: Practices for Work, Home and Everything In-between
We need to re-think self-care. It is much bigger than massages and pedicures – although that can be part of your self-care! It is about taking care of our whole self, so we can show up as the best version of ourselves. We also need to think more broadly about how it...
Self-care and Leading with Resilience for The Palladium Group
How do we lead, build resilience in ourselves and our teams – and take care of ourselves in the process? These are some of the themes we discussed during a recent webinar I held on self-care and leading with resilience, with staff from the health practice at The...
On Being a Visible Woman
Have you heard of invisible women? And how do you become visible? I’ve coached on numerous leadership development programs, when the issue of feeling invisible often occurs – particularly for females, but also for introverts and people from some cultures. Although...
INFLUENCER : Comment devenir une personne d’influence
Tout le monde exerce une influence sur les autres. Pas seulement les personnes qui occupent des postes haut placés. Dès lors que les chemins de deux personnes se croisent, un pouvoir d’influence se met en place. Que vous cherchiez à convaincre votre conjoint/e d’aller...
Radical Candor in Leadership
A leader needs to build and maintain positive working relationships, guide their employees, and give – and receive – feedback. ‘Radical candor’ is a recognised leadership skill that has been achieving a lot of traction since 2017, with the publication of Kim Scott’s...
Développez des relations et devenez une personne influente
La clé d’un leadership réussi, c’est l’influence, pas l’autorité.Ken Blanchard Alors, au travail comme dans les autres domaines de la vie, comment tisser des liens solides avec les autres et les inciter à vous suivre et les mettre eux aussi sur la voie du...
Mental Health Wellness Initiatives for Employees
Source: Unsplash Employee wellness is integral to maintaining a happy and productive workplace. However, in the past, employee wellness programmes were treated as an afterthought. Additionally, according to data in an article on Medium, there's a vast discrepancy...
How to show up when you are not physically present
Now that most of us are leading our teams from home, let’s talk about ‘the elephant in the Zoom’. You’re having a serious video conference call at the kitchen table, but behind your back, your toddler upstages you by dancing into the room dressed as a unicorn. From...
5 Conseils Pour Rédiger Une Accroche-Éclair Percutante
Selon Carmine Gallo, « les scénaristes d’Hollywood ont généralement entre trois et cinq minutes pour exposer leur idée, mais les producteurs n’ont besoin que de 45 secondes environ pour savoir s’ils investiront ». Les scénaristes, les chefs...
Everyday Leadership in Troubled Times
Are you showing up as a leader during the Covid-19 pandemic? You might be wondering what you can do to practice leaderships skills in the current climate, and in the context you’re in – whether that’s working from home, or socially distanced in the real or virtual...
Shared Leadership During the Covid-19 Pandemic
There is perhaps no better time to practise shared leadership than during the current Coronavirus pandemic. Many leaders themselves have contracted the virus, from the EU’s Michel Barnier to the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson. With so many people affected and...
Découverte du mentorat pour de jeunes leaders de 6 pays francophones
Ce programme de mentorat est précieux, en particulier pour nous les jeunes, car il nous aide à trouver notre voie par nous-mêmes. Nous n’avons pas forcément le temps, l’énergie, ni quelqu’un à qui parler pour résoudre nos problèmes, et cela peut nuire à notre travail....
A mentoring journey for 6 francophone youth leaders
This mentoring program is of great help especially for young people because it helps us find our way on our own. We don't necessarily have the time, energy or someone to talk to about our concerns and help resolve them; which can damage our work; but with this program...
Self-Promotion And Leadership: A ‘Necessary Evil’ For Some
I'm fortunate to have coached numerous senior-level women with considerable experience and expertise who have not gained the title or pay grade they deserve. They feel stuck and frustrated, watching others less capable advance in their careers. One key differentiator...
Networking: Creating A Virtuous Circle
As an executive and leadership coach specializing in working with women, I have received some very strong — often negative — reactions to the subject of networking. Or, should I say, some of my clients hold a rather narrow, outmoded view of networking. Fortunately, we...
Your Goal-setting Framework
It’s that time a year again. A new year is a fresh beginning, and many people take the opportunity for making new year’s resolutions, goal-setting, and developing plans to achieve their desired outcomes. When we’ve made resolutions, we must then think about keeping...
Celebrate your Whole Self
It’s a great time to celebrate your whole self The end of the year offers us opportunities to celebrate. So, why not celebrate your whole self? That means recognising all your positives and achievements in all areas of your life – work and personal – and making time...
Why leaders need to delegate – 6 Tips for delegating successfully
A great number of my global development coaching clients talk about feeling overwhelmed – at work, at home, and everywhere else. For example, many women leaders speak about being ‘crazy busy’ – drowning in work, and not having any work-life balance. One area we...
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership
Leading with Emotional Intelligence Do you display emotionally intelligent leadership? Do you know what Emotional Intelligence is – and how to use emotional intelligence in leadership? Are you aware of the benefits of leading with Emotional Intelligence? ‘Leadership’...
From leadership myths to a leadership mindset
In my experience as a leadership coach for global development professionals and a lecturer, I have discovered that a certain leadership mythology exists. There are so many misunderstandings about leadership, and leadership myths prevalent in society, that this can be...
Practising self-care – 10 Tips for taking care of yourself
How do you practice self-care? When was the last time your practised self-care? In our world of perpetual busyness it is critical for us all to take time our to recharge our batteries. Read on for some tips for practising self-care so that you can continue to lead, learn, grow and propser.
8 Tips for Managing Your Perfectionism
Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life...
Leaders as learners – The F-word…
Leaders who learn - transforming failure! Remember the F-word? “Which F-word, in particular?” you ask. I’m talking about Failure. Are you a leader who learns from failure? And if so, how? How do you define and respond to failure? And how does this manifest in your...
Managing Your Inner Critic
Critical voices and managing your inner critic ‘The critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots.’ – Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy...
Networking For Leaders: 7 Reasons Why You Need to Network!
‘Leaders in an interconnected organization must be comfortable sitting in the middle of a network, not at the top of an org-chart.’ - Chris Fussell Strong Leaders vs Good Managers Have you ever wondered about why networking for leaders is so important? Or even which...
Welcome to unabridged – Pleased to meet you and hope you like our new look!
Hello Everyone! We have something to share with you. We have a new brand identity. We have grown, so Palena Neale has become unabridged! We have also incorporated Mentoring Exchanges into the fold. Who we are... We are an independent leadership coaching, mentoring and...
Mentoring lessons learned – Swasti, Mentoring Exchanges and a global mentoring journey
Mentoring lessons learned - a tale Mentoring Exchanges, in collaboration with our partner, Swasti Health Catalyst, have just completed a final review of our mentoring programme and are eager to share our mentoring lessons learned. Before we share our results, let us...
From technical expert to leader: shifting identities and questions of authenticity…
From technical expert to leader: a question of identity ‘I have spent many years in the field managing complex problems and witnessing all sorts of social injustice. I don’t want to, nor should I have to, spend my time schmoozing and ***-kissing to get funding for my...
Leveraging your network: ready, set, grow!
“Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people.” – Sonia...
Self-reflection and action in leadership – Part 2: Thinking Styles, EI & Making it happen
Self-reflection and action in leadership - making it happen “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” – Peter Drucker In Part 1 of this article, we looked at self-reflection as a process that...
Gender balance for women leading in global health
Hope you enjoy this infographic on women and leadership, with a focus on gender balance for women leading in global health organisations. Have a look at some of the challenges women face in unbalanced environments, and of course, let’s not forget the benefits of...
Self-reflection in leadership – Part 1: Ambitions, Values and Personality
Self-reflection in leadership Self-reflection at its simplest means taking time to think, contemplate, examine and review yourself as part of increasing your self-awareness. Self-reflection in leadership means carving out time to review yourself as a leader and is...
8 Leadership Intentions for a Successful 2019
Leadership intentions - resolutions.... Have you heard this joke? “What exactly is a New Year’s resolution? – It’s a ‘to do’ list for the first week of January.” For those of you leading, how about setting intentions - leadership intentions for the coming year? New...
Reflect, celebrate and plan for the New Year
A great time to reflect, celebrate and plan It’s been a roller coaster of a year with events echoing around the world – continuing political unrest, natural disasters from wildfires in the USA to earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, and the devastating sadness of the...
Mentoring women in global development
Mentoring women in global development - It pays off! “There is a ‘glass ceiling’ in the international development sector. It’s not as pronounced as in the Fortune 500 or the tech worlds … but it’s real.” — Fiona Macaulay, founder and CEO, WILD Network Recently I had...
5 Tips on how to create and polish your own successful elevator pitch
‘A crisp elevator pitch isn’t useful just for times when you're job hunting. There are often opportunities to shape the way you are perceived by others, but most people miss them.’ Dorie Clark Like it or not self-promotion seems to be a necessity in our hyper fast,...
Happy World Kindness Day: A Kinder Kind of Work
Kindness at work It’s World Kindness Day today. However, wouldn’t it be great if there was kindness every day, in all spheres of life?/! In Harvard Business Review (Jan 02, 2018) Make Civility the Norm on Your Team, Christine Porath says, “Unfortunately, my...
Balance – work, life, energy and everything in between!
What are your key priorities in life? How much time do you currently devote to each? How much time would you like to devote to each? How do you divide your time and resources between attending to the needs of others and yourself? How is your work-life balance?...
Resilience: How to create your own super power
‘People are like teabags, they don’t know how strong they are until they are put in hot water.’ Eleanor Roosevelt Are you working in a high stress environment where the demands are overwhelming and/or never ending? Are you working long hours at headquarters, in...
Imposter Syndrome – Are you faking it?
“I can’t believe that I am responsible for working with these donors, I have no idea how I got this job?!” “Anyone could have prepared the monitoring and evaluation plan on such short notice …it was nothing.” “All my colleagues are more talented than me, it is...
Part 2. Harassment: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil….
In an article written by Lolly Daskal for Inc.com it found that a massive ‘90% of workplace harassments are never officially reported.’ Harassment is multi-faceted in the nature of its forms. It can take on more than one shape and it is important to understand not...
Mastermind Groups: What are they and how do they work???
A mastermind group involves regularly meeting with a group of selected peers – often from different organisations or fields – to share thoughts on business issues, and to tackle challenges and problems together. It’s invaluable for personal and professional...
Bullying in the workplace Part 1: Sticks, stones, and words DO hurt!
19% of Americans are bullied, another 19% witness it 61% of Americans are aware of abusive conduct in the workplace 60.4 million Americans are affected by it 70% of perpetrators are men; 60% of targets are women 61% of bullies are bosses, the majority (63%) operate...
(Re)thinking Assertiveness – Tips and Tools for Your Toolkit
Most of us have struggled with assertiveness at some time or another in our personal and/or professional roles. If you are introverted, or female, or from certain self-effacing cultures, there is a higher possibility of you being perceived as unassertive – which can...
Leadership Coaching for Women in Global Development
Women Leading in Global Development Do the technical skills that helped you to rise to where you are, help you to lead? Why has hard work alone not advanced your career? How do you lead as a woman without impersonating a man? These are just a few questions we...
The Sour Truth of Feedback – Theory Vs Practice
“We all need people who will give us feedback: that’s how we improve.” Bill Gates Have you ever given what you believe to be well thought out, developmental feedback with good intent, sensed it to be well delivered and then have had it fall flat, or worse be poorly...
Getting the best out of your mentoring experience
How to get the best out of your mentoring relationship I’d like to follow up on my previous post Mentoring for a Change – Mentoring Exchanges, and talk about how to get the most out of your mentoring relationship, or to ensure an effective mentoring experience. In...
Leadership development – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!
What makes a leadership development programme successful? What makes leadership development initiatives fail? And what can you do about it? Having worked in international development for 20+ years – specifically in building management and leadership...
7 (+3) Techniques to Effectively Tell Your Story
“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” Robert McKee At a recent conference I attended, I heard numerous emotional stories from speakers, about overcoming their challenges and how they transformed their own lives and their paths,...
Building Charisma – Yes, it can be done!
I am an introvert, can introverts learn how to be charismatic? Can I build charisma, and if so, how? I am a technical expert, do I really need to worry about charisma? The short answer – yes, to all! In my experience as a coach specialising in working...
Here are 5 reasons why you should have an attitude for gratitude?
The importance of thank you People sometimes within their personal and professional lives can forget the importance of saying ‘thank you’. To what extent do you have an attitude of gratitude? How good are you at saying thank you? Not only does this suggest a...
Exploring Charisma – 5 Myths to note when boosting your charisma
Harvard Business School professor, Rakesh Khurana, stated that company directors selecting CEOs are impressed by charismatic candidates. And, to an extent, isn’t everyone? Many rock stars and successful actors have charisma – inspiring enthusiastic followers....
Moving the needle on women’s leadership – more work to do!
I'd like to share with you this infograph that I put together on women's leadership - more work to do as part of celebrating #IWD2018 and continuing to #PressforProgress. Despite progress on women's access to leadership, there is still more work to do! As we know,...
Mentoring for Global Development Professionals – Mentoring Exchanges!
Mentoring for Global Development Professionals Now, I usually talk about coaching in this blog, but this time, I want to talk about mentoring for global development professionals – and an exciting new project I’m leading – Mentoring Exchanges – that matches...
Goldilocks and the 3 Coaches: Finding the right coach
Once upon a time there lived 3 Coaches: Too Nice Coach, Too Direct Coach and Balanced Coach... There lived Goldilocks, a professional in a newly appointed leadership role at Forest Industries. An international company with expanding reach and rapid business growth....
What’s Competence vs Confidence Got to Do with It? Got to do with it…
Everyone likes a confident person… don’t they? Extroverted, confident people make it to the top because their self-belief can convince other people of their competence – even if it’s unfounded. People commonly mistake confidence for competence. According to Dr Tomas...
This is how to create a great first impression: 7 Top development tips…
‘It takes just a quick glance, maybe three seconds, for someone to evaluate you when you meet for the first time. In this short time, the other person forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, your body language, your demeanour, your mannerisms, and how you...
Building a Culture of Purpose
In his book, A Culture of Purpose, Christoph Lueneburger states that “the most important challenge for a twenty-first century leader” is to build a ‘culture of purpose’. This goes for the organizational purpose, the leadership’s sense of purpose, and the purpose...
Part 2 tips on how to give effective feedback: What we know but may have forgotten….
Being able to offer effective feedback is a developmental skill that can be attained. It not only can enhance your capability as a leader but it can also assist your colleagues in how they behave amongst one another and how they view themselves as part of your team....
Careers, contribution, and building purpose: Lessons from the UN’s ‘The Lazy’s Person’s Guide to Saving the World’
I’ve had the privilege of working in the international development space for over 20 years. I’ve been able to advance missions and causes that are meaningful to me, building purpose in my daily life. This fulfilled my need to contribute to something greater than...
Planning with purpose for 2018
Happy New Year! You've probably done some stocktaking of your past challenges and achievements in 2017, so this new year is a great opportunity for making a fresh start and moving forward in an even more positive direction – or planning a with purpose. According to...
Leveraging your lessons and planning for your best 2018!
As this year draws to a close, we may look back on 2017 as a year of upheaval, natural disasters and political unrest. A tough year for many. However, should old acquaintance be forgot – it was also the year that saw the rise of artificial intelligence and BitCoin, a...
6 Ways to show you are actively listening: What we know but may have forgotten
I was coaching a senior NGO executive working through the struggles of listening she felt she had. She knew she should be listening better but felt focused on results and getting things done rather than taking the time to listen to what was being said to her. She felt...
From aggressive to pushover – A case for assertiveness
For two coaching clients of mine, both female leaders, assertiveness was a real issue, causing difficulties for them and their organizations. Their lack of assertiveness caused different problems: one of them was deemed to be ‘aggressive’; the other was ‘too nice’. In...
World Kindness Day – Celebrating Kindness at Work!
Celebrating kindness at work They say that money makes the world go around – but how about a kindness revolution, instead? Or what about celebrating kindness at work? At work, kindness could be the key to keeping staff happy and generating more customers – thereby...
Coaching and Global Development – A Bridge Worth Building!
Coaching has always supported people to maximize or improve their performance, but in the past decade, its reach has extended to every facet of personal and professional life. There is great potential for global development organizations (donors, nonprofits,...
Debunking common coaching myths…
Recently, I was chatting with a friend who is a senior executive, and he mentioned a serious challenge his leadership team was encountering. Suddenly, he said, “There you go! You’re a coach – here’s a problem for you to fix!” When I pointed out that this is not...
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