Insights: Communication
So Your Boss Has a Coach? Here’s What That Means for You
As part of the team that ensures leaders are effective, productive, and happy our goals are exactly the same. So how can we work together? Let’s start with what I do. As a coach, I play three roles with your boss. Sounding board. Job one for me is to listen deeply, ask good questions, and […]
Senior Leadership Teams Book Review: Strategies for Leading Senior Teams
This blog is the second in a two-part series summarizing the book: Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Great. It focuses on the specific characteristics of leaders in supporting senior leadership teams. My observation is that the team leader exerts an enormous impact on how a team functions. While a variety of […]
Senior Leadership Teams Book Review: Conditions for Thriving Teams
The Senior Leadership Team, more than any other group, has the power to drive the success of an enterprise. The CEOs and executive team members we know are incredibly hard working, intelligent, mission-driven people who commit an enormous amount of time and energy to their organizations. And yet, even with all their extraordinary capabilities, these […]
Increasing Confidence from the Outside-In
There are two ways to increase confidence: by changing how you think, and by changing how you act. Both approaches are useful, and often you can work on confidence from both directions. To learn more about building confidence from the inside, read How to Develop Confidence From Within. In this post, I focus on the […]
How to Develop Confidence From Within
I believe there are two ways to develop confidence. One approach is to practice behaviors that look confident or that cause you to feel confident. To learn more about this kind of “outside-in” approach, read Increasing Confidence from the Outside-In. Another often more powerful approach is to work directly on your mindset to develop confident […]
Five Habits for Senior Executives
Years ago I coached a new manager who was frustrated by the amount of time he spent in meetings. “I don’t have any time to do my real work!” he said. I walked him through an exercise. On the bottom half of a whiteboard, we brainstormed all his previous individual contributor work, the things he […]
Speaking with Authenticity: Transcend Your Script
Many speakers I’ve worked with struggle to be authentic because they are working from a word-for-word script. They are giving a big keynote address, the stakes are high, and they don’t want to miss anything. They may even have a comms team helping them create the presentation. In the end, they have a polished script, […]
Speaking with Authenticity: Use Techniques Without Losing Yourself
Authenticity is a powerful foundation for a successful presentation. But to be your best as a speaker you have to get it right on the inside and on the outside. On the inside, you have to know what’s true for you, why you are passionate about your topic, what you really think, feel, believe and […]
Speaking with Authenticity: Know Your Audience, Tell Your Story
If understanding what you are passionate about is one foundation of a highly authentic presentation, then understanding your audience is another.