Lead Work Play is a blog for leaders – in the best and broadest sense. Here I talk to and about 2 kinds of leaders -- positional and situational. Positional leaders are those with titles and formal positions in a company, such as the Vice President of this or the General Manager of that. Where these kinds of leaders sit in an organization means that they often have a big impact on the lives of many people. I love coaching these kinds of folks because (despite the justly-outraged press on a small population of greedy and immoral senior executives) I have found that most leaders are … [Read more...]
Goodbye Green to Great and Making Whitespace, Hello Lead Work Play!
February 9, 2010 By
Welcome to Lead Work Play! For those of you who are here for the first time, nice to meet you. For those of you who were subscribers to my previous 2 blogs (Green to Great & Making Whitespace) thanks for being loyal readers – I hope you will find here the best of both previous blogs, all in one place. Lead Work Play will integrate the two areas around which I am deeply passionate: leadership — growing leaders from green (high potentials) to great (high achievers); and life — grounding leaders in practices like mindfulness and work-life balance as strategies for professional … [Read more...]
Mindfulness & Leadership
February 9, 2010 By
Below is an excerpt from my most recent article, published in December 2009 in the NeuroLeadership Journal, and co-written with my friend and colleague Dr. Angela Love. We wrote this article because in our global economy, the future belongs to those with the information, technology and brainpower to create and capitalize on what’s NEXT. However, our brainpower is fast becoming an endangered species, and we are deeply in need of a fundamental shift in how we sustain and grow this precious resource. From the article: “In terms of brainpower, two factors are waging guerilla warfare … [Read more...]
Coaching – Your Capacities for Play
February 8, 2010 By
Here’s how most of us work – we are constantly ON. Period, end of story. We are constantly on-line and on our cells. We seldom take vacations and even then we check email and voice mail. We use our weekends to “catch up” on family time, household chores and yes, to do more work. Even when we try to sleep, work thoughts are running rampant through our brains. So it doesn’t really matter whether we left the office at 5 p.m. or midnight -- we are mentally on-call for work any time day or night. We never turn it off. Why does that matter? Because: THIS IS THE REASON … [Read more...]
Coaching – Your Capacities for Work
February 8, 2010 By
I heard once that the definition of “capacity” literally refers to one’s ability to do work. Dictionary.com defines capacity a bit more broadly, as the actual or potential ability to perform, yield or withstand. Given the crazy-busy, 24/7 world leaders operate in today, that second definition is worth thinking about. Is your capacity as a leader--to perform, yield and withstand--growing? Shrinking? Or sitting at rock-bottom? If you’re like 95% of the leaders I see, you are probably somewhere between shrinking and rock-bottom. From my recently published article on … [Read more...]
Coaching – Your Capabilities to Lead
February 8, 2010 By
So why would YOU ever want or need coaching? First, because of who you are. If you are reading this blog, you already deeply care about your professional success and personal growth. And second, because to achieve the kind of growth and success you know you are capable of, you know that you have to invest in yourself. More than ever, you cannot rely on your boss or your company to develop you. While you can ask for their help and support (including making a financial investment in your coaching program) at the end of the day you are the one who must manage your own your career. … [Read more...]
Leadership Coaching – The ROI for Business & Organizations
February 8, 2010 By
Executive coaching has become an accepted best practice in the field of leadership development. My colleague Brian Underhill, Ph.D., outlines some of the reasons why in his book Executive Coaching for Results: The ever-increasing pace of change that forces organizations to develop leaders more quickly and more often on-the-job; An intensifying talent war to obtain and retain top leaders and performers; and The wide-spread use of 360-feedback which pushes leaders to cultivate their strengths and address their blind spots (critical, yet hard to do on one’s own). Brian goes on to … [Read more...]
What is Coaching?
February 8, 2010 By
Leadership coaching is coaching is a highly personalized, on-the-job development program that delivers real-time results that leaders can sustain over time. In my next few postings I’ll talk about how coaching as a best practice in leadership development and share with the ROI (return on investment) for companies and for leaders, like you. So what happens in coaching? A leader and a coach agree to work together for a period of time (typically six months). The leader, with help from the coach, prioritizes his/her goals: What does s/he need to learn and/or to change, to succeed in … [Read more...]
My Story, the Zen Part – Mindfulness as My Way Forward
February 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Since I was a kid, I have been obsessed with the spiritual dimension of human life – who are we? Why are we here? What is Divine and how do we find it? I was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools from grade school through college. But thanks in large part to the Jesuits who taught me during my four years at Loyola University of New Orleans, my mind opened up to learn about many other spiritual traditions as well. In particular, I’ve found tremendous value in the beliefs and practices of Zen Buddhism. Not as a replacement “religion” for Catholicism or any … [Read more...]
My Story, Part IV – 30 Minutes at Starbucks that Changed My Life
February 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Seven years ago, at the time of my work/life breakdown the only coping strategy I had was to try to do more, do it faster, and more efficiently. Until I tried something else. I tried an experiment. I gave myself the one break I thought I could manage – 30 minutes for a quiet cup of coffee at a Starbucks, early on a Sunday morning. I took a book, just planning to read and unwind a bit. Nearly an hour later, I hadn’t read a page. I found myself sitting there, reflecting on my life. Surprisingly I wasn’t worrying or freaking out or feeling overwhelmed. I was just thinking … [Read more...]
