Leadership Perspectives

Six things to know about hearing negative feedback

Marie Peeler

Almost no one actually enjoys receiving negative feedback.  At best, we feel sorry for whatever we did or didn’t do to earn the feedback.  At worst, we think that we did not earn the negative feedback at all and we feel hurt by it or betrayed by the feedback giver. But proactively soliciting feedback and […]

5 ways to maximize the value of assessments

Marie Peeler

Assessments are extremely popular and, when used correctly, they can provide a wealth of information to increase a leader’s self-awareness, highlight important strengths, and point to developmental opportunities. Assessments ask a series of questions about an individual or a team.  Respondents answer the questions about themselves, or sometimes about others as when using 360 assessments, […]

Overwhelming workload

Coping with overwhelm? Keep learning.

Ever watch what happens as the workload keeps building, complexity keeps increasing, and leaders try to cope by working harder and faster? Work hours extend and anxiety levels rise, but productivity does not necessarily increase as leaders frantically attempt to simply keep up. Hard work is not a bad thing. Sometimes we need to work […]

Leadership Development

Uncovering what leaders know: What coaches do

Marie Peeler

The most successful coaching engagements start with a successful leader who, as a person, is healthy, whole, and resourceful. Leaders who are confident but humble, and smart but willing to learn, come to coaching with an open mind, so that another person, skilled in the tools of coaching, can help them find answers that are […]

Leaders need to keep learning

Sometimes, in the attempt to deal with the increasing volume and complexity of everything coming at us, we cope by trying to work harder and do more.  We can become myopic in our attempt to simply manage our environments. How’s that working for you? Probably not great because it’s exhausting and not a great strategy.  […]

5 ways leaders can promote worker engagement

Last week, a post on the Wall Street Journal At Work blog claimed that over half the workers in the US aren’t enthused by or committed to their work.  The claim is based on a recent Gallup research study and, if it is true, it’s pretty scary. To understand the concept of engagement, look at […]

How to ask good questions

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of empathy.  One of the best ways to demonstrate empathy is to ask questions and really listen to the answers. In addition to showing empathy, asking the right questions and having an open mind to hearing the answers helps leaders avoid myopia by exposing them to […]

More debate: Are women better leaders than men?

In the last two weeks, much has been made of a study that claims that women are better leaders than men.  In a Harvard Business Review blog post on March 15, 2012, the authors of the study, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, wrote that women outperformed men in 12 of 16 leadership competencies, according to […]

Seven Questions to Get the Feedback You Need

Feedback tells us how our words and actions impact others.  Feedback shows us the unintended consequences of our behavior.  If we are committed to increasing our leadership effectiveness, feedback is essential to our growth and development. Recently, I coached a client who gained an entirely new perspective of her own leadership effectiveness as a result […]