San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching for Empathetic Leaders – Practice Tough Empathy

Practice Tough Empathy

Are you working in an organization where leaders are emotionally and socially intelligent? Are the leaders in your organization empathetic with the people they lead?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I demonstrating that I care about my people especially in difficult times?” Inspiring leaders consistently demonstrate that they have the best interest of their people and business at heart.

Are you a leader who practices tough empathy?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where employees are fully engaged and leaders inspire a fired-up workforce?

Empathy can be defined as the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view, and to read other people. Other definitions include the concept of identifying with the other person or their situation. This implies more than a cognitive understanding, more than just remembering a similar situation that you may have gone through yourself. Empathy means that you can recall some of those same feelings based on your own memories. There is a sharing and identifying with emotional states.

What does this have to do with running a business, managing a company and dealing with bottom-line performance issues? Obviously, if managers were to take the time to listen with empathy at everything that was said, nothing would get done. Furthermore, one cannot fall prey to being swept up into every person’s story.

Real leaders don’t need an interpersonal-skills training program to convince people they care. They already do. Successful leaders empathize fiercely with the people they lead and care intensely about the work.

Tough empathy means giving people what they need, which isn’t always what they want. It balances respect for the individual and the task at hand. Attending to both isn’t easy, particularly when times are challenging.

Caring leaders must give selflessly to the people around them and learn when to pull back. When this is necessary, it’s tough to be tough.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an and inspiring leader who displays the qualities authentic leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Inspirational Leaders – Refine Your Sensors

Are you working in an organization where leaders model emotional and social intelligence? Are the leaders in your organization attuned to the emotions of the people they lead?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I accurately picking up signals in our work climate that will help me make the right decisions?” Inspiring leaders consistently demonstrate that they are human in order to gain the trust of followers.

Are you a leader who is fully present?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where employees are fully engaged and leaders are trusted by the workforce?

Refine Your Sensors

Inspirational leaders have finely tuned situation sensors. They can sniff out and interpret “soft data”—environmental signals that aren’t spelled out or overtly expressed. Leaders with great sensors can easily gauge unexpressed feelings and accurately judge when relationships aren’t working. They can read silences and pick up on nonverbal cues.

Sensing can create great problems, however. It’s very easy to misinterpret or misjudge based on personal assumptions and biases. In making fine judgments about how far they can go, leaders risk losing their followers.

For this reason, sensing capability must always be framed by reality testing. The most gifted leaders always validate their perceptions with a trusted adviser or member of the inner team.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an and inspiring leader who displays the qualities authentic leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Failed Leadership -The State of the Economy

Failed Leadership -The State of the Economy

All of us are constantly watching the ups and downs of the global markets, reevaluating business decisions, and wondering what to do in such a tumultuous economy.

We need to look at the dark side of leadership failure to gain insights into leaders that helped create the current economic maelstrom. Recent corporate bankruptcies reveal that some CEOs and government leaders fail on such a scale that they bring the company and the economy down with them.

Why did AIG, Lehman Brothers and others fail? What are the patterns and warning signs? How can we detect the warning signs in organizations before it is too late? Bad Leadership Styles are a major cause of our current global economic crisis.

1. Incompetent: The leader and some of his/her followers lack the skills of high performance.

2. Inflexible: The leader is unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information or changing times.

3. Impulsive: The leader lacks self-control and is enabled by followers who do not intervene.

4. Self-Absorbed: The leader is uncaring or unkind and narcissistic.

5. Corrupt: These leaders put self interest above all else.

6. Selfish: They disregard or minimize the health and welfare of others.

7. Non-Apologetic: They don’t take responsibility and blame others to avoid legal jeopardy.

8. Evil: Some leaders and their followers are mean spirited and cause others great suffering.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed the State of the Economy at another turbulent time in our history. Focusing on the truth, remaining optimistic and facing our fears is just as essential today.

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

(Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933)

Executive Coaching for Authentic Leadership – Reveal Your Weaknesses

Executive Coaching for Authentic Leadership

Are you working in an organization where leaders model the characteristics of authentic leadership? Are the leaders in your organization display authenticity by being human and vulnerable while still displaying confidence?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders are seen as real people?” Inspiring leaders consistently demonstrate that they are human in order to gain the trust of followers.

Are you a leader who is open and authentic?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where people are fully engaged and leaders are fully trusted by the workforce?

Reveal Your Weaknesses

Admitting a flaw or weakness shows people you’re human. This is essential for building trust and rapport. When you share that you’re not a morning person, can be somewhat disorganized or are nervous when speaking in front of large audiences, you’re being transparent and authentic.

This authenticity displays your willingness to trust people enough to be vulnerable and real—and they generally want to return that trust. Exposing a weakness helps get people on board. If you solely communicate your strengths, others will have no desire to help you out. Revealing weaknesses creates a collaborative environment, building solidarity between followers and leaders.

That said, you should select which flaw to reveal wisely. Never expose a weakness that can be seen as a fatal flaw critical to a central aspect of your professional role. Confessing to a lack of attention to details is inappropriate in a financial leadership role. It would be better to admit to tangential flaws that don’t affect your performance.

Another well-known strategy is to pick a weakness that can be considered a strength, such as being a workaholic. Again, the most important quality here is authenticity. If you expose a vulnerability that isn’t real, people will be quick to spot the incongruence. You won’t gain anybody’s support. You shouldn’t feign absentmindedness to cover up inconsistency or dishonesty.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an and inspiring leader who displays the qualities authentic leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Inspirational Leadership – Four Uncommon Leadership Qualities

Four Uncommon Leadership Qualities

Are you working in an organization where leaders model the characteristics of inspiring leadership? Do the leaders in your organization display personality characteristics that lead to success?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where followers want to be led by their current leaders?” Inspiring leaders consistently demonstrate the characteristics that lead to successful leadership.

Are you a leader who has great leadership qualities?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where people are fully engaged and leaders are trusted by the workforce?

Everyone agrees great leaders have vision, energy, authority and good strategic direction. They must also have enthusiastic followers; leadership requires skills in persuading others to commit to company goals and embrace initiatives determined by others.

In today’s environment of Gen-Xers and Millennial workers, it isn’t that easy to engage “empowered” people.

For all the leadership training workshops—and despite the thousands of business books published every year—very few people can confidently explain how they take charge, engage others and develop their leadership skills.

“Why should anyone be led by you?” It’s a great question, as well as the title of an excellent September–October 2000 Harvard Business Review article coauthored by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones. It’s worth summarizing here.

Four Qualities

To be inspirational, leaders need four essential qualities besides vision and energy. These traits are probably not what you’d expect, but they can be honed by those willing to dig deeply to find their inner values.

Few executives embark on the necessary personal-development journey because it requires painful soul-searching and challenging one’s assumptions and beliefs. Not everyone wants to undertake such intense personal work with an executive coach or consultant. Those who do, however, significantly expand their repertoire of leadership skills.

Inspirational leaders share four unexpected qualities:

1. They selectively show their weaknesses. By exposing some vulnerability, exceptional leaders reveal their approachability and humanity. The key is to be discerning and maintain a level of comfort, while acknowledging any inherent risks.
2. They rely heavily on intuition to gauge the appropriate timing and course of their actions. Their ability to collect and interpret soft data helps them determine when and how to act.
3. They manage employees with “tough empathy.” Inspirational leaders empathize passionately—yet realistically—with people, and they care intensely about the work employees do.
4. They reveal their differences. Effective leaders capitalize on what’s unique about themselves. Some in top positions may not have the right kind of unique qualities, or they fail to share them. As a consequence, they never elicit the necessary energetic followership. Few people want to be led by them.
The focus here is not on financial results per se, but on how leaders capture the hearts, minds and energy of those who report to them. In truth, great results are hard to obtain without these qualities.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who displays the qualities of good leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Preventing Executive Failure – How to Fight Failure

Are you working in an organization where leaders at the top derail? Do the leaders in your organization display personality characteristics that can lead failure?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders are psychological minded and self aware?” Inspiring leaders are aware of any personality characteristics that can lead to failed leadership.

Are you a leader who regularly exercises sound judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where people are fully engaged and are trusted by the workforce?

Preventing Executive Failure

There are no universal means for preventing failures, except perhaps for being alert for the warning signals that appear. In all cases of executive failures there have been warning signs that people chose not to heed.

Businesspeople like to think of themselves as realists, but the fact is that wishful thinking, denial, and other forms of avoiding reality are deeply embedded in most corporate cultures.

How to Fight Failure

Review the common causes of derailment with an executive coach. Chances are you will recognize some of them as part of your personality. In fact, some of these characteristics serve you well in getting ahead in your organization.

Here are three things you can do to take a closer, realistic look at your dark side.

1. Do an adversity analysis. Take a long hard look at your five biggest failures in your career.  Ask yourself the following questions:

What behaviors in these circumstances didn’t serve you well?
What would your worst critics say about how you acted?
Do you see a theme or pattern in your behaviors?
Do any of the potential derailers fit this pattern?
In what way did you contribute to the failure?

2. Do a feedback session with your direct reports. Ask them to report to you with brutal honesty about your behaviors. This can be delivered to you in the form of a confidential anonymous report, or delivered as a group in person, but you must reassure them that nothing will be held against them and follow through with this promise. Ask them these questions:

What do I do that drives you nuts?
How do I force you to work around me rather than with me?
When you get together to complain about me, what do you complain about?
When I’m under stress, what do I do that you think is counter-productive?

3. Work with your own coach, mentor, or trusted confident. An external coach works well for reviewing your dark side, as they are non-judgmental, professionally trained, and not politically involved with your organization. In order to get value from talking with someone, you must have complete trust in the person and process. You must be willing to expose your vulnerabilities in order to grow beyond your usual psychological defenses. Just knowing that other CEOs and executives have these common derailers and that they are not unusual can make it easier to admit them and learn how to manage them.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who displays the characteristics of good leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Real Life Leaders – Leaders are Human Beings Too

Are you working in an organization where there are high expectations of your leaders? Are your leaders expected to be perfect role models?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders have character defects?” Inspiring leaders are aware of any personality flaws that can lead to poor leadership.

Are you a leader who consistently exercises good judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where people are fully engaged and inspired to do their best?

Leaders are Human Beings Too

We live in a celebrity culture where leaders, and especially CEOs, are expected to be perfect examples. They are held up as icons. We don’t like to admit they have flaws, or that the traits that make them special can also lead to failure.

We crave the heroic leader to whom we can look up to and derive a sense of safety and security. We can’t do this when we see flaws. And so we may contribute to the heroic myth and enable leaders to plunge full steam ahead, even when their character defects can bring everyone—shareholders, customers and employees—down.

We must abandon this hero-worship. People can be great leaders and fallible human beings. Those leaders that don’t recognize their dark side greatly increase the odds that derailers will strike. Our greatest leaders, both in business and politics have always been fallible. The key is in accepting rather than denying the existence of flaws and working to manage them.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who displays the characteristics of good leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Dysfunctional Leadership - Identifying 7 Bad Leadership Styles

Are you working in an organization where leaders at the top are dysfunctional? Do the leaders in your organization display characteristics that can lead to derailment?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders display the characteristics of good leadership?” Inspiring leaders are aware of any personality characteristics that can lead to derailment.

Are you a leader who regularly exercises excellent judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where people are fully engaged and key leaders have high integrity?

Identifying 7 Bad Leadership Styles

In a study of executive failure, author Barbara Kellerman identifies seven types of dysfunctional leadership characteristics. In her book, Bad Leadership (2004), she says that identifying and studying the seven types teaches us what not to do or reinforce in leaders. Bad leadership is either inefficient or unethical. The seven types of bad leadership are:

1. Incompetent: The leader and some of his/her followers lack the will or skill to sustain effective action.

2. Rigid: The leader and his/her followers are stiff, unyielding, and unwilling to adapt to new ideas, new information or changing times.

3. Intemperate: The leader lacks self-control and is aided and abetted by followers who do not intervene.

4. Callous: The leader is uncaring or unkind; he/she ignores or discounts the needs of the rest of the organization, or of stakeholders.

5. Corrupt: These leaders lie, cheat, or steal their way to the top position putting self interest above all else.

6. Insular: They disregard or minimize the health and welfare of those outside the core group.

7. Evil: Some leaders and their followers commit atrocities and/or tragedies.

While these seven types of bad leadership may seem obviously wrong, in most cases, dysfunctional characteristics exist in combination with strengths. Reality often masks a personality in shades of grey. There is a fine line at which leaders cross over from right to wrong, and like all humans, they are capable of switching back and forth at any given time. That is why it is difficult to recognize when the line has been crossed, when unethical behaviors become serious, when bad decisions become incompetence, and when a leader begins the slippery slope into bad leadership.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who displays the characteristics of good leadership. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Leadership Failure -11 Common Causes of Derailment

Are you working in an organization where leaders at the top have failed? Do the leaders in your organization display characteristics that can lead to errors in judgment?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “Am I working in a company where leaders display healthy personality characteristics?” Inspiring leaders are aware of any personal characteristics that can lead to derailment.

Are you a leader who regularly displays good judgment?  Are you able to create a high performance workplace by creating a workplace climate where people are fully engaged and not hampered by the character failings of key leaders?

11 Common Causes of Derailment

David L. Dolitch and Peter C. Cairo describe eleven derailers that lead to failure in their book Why CEOs Fail (2003). It is important to recognize these characteristics as being a part of one’s character, that they can’t be eliminated. They are part of the “dark side” of leadership characteristics—there is even some strength in each of these under normal conditions. Under stress, these characteristics lead to errors in judgment that can be fatal to a career and often to an organization. The key is to recognize their existence and to manage them before they become damaging.

1. Arrogance: You’re right and everybody else is wrong.
2. Melodrama: You always grab the center of attention.
3. Volatility: Your mood swings drive business swings.
4. Excessive Caution: The next decision you make may be your first.
5. Habitual Distrust: You focus on the negatives.
6. Aloofness: You disengage and disconnect.
7. Mischievousness: Rules are made to be broken.
8. Eccentricity: It’s fun to be different just for the sake of it.
9. Passive Resistance: Your silence is misinterpreted as agreement.
10. Perfectionism: Get the little things right even if the big things go wrong.
11. Eagerness to Please: Winning the popularity contest matters most.

Some derailers are both strengths and weaknesses. The average person has two or three derailers. Some CEOs are more vulnerable than others to derailment. The stress of being at the top, the intense pressures can activate the derailers. In addition, the higher you go in an organization, the less likely other people are to tell you about your failure-producing characteristics.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring leader who displays good judgment? You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.