In yesterday’s post I talked introduced some thoughts about why coaching and mentoring is so hard. In that post I discussed the difference between knowledge and skills and that to coach effectively we need to know why we are coaching. Are we coaching for knowledge or skills? Consciously or not, once we determine the answer

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Ask anyone to give a list of roles or tasks of a leader, especially in the context of organizational leadership, and coaching and mentoring will quickly rise to the top. This is no surprise, and even the most novice supervisor recognizes the importance of coaching.  Any yet for a variety of reasons, we don’t always

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One of the things we do is help organizations design and implement leadership development programs.  We have a variety of tools to help and combine them with customized solutions to create world class leadership skill training from executives to first line supervisors. One of the biggest challenges we – and you – face isn’t the

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The big news this week is that Yankee baseball player Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids. Almost everyone is shocked that this particular athlete resorted to performance enhancing drugs – even though so many others have already admitted or have been strongly accused of this behavior. But really, I’m not. Here’s why… When it comes

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Over the past few weeks I have been asked by a variety of people how the recession is affecting my business.  In every case I have told people that our business has never been better.  (In fact, I typically tell people that we’ve chosen not to participate in the recession, but that comment is for

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Later today – at 6:30 ET/3:30 PT I will be a guest of Tony Marino on Marketing Antics Radio  KUIK AM 1360 in Portland Oregon. We’ll be talking about leadership and I’ll have the chance to make a great offer to the listeners – which can include you because the show is available streaming over

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I’m a sports fan. I read Sports Illustrated, watch ESPN, listen to sports radio and generally keep up with what’s going on across all sports. There are leadership lessons from all across the sports landscape, but the latest “big story” in sports made me think about leadership development – and possibly for a different reason

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Feedback can come from many places. The best performers in anything, including leaders, yearn for feedback to continue their improvement. We often think about feedback from coaching and mentoring, from peers, or through other formal or informal conversations. But beware of those assumed limits. It is important for us to look for feedback in as

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I don’t know David Armano, but I follow him on Twitter. Does me following him make us friends? Hardly. But there are quite a few people (like David) I’ve ‘met’ on Twitter that I spend more time with than my ‘real’ friends. I seek their advice. I listen to what they say. I trust their opinion.

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For the last two summers I’ve had the good fortune to speak at “intern day” for one of our Clients. I recently found my flipchart from last summer’s session and thought some of what we talked about that fun morning applies to any of us doing leadership skill training (for college students, up-and-comers and seasoned veterans

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