What do you care about as a leader?

Category: General

I recently attended a conference called Foundations of Generative Leadership sponsored by the Newfield Network and the Institute for Generative Leadership and taught by Bob Dunham, co-author of The Innovators Way. The three day program was rich with lessons for leaders of all shapes and sizes - whether leading in an organization, community or family.  Early in the conference Bob posed the question; "What do you care about as a leader?" The question has resonated with me ever since. The point he was ...

Thoughts on Leadership

Category: General

Recently I've spent a lot of time thinking about what makes good and bad leaders and what the difference is between the leaders who seem to be able to engage people to deliver powerful results versus those who, in spite of their best efforts, fall short. The truth is, there is no one clear model of leadership. A new client recently asked me to show her, "the best model of leadership" so she could simply adopt it and move on. If only it were that easy.  The truth is, there is no one-size-fits-all app...

Meeting Resistance

Category: General

I watched the movie Meeting Resistance this weekend. The documentary, produced by photojournalist Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, powerfully demonstrates the Iraqi resistance to US involvement by having Iraqi’s tell their own stories about why they were fighting the US invasion of their country. The movie shows how the US military failed to thoroughly understand the hearts and minds of the Iraqi’s and therefore met powerful and violent resistance when trying to create change. For me, it was na...

Leadership Legacy

Category: General

A former client and friend died this past week. He was a young man who had a big impact on the world around him as demonstrated by the outpouring of love at the news of his passing. People spoke about how he had touched the lives of the many people around him in a positive way. As a musician, his legacy will be his music and the way it moved people and encouraged them to soar to greater heights. Steve, a successful finance executive is being transitioned out of his organization due to a downsizing. While me...

Reflections: 10 Years as a Coach

Category: General

With 2011 coming to an end, so does my 10th year as a coach. Over the years I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to assess, coach, and/or train hundreds of people ranging from recently released prisoners to senior executives in business and government; large organizations; non-profits; and small businesses. I’ve had the opportunity to ride sidecar with people as they face challenges in their personal and professional lives – cheering them on when they succeeded, holding their hand and su...

Ambition

Category: General

I’ve been thinking a lot about the roll ambition plays in leadership.  I spent much of the past week conducting leadership assessments with a group of senior leaders in an organization. The assessment measures many different aspects of a leaders personality – including ambition. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ambition as an ardent desire for rank, fame or power. They also define it as a desire to achieve a particular end. Within the context of the assessment, ambition includes things su...

Making the Connection

Category: General

Last week, I taught a group of young coaches at George Mason University. By young I mean “young” to coaching. Most were mid to late in their current careers with some even being retired. Each was drawn to the program for different reasons. Some want to be coaches; others were participating because they are leaders in their organization and want to use the coaching skills to better engage and lead their employees. Whatever the reason that drew them, their feedback was quite similar:  that ev...

Thinking Strategically

Category: General

This blog posting is late.  I’ve been working hard on the day-to-day tasks of meeting with clients, managing people and projects, and running the business; all of which leaves little time for stepping back to write or think strategically about where the company is going.  I’ve been busy working “in” the business and have made no time to work “on” it.  It’s the same trap I often talk about with my clients. The last blog post was about the importance of...

Self-Awareness for Success

Category: General

According to Bill George, author of True North, when seventy-five members of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous “Self-Awareness.” I see this play out with clients over and over again. As human beings, and therefore as leaders, we all have “blind spots” – or those aspects of our personalities and behavior that may be getting in the way of our hav...

Welcome to the BPA Blog

Category: General

I started coaching 10 years ago.  It’s a time I will always remember because I was completing my training on 9/11.  I had left a corporate job with a large health care company and was searching for what to do next.  After doing some soul searching and talking with friends I attended a coaching class at The Coaches Training Institute.  By the end of the first class I knew I had found my calling.  I hired someone to coach me, finished my training and set off to build a business....