elainesuess, Author at Beyondbeing Executive Coach

Appreciative Leadership Changes People

In the past year, it seems that gratefulness and appreciation have expanded their reach even more so into our leadership lexicon.

With Adam Grant’s informative and research-based book Give and Take, he notes that “a single act marked by mutual trust and respect will energize both people.”

I have found that to be true.

Positively energizing employees (accent on the positive, as we have all experienced the frustrations of lackluster leaders and negative energizing) through appreciation is part of the recipe that engages them in peak organizational performance, and simply encourages them to keep showing up. Read more

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Curiosity and the Effective Leader

Some of you may remember the phrase from the National Enquirer – “enquiring minds want to know.” However, most of you likely have not heard of positive change approach Appreciative Inquiry (AI). It starts with curiosity, as did the Enquirer, but then dramatically diverges. Curiosity, in the case of AI, did not kill the cat, but instead, increased its knowledge and propelled it to heights.

The Challenge

Meeting with “Tom” over a period of months in a coaching engagement revealed difficulty with an employee seemed to be representative of Gallup’s actively disengaged research numbers on employees — not willing to give an extra minute to work, not interested in the work, and not a “team player.” In discussing the power of inquiry, “Tom” courageously decided to try the Appreciative approach with what he considered to be this difficult employee. Read more

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Leadership Lessons From Wicked Tuna

I don’t watch television very often, but when I do it’s more channel flipping than anything. Recently, the “dial” landed on the show Wicked Tuna.

I know, but it’s on the National Geographic channel so it must be interesting. Plus, I had questions: 1. How big are the tuna? (they’re much bigger than what’s in my StarKist can) 2. How much will they weigh? (some can be almost 500 lbs!) 3. What struggles will the crew go through? (big waves, disagreements, broken windows)

The Show

Here’s what happens on the show, and why this is but one of many leadership lessons from the Wickedest of all Tuna. Read more

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Face It. Solve It. Forget It.

Every one of us is in the people business. We work with people. We sell to people. We serve people.

But spending much of our day with other people can sometimes be tricky. There are emotions in play and people often disagree when not hearing one another or seeing eye to eye.

Sometimes those disagreements can create big problems. Depending on conflict styles and skill, disagreements may go unresolved, sapping employees of energy and peak performance.

At times, clients have expressed to me they feel just like the book Connie Podesta wrote: Life Would Be Easy If It Weren’t For Other People. Read more

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Clear Communication Eliminates Fear

On a recent Tuesday, a supervisor sent his employee an instant message, asking to meet with him at the end of the following day. The employee replied that he could meet at that time.

Two views:

The supervisor was very happy with the employee. The employee was doing well and the supervisor wanted to check in with the him to discuss a project. They hadn’t met together for a few weeks because the supervisor had canceled their one-on-one meetings because he was in negotiations with a long-time client and especially busy. Read more