Category: Listening

Song of Childhood

We all have things that trig­ger mem­o­ries of child­hood. One of mine is the song of the Swain­son’s Thrush. It reminds me of the woods behind the house where I grew up, and espe­cial­ly of sum­mer evenings when the cool air filled with the scents of the for­est drift­ed out across our back­yard. High up,… Con­tin­ue read­ing Song of Childhood

Anatomy of a Conflict

Despite all the good advice about resolv­ing con­flict, per­haps best exem­pli­fied by Stephen Cov­ey’s famous line, “Seek first to under­stand, then to be under­stood,” peo­ple most­ly don’t. When the emo­tion of con­flict takes over and the high­er func­tion­ing parts of the brain have been hijacked, what we want is to be under­stood, to be seen… Con­tin­ue read­ing Anato­my of a Conflict

On Valuing Your Unique Life Path

I did an inven­to­ry the oth­er day of the kinds of issues clients have brought me over time. Here are some of them: Sur­vival in the role of leader Effec­tive­ness in work­ing with oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­ble­some per­son­al­i­ties, oth­er peo­ple who are in denial, and those who have more pow­er Liv­ing in high con­trol, high risk cul­tures Try­ing… Con­tin­ue read­ing On Valu­ing Your Unique Life Path

A Circular Concept of Leadership

In a com­ment on my last post, Flor Fer­nan­dez Bar­rios talked about med­i­cine wheels: – Native-Amer­i­­cans have the con­cept of the med­i­cine Wheel, the great cir­cle of life based on the car­di­nal direc­tions. Every posi­ition has equal pow­er and unique teach­ings. The essence of life is move­ment and as we move through the wheel we… Con­tin­ue read­ing A Cir­cu­lar Con­cept of Leadership