Mindsight, The New Science of Personal Transformation (book by Dr. Daniel Siegel)

Coaching is the partnership between coach and client  aimed at engaging in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires the client to maximise their personal and professional potential.

Put another way, the practice of coaching takes individuals on a process of personal discovery and development to enhance the individual’s capability and effectiveness within the context of their personal lives, professional lives, or both.

The way humans learn and how coaching can further enhance such learning processes can been seen around the bases of neuroscience. Daniel Siegel defines the mind as “the embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information”.  This means the mind uses the brain just as software uses hardware. This image from Siegel refers to the ‘brain’ in terms of the nervous system, nerves, tissuesand physiological components within the human body and to the ‘mind’ in terms of each individual process of cognition, interpretation, and action.

In the book Mindsight, The New Science of Personal Transformation, Dr. Daniel Siegel  describes the triangular relationship and interplay between mind, brain and our relationships in an in-depth exploration of the power of the mind to integrate the brain and promote well-being.

A deeper look available via
www.drdansiegel.com/books/mindsight/

 

Executive Presence... a must have!

Executive (or Leadership) Presence can be defined as an intangible quality that makes one person distinctive or attractive in such a way that make heads turn as they enter a room. Something makes people pay attention to every word and everybody on the audience wants "to be like this". 

So, is this some kind of talent you are born with, or can you develop your own irresistable presence?

Some say it takes only 30 seconds to make a first impression; if so, you better start to learn because it involves appearance, body language, posture, expression, voice, vocabular and whole lot more; good news is that any person can improve and learn how to increase impact and presence.

Appearance is usually the first filter and the way someone dresses plays an important role; this means that dressing properly is a part of your personal brand alongside with having strong communication skills. But is not just that; having leadership presence is about being adaptable and catering to each specific situation one finds itself.

Do not "mime" leaders you admire or fake it; you need to find a way of being authentic without changing who you are. It’s about broadening your repertoire on three main aspects of your executive presence: the assumptions that you bring to every situation, the communication skills that you use and the physical aspects of your presence.

Read more in this article from Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2013/07/01/how-to-develop-your-presence-as-a-leader/

Laughter; a powerful antidote

Humor is infectious and laughter is the best medicine - ever heard this?
­But laughter is not the same as humor; laughter is a physiological response to humor and is more than just a person's voice and movement. 

The understanding of how it affects the nervous system and rest of the body is study area of psychoneuroimmunology (combining methods and techniques of psychology, neuroscience and immunology) and the studies of the interactions between the brain and the immune system have shown evidences of how laughter relaxes the whole body (relieving physical tension and stress), boosts the immune system (decreasing stress hormones and increasing immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies), triggers the release of endorphins (promoting an overall sense of well-being and even temporarily relieve of pain) and protects the heart (improving the function of blood vessels and increasing blood flow).

Paul Macgee, a pioneer in humor and laughter research says "“Humor and laughter are powerful tools humans have to make daily mood and emotional state support good health.”  The psychological benefits seem to be quite amazing; people often store negative emotions, such as anger, sadness and fear, rather than expressing them and laughter provides a way for these emotions to be harmlessly released. Laughter seems to be cathartic and when is shared, it binds people together, increasing happiness and intimacy.

With so much power, seems that laughter can be a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THSHCIyTX8k

Why having a coach or a mentor?

If you are looking for change, personal and professional development, having a coaching or a mentor is most probably a good decision for you to get that extra support.

At workplace, coaching and mentoring is often used to support people who need to learn, perform better and to be more productive; it is a way of strengthening skills, overcome lapses in working behavior and issues in performance output. The coaches are usually supervisors, managers or external people that "have been there". This means that the coach / mentor plays a very important role in transferring and sharing knowledge that will help the person in enhancing his/her personal and professional growth.

Coaching and mentoring have been refered to support increasing job satisfaction, enhance skills and professional development in several areas such as problem analysis, strategic thinking, decision-making, time management, amongst many others. Overall benefits for the coachee are found in many aspects being amongst others the development of self-confidence and self-esteem, promotion of career growth based on enhancement of skills especially working arround weak areas and turning those into strengths.


Coaching and mentoring therefore create a collaborative atmosphere wherein learning is productive for individuals that are willing and committed to develop and improve themselves.

Great Leaders ... Don't Need Experience !

Gautam Mukunda studied political, business, and military leaders, categorizing them into two groups: “filtered leaders,” insiders whose careers followed a normal progression; and “unfiltered leaders,” who either were outsiders with little experience or got their jobs through fluke circumstances. He then compared the groups’ effectiveness; for instance, with U.S. presidents, he looked at historians’ rankings from the past 60 years. He discovered that the unfiltered leaders were the most effective—and also the least effective—while highly filtered leaders landed in the middle of the pack.

Check out the video about this research and understand how how the best leaders tend to be outsiders who don’t have a great deal of experience:

http://hbr.org/2012/10/great-leaders-dont-need-experience/ar/1

What CEO's Really Think of Their Boards

Over the past several years, in the wake of corporate missteps that have taken a toll on shareholders and communities alike, we’ve heard plenty about how boards of directors should have been more responsible stewards. Corporate watchdogs, investors and analysts, members of the media, regulators, and pundits have proposed guidelines and new practices. But one voice has been notably missing from this chorus—and it belongs to the constituency that knows boards and their failings best. It’s the voice of the CEO.

Read More at HBR:

http://hbr.org/2013/04/what-ceos-really-think-of-their-boards/ar/1

Three Rules for Making a Company Truly Great

Much of the strategy and management advice that business leaders turn to is unreliable or impractical. That’s because those who would guide us underestimate the power of chance. Gurus draw pointed lessons from companies whose outstanding results may be nothing more than random fluctuations.

Read more at HBR:
//hbr.org/2013/04/three-rules-for-making-a-company-truly-great/