Coach Dan's Blog

Empathy, I think, is one of those things that is easy to define and hard to employ.  You can pretty easily find a consensus  on what the word means - I'll even save you the trouble and Google it... It's the ability to make a connection to a feeling someone else is having about a situation, and being able to experience that same feeling yourself.  It's hearing about a sick child at home, and feeling a little worried, scared, and sad yourself.  It's hearing about a won lottery ticket, and feeling excitement yourself.  As with anything worth doing - it can be harder to do than it sounds.  It IS however, a critical skill to employ if you are truly interested in understanding what someone is trying to communicate to you. Forbes recently published a short article outlining some of the positive business outcomes when comparing companies whose employees reported that their leaders were empathetic vs those who didn't. Innovation . When people reported their leaders ...

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We've all been on the receiving end before. You're in a conversation, and you just know the other person isn't listening to you. Oh sure, they are nodding in all the right places, and making "interested" sounds here and there. They answer your question, but you can just feel they weren't really interested in what you had to say. You get a response but leave the interaction feeling... not great. Why is actually listening so hard? I will be the first to admit - I'm not a good listener sometimes.  There are times when I've got a deadline that's not related to the conversation I'm having.  Sometimes I'm wondering what the dog is barking at, or what conversation is happening in the next cubical over. Sometimes my IMs start blowing up. Once in a while I 'already know' where this conversation is going and I know what I'm going to say next, so I time-share my brain off to other topics. Sometimes I'm just tired and over loaded and st...

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I keep hearing the term "servant leadership" lately.  I think like many things, the concept of servant leadership is easy to talk about  - and hard to achieve.   I wanted to start off with a "generally accepted definition" of servant leadership, so I Googled it.... and got 26,800,000 results....  YAY ! So what IS Servant Leadership So I did a little research and found that the concept of servant leadership was introduced by a guy named Robert Greenleaf in 1970.  In his essay titled " The Servant Leader " he describes it like this (emphasis added by yours truly): “A servant-leader focuses primarily on the  growth and well-being of people  and the communities to which they belong. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader  shares power , puts the  needs of others first  and  helps people develop and...

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