Saturday, May 29, 2010

Strategies for Sustained Peformance – 12 more days!

Only 12 more days to take advantage of this powerful coaching program Offered at HALF the typical price. Incredible value!

Strategies for Sustained Performance
This coaching program will give you practical leading-edge tools, information and resources to help you:

• Achieve focused clarity and sustain peak performance
• Open blocks to creativity and think outside the box
• Listen and communicate more effectively
• Get out of your own way: Manage your mind and energy more effectively

What’s included: 30 minute initial consultation, four 1 one hour sessions, in-depth resource workbook, paperback book. Optional: demonstration of technology available for additional purchase.

Your part: doing some reading and exercises in between our meetings and applying the tools and insights. Offer expires June 10th. We can only offer this program at this rate for one month and after this, it will go up. Sessions may be in-person or over the phone. Call today for an appointment at 203-730-2103 or email at info@sagelead.com.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Building and Sustaining Performance Amidst Chaos and Uncertainty

The NY stock market “Blip” dip by 1000 points in one hour – somebody “hit a wrong button?!!” Cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf. Bailing out Greece. Keeping faith in the Euro. … A small sample of what has made the news in the last week.

It’s no wonder many of us are on overdrive – trying to survive and thrive in a world that is in crisis.

Check out our latest newsletter where you will learn about our new Coaching Program: Strategies for Sustained Performance.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Being Present is A Necessary Characteristic of The Sage Leader

We are human and it takes something cracking us open to be present sometimes – or to really get something. It’s not about being present every moment. That is not realistic. It’s more about doing it more and recovering more quickly when we find ourselves not present, zoning out or hiding from what is really happening.

The greatest tragedy is that we often miss the beauty that is around us in all ways everyday. Usually this awakening happens through our connections or disconnections – relationships – with one another.

A friend of mine is running her own business and trying to juggle it this week while spending time with her father in his last days as he lay in the hospital gravely ill. She captures this awakening so brilliantly on her blog.

Thank you Liz for helping us all have a moment of pause.

What is your moment of pause today? I am looking out my window appreciating the brilliant blue of the sky and early green buds of spring. Heaven on earth. As I sit here at my computer, it helps me feel more connected to nature.

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights reserved. www.sagelead.com

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Sage Leader Questions What You HAVE To Do

“You do what you have to do…” I heard it again this morning.

Says who? Who says you HAVE to do something? What DO you Have to do? Who decides?

I find that this is a pervasive paradigm that I hear multiple times a day from:

•An executive who is working globally taking calls at 5 am, 10 am, 1 pm, 6 pm and 11 pm AND managing meetings and emails inbetween.
•A working Mom who says she doesn’t have more quality time with her kids.
•A mid-career professional who “can’t get a job” in their field and takes something way below skill level to “get by.”
The language is limiting, not-strategic, and defeatist and energy-draining. It negates the notion of choice and control. I haven’t been living in a cave the last couple of years – I am aware of the economic downturn, the global political climate, the environmental crisis – should I go on?

The key question that a sage leader asks is – what do I REALLY NEED to do to achieve my goals? Where do I have choices? What are the choices? What kind of focus and discipline do I need to stick to my choices?

The sage leader stays in the space of proactivity versus reactitivity – especially in times of uncertainty and crisis. Often a shift really comes down to going back to basics: delegate, being willing to let go and not trying to do everything – and all at once. What is the one thing that will reset your view – What DO you WANT to do?

Why? What will it get you?

© Copyright 2010 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC All rights reserved

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Tiger Woods, Authenticity and Real Leadership - Part 2

There are a number of significant differences with Tiger’s situation. He has taken time out to reassess his life through intensive therapy. He apologized and acknowledged that he thought he was entitled – he doesn’t get to play by different rules than everyone else. I have never heard such sentiments from a powerful public figure. He apologized to the children for whom he is a role model. He appears genuine.

The road to true transformation is messy and chaotic with no quick fixes. He acknowledged he is at just the very beginning of this process. The challenge of any great leader who is at the top of their field is to not to allow their ego to run their life. When their success comes with a lot of money and a lot of people riding on this money, the stakes and temptations are even higher.

My biggest hope for Tiger’s reform is in his approach – taking full accountability for his actions and trying to protect his family from further damage and exposure – and above all else where he rests his ultimate solution – to rebalance his spiritual life with his professional life. He is looking to reclaim his spiritual foundation and values – and recognizes he can’t do it alone. He needs the support and help of the very same people he has disappointed. This humility is the way of the sage leader.

Ultimately, I am with Elin – true atonement comes over time seeing a real change in behavior. Tiger has made the necessary first step – asking for forgiveness. This requires something on all our parts – understanding and giving him and his family privacy to journey through this difficult process.

For the judges in the audience, please remember the great adage: all saints were once sinners and all sinners can be saints.

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Tiger Woods, Authenticity and Real Leadership - Part 1

I am not excusing Tiger Woods from his digressions in any way.

However, given all the many public figures whom have fallen from grace due to transgressions – sexual, money or otherwise – his apology appears to be one of the most authentic and heartfelt.

He did not express a dismissive “I’m sorry,” nor is he indicating this is all past him. Instead he paints a very realistic picture that he has just begun a journey of healing that requires intensive treatment and will take time. As with any healing process, he is starting with trying to make amends – in his own words – he has a lot “to atone for.”

Many disgraced public leaders make apologies after much pressure from the media and their constituents. For those skeptics who say he’s doing this because there is a lot of money riding on his comeback, I say, pay attention to HOW he made his apology – the tone and tenor – and you will see a sincerity that I have not witnessed with other fallen leaders.

© Copyright Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC www.sagelead.com

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A Sage Leader’s New Year Begins With Using Velcro

It’s not yet a week from New Year’s and you are back at work. The first day back it is fun to catch up with everyone and hear about their holidays. You have a grace period to reorient back to reality.

The second day in, the slipslider invades. This is what I call what happens when you start to come off the high of your new year’s resolution. Day two it’s time to get serious. Whether it is an official resolution or just an intention, I invite you to focus on how you want this year to be different than last year. What do you want to create or get rid of?

If you really want to create a new and different experience this year then you need to velcro the energy and inspiration you had at new year’s to your brain so you don’t allow the potential for negative thoughts to invade and derail you. The sage leader understands that post-holiday and mid-winter blues can easily invade the best laid plans.

I am in Connecticut, USA, and we are under about a foot of snow…so it can be a cozy and hibernating or depressing – sun depletion time, depending upon what you allow in. I find the cold invigorating and the quiet of the snow inspirational. If you are experiencing the post-holiday letdown, make sure to invite in a blanket of comfort and something that will allow you to stick to your vision of the new you in the new year. You want it to be untouchable like teflon amidst changes – in your moods, in your team, in the economy.

Tenacity is the wisdom of success.

Copyright 2010 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC www.sagelead.com