Leadership Skills: One on one coaching tips from a professional dancer

Leadership Skills: One on one coaching tips from a professional dancer

A colleague of mine, I’ll call him Aaron, is a professional dancer who has worked in a international professional dance company for five years. He and I got to talking about his work and the leadership tangles that have presented themselves. As we spoke, I realized that therewere some lessons to be learned for all leaders. Here is the first excerpt of an interview I conducted over a period of several weeks.

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You Can’t Hurry Trust… You Just Have to Wait
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You Can’t Hurry Trust… You Just Have to Wait

There is an old song first sung by the Supremes, and later by Phil Collins and others, called “You Can’t Hurry Love.” The lyrics often run through my mind when I am working with leadership teams. Only the problem isn’t love. It is trust. You really can't hurry trust. As an organizational consultant and executive coach, I have often been hired to help teams who are struggling to perform optimally. More often than not, I find that there is a fundamental trust issue within the team.

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When Leaders Have Each Other’s Backs, Teams Have Less Tangles
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When Leaders Have Each Other’s Backs, Teams Have Less Tangles

Jake Pavelka, the Bachelor (yes, I secretly watch the show—I am a romantic at heart) said that he wanted to find a mate who “had his back.” I have facilitated dozens of team effectiveness offsites, and invariably, participants will claim that they either want to know their teammates have their backs or recall that their highest-performing teams were those with members who “had their backs.” I am not sure when or how the term entered the lexicon. I know that it is permeating the language now and particularly in team settings.

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Leaders: Avatar, Differences, and Organizational Tangles™
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Leaders: Avatar, Differences, and Organizational Tangles™

There’s a buzz in the air about the movie Avatar. My husband and I trekked over to our local IMAX theater (www.imax.com) this past weekend and were not disappointed. The movie truly sets a new standard for moviemakers and moviegoers alike. I was transported to Pandora, a totally different world, light years away. My senses were delighted with lush landscapes, new animal species, and an indigenous population of 9 to 12-foot-tall blue inhabitants, called the Na’Vi. With the 3-D glasses, I truly felt like I could touch and feel the distant future, 2154.

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