Archive for Resilience

You need to know how to ask good questions in order to have good listening skills. Most leaders and professionals need to put some effort into cultivating the skill of asking good questions that build effective work relationships. Here are 4 tips on how to ask good questions: 1. Facilitate the other person’s creativity with [...]

Emotional Intelligence affects how well you express yourself. I have already covered in prior articles how emotional intelligence allows you to have good self-awareness, which is required for good self-management. And social awareness or empathy is needed for good relationship management. These are the building blocks of emotional intelligence that allow you to be skilled [...]

To improve our self-awareness and self-management, it is crucial to be fully aware of our feelings. Unfortunately, our childhood upbringing often teaches us to bury our feelings. “Big boys don’t cry,” is a message most boys hear often. Some girls hear it too, “Big girls don’t cry.” In response they learn to bury their sad [...]

Every day, it seems, the news gets worse about bank failures, unemployment, etc. The nation seems to be in gripped fear and insecurity. Into this scene comes a new leader, a new team, talking about hope. Is there anyway we can hope? Is this all smoke and mirrors? Conventional wisdom would say we’re in for [...]

Emotional intelligence is crucial in times of economic decline and layoffs. Managers need emotional intelligence to cope with the dissatisfaction of employees. Employees need emotional intelligence to cope with their stresses of increased workloads, sad feelings for those forced to leave, and fear for their own future. Everyone needs emotional intelligence to cope with all [...]

Have you ever been told that you were being judgmental? Most of us have heard that from a spouse, teenager or co-worker. How can you work on this? The first step may well be to become less judgmental toward yourself. Then you can more easily improve how you handle others too. Do you have self-judging [...]

I have described in a prior Tip how fast reacting often spells trouble. Now in this Tip I tell you what you can do about this reaction problem. When stress has made you reactive, here is a recovery process: 1. Train yourself to notice your physical symptoms of being upset, such as: tense muscles, shallow [...]

Impulse Control Consider the case of John, who continually receives an important report late from Bob. John asks for Bob to correct this lateness to no avail. John then asks Bob to meet to solve this problem. What if Bob says to John, “I don’t have time for any such meeting. I told you I [...]

Interview by Mike Jay. World-renowned executive coach, Mike Jay interviewed me, Bill Murray on Feb. 22,2008, and you may listen to the recording. Mike’s style of interviewing is entertaining and you may learn a bit about my article, Emotional Intelligence for Resilience published in an Amazon best-seller book, Upping the Down Side. Mike also asks [...]

I teach a 5-step emotionally intelligent problem-solving process in my Virtual-Workshop series, Leadership Communication™. Step 1: Ascertain the facts. What did you see or hear? Look beneath other people’s interpretations of the facts. What actually happened? Step 2: What do you and others think about the facts? What judgments are being made? Are there interpretations [...]