Alliance for Leadership Acceleration

Building teams is easy to talk about and difficult to accomplish.  But there is a process to accelerate the learning curve for building team skills and collaboration.  Teams do not just happen naturally. Teams are –  in the truest sense – a volunteer organization. You can’t force someone to cooperate – you can’t mandate teamwork. A high level of cooperation is a product of choice.  One step to predictable and enhanced team performance is understanding the common characteristics of teams that achieve exceptional results.
 
What do you think could happen if the individuals in your organization stopped dysfunctional behaviors and worked together cohesively?
 
LEAP® the Leadership Acceleration Program can help you (or someone you know) become more effective at creating and sustaining high performance teams. Our multi-dimensional approach includes the assessments, skill-building, peer-networking, and 1:1 coaching that is proven to help managers and leaders, learn and apply these critical learnings in their actual work environment:

• Identify and articulate the common purpose and shared mission.
• Know the difference between compliance and commitment and how commitment creates a high-performing organization or team.
• Create clearly defined roles with broadly defined jobs.
• Facilitate meaningful participation in discussions.
• Build and maintain effective relationships.

 
Join us for an upcoming webinar to learn more about LEAP and how it can help your organization thrive.

If you own a consulting/coaching business, chances are, your business is you. And there’s only so much one person can do! Even though I’ve been running a successful consulting business since 1999, I still have peaks and valleys. And, I work with a lot of really impressive coaches and I see them struggling with the same challenges. After some reflection, I’ve boiled it down to three main struggles:

When I created LEAP® the Leadership Acceleration Program it was to fill a gap in leadership development offerings. What I didn’t realize was that having a packaged leadership development offering that targeted high-potential non-executives, also helped me with these three business challenges.

If you’ve been looking for something to help you grow but retain your sanity, LEAP might be the perfect program. We recently added 5 additional LEAP Certified Coaches in Washington (now we’re at 12) and we’re looking to expand the reach of LEAP in new markets outside of the Pacific Northwest. I would love to talk with you!

Our LEAP Coach Certifications happen 2-3 times per year. Learn more about the business model that makes this such an attractive program for coaches and consultants.

1.    STOP – When you sense you’re being ‘triggered’ or know what your triggers are and want to interrupt the pattern so you’re not sucked into an emotional or ineffective response.

2.    FOCUS on breathing.  Get oxygen to the brain in order to function most effectively. 

• Get oxygen to the brain in order to function most effectively. 
• Consciously slow down your breathing and breathe deeply

3.    REFRAME the assumptions and REGAIN perspective.  Work to suspend judgment and keep from jumping to conclusions.  Be curious and move away from “right/wrong” thinking. Questions such as these will help:

Know someone who needs to beef up their emotional intelligence muscle? With LEAP, the Leadership Acceleration Program, we work with managers/leaders to do just that.

Remember that you think and therefore you feel.  There are many choices when thinking about any given situation.  By changing how you describe the event to yourself, you can alter how you feel.  Use the scenarios below as a guide to identifying what's happening in a given situation and then practice changing your thinking about events.  It will take work and practice before some of these skills begin to become more automatic.  Challenging and examining thoughts can lead to increased emotional contentment and happiness.

Perceiving the world as black and white:  Not everything in the world is right or wrong, or black or white.  There are many grays and many choices.  Some are partly right or a better, if not perfect, choice.

Perfectionism:  Everyone makes mistakes.  Only through failure can we learn.  Edison tried many filaments to create the light bulb.  It may have taken you many tries to learn to ride a bicycle.

Pleasing others:  It is pleasant when others are pleased; however, it is not possible to please everyone.  Not everyone is going to like you no matter what you do.  The most important thing is to like YOU.

Catastrophising: It would be nice if everything were to go well, however, it often doesn’t.  If negative things happen, it is very unfortunate and even sad, but it is not usually a catastrophe.

Dependency:  Everyone can learn the skills necessary to be independent unless they have suffered a major stroke or other debilitating illness.  Learning new things takes time and practice; however, the effort pays off in feeling more positive about oneself.

Collecting Blame: It is not possible to control other people’s behavior and decisions nor is it possible to resolve emotional issues for them.  The only one you can change is yourself.  It is possible to support others emotionally, to care about others, and to offer some assistance.  It is not helpful to anyone if you become overly responsible or emotionally consumed by others.

Dwelling on the dangerous events in the world:  Constantly thinking about the negative produces anxiety.  Worry ahead is not helpful.

Labeling:  Calling others names (you jerk) may be momentarily satisfying; however, this process maintains anger and depression.  Describe the event rather than label.  (He dropped the ice cream on the floor.)

Life Must Be Fair:  It would be nice if things went our way.  However, life is filled with unfairness and unfortunate events.  The more important focus is how to cope with life when it isn’t what we want.

Know someone who needs to beef up their emotional intelligence muscle? With LEAP, the Leadership Acceleration Program, we work with managers/leaders on these very things.