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Leading from Your “Coherent Center”
An effective leader must be clear. We develop high-integrity leaders who are laser clear about purpose and the values that will guide their progress. It’s the clear leader who operates authentically, is fully engaged and makes a measurable difference to an organization, an industry, a community, the world. Today’s pace challenges a good leader’s best intentions. Being personally and professionally Clear is essential.
This time we’re in requires leaders who love questions; leaders who can skillfully pose compelling questions that engage people’s heads and hearts; leaders who believe fully that this is how we bring our coherent center into existence; leaders who believe that provocative questions create conversations that reveal what we believe; and who know that this is the same process that keeps our beliefs relevant.
This is our work then — to find it — our personal and organizational coherent center — that raw feel-it-in-your-bones understanding of purpose. To connect and reconnect individuals and the organizations they inhabit with the unbounded energy and fulfillment that comes with doing candid, courageous and meaningful work.
The challenge is to excavate well; to scan the maps handed down to us, skillfully gather diverse points of view about which destination and alternate routes to pursue, pluck out what works, and get good at tossing what’s become dated or irrelevant.
Let’s get started…
What’s at the top of your mind NOW, today, this moment? Feel free to rattle off the stuff you’ve done over the last week or two. You should know, however, that we are all just a little too good at this recitation of stuff that keeps us from what matters. And discovering what matters will probably require a breakthrough that results from a conversation unlike most you’ve experienced.
Let’s look for patterns and linkages in your activities. How is this experience exactly like something you’ve encountered previously? Are you handling it the same way? Differently? Sometimes we grow our capacity to handle tough things, but don’t claim the learning until it’s observed by another who then holds it up for us to see. Consciously knowing what you know accelerates your ability to convert insights to action. So let’s hold it up and look at it.
What is the most important conversation for us to have right now? Which question matters most — right now? How does this question morph or change for you as it is examined?
We are on a quest for new insights and questions that will uncover new actions to take, those to avoid, and a few that don’t serve you well anymore.
Are you ready to talk?
Services@sherricannon.com
Sherri Cannon is just an exceptional coach. She is honest, direct, immensely knowledgeable about the workplace in general, and yours in particular. And oh did I mention that she is a stickler for clarity? This is perhaps her greatest strength. In three distinctly different companies, she has helped me to see clearly, act definitively — and to support those on my leadership team to do likewise. She is a keen observer and she asks excellent questions; in my case, she very quickly put together an excellent and accurate picture of not only my goals, but my style, strengths, and challenges. She respects the way that the leader wants to do it — she just wants us to do it better and more effectively. Thank God for that.
Peggy O'Brien, Ph.D.
SVP, Educational Programming and Services
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
I remember thinking initially that you would help me focus my energies to do even better work, and lead others more effectively. Oh how you surprised me with what I should have known — that the challenges I needed to explore don’t reside in silos. It is precisely the richness of your approach, the understanding you bring from so many different facets of our humanity that make you the treasure you are. I remain amazed at the power you helped me unleash. There were often moments of obvious insight, but there were also the thoughts that revealed themselves days and weeks later. You got me thinking and moving in new directions after every session. People who are open and willing to work will find their match in your amazing talent.
Julia Galdo
Managing Director, Public Communication
American Institutes for Research
Are you an “intentional” leader?
Do you…
- Have a lot of important stuff to do AND the gnawing sense that what you’re really here to do never gets addressed?
- Sometimes notice a more cynical tone to your thinking?
- Give up, or find yourself dissatisfied with how things are being done, but without the energy to try and change them anymore?
- Find yourself on someone’s ladder of success –just not sure it’s yours?
- Recognize that your team has unrealized potential, amassed capability that (on paper) looks unstoppable? But in real life your team is performing averagely?
Are you ready to do things differently?