Coaching for A Leader’s Legacy

Have you made your resolutions for 2012? My resolution is to continue to leave a legacy of influencing leaders. How? By directly and indirectly training others to coach people to be principled leaders that create engaged staff and successful workplaces.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of my favorite movies. It displays the positive leadership of George Bailey and the reprehensible leadership of Mr. Potter. A great quote from George in that movie is: People were human beings to him (George’s father). But to you (Mr. Potter), a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you’ll ever be! In this movie George received the gift of observing how life would have been for others without him.  Through this experience, he learned about the impact of his leadership and kindness on others.


Eight powerful coaching questions for current and aspiring leaders to help them explore, define, and envision their legacy are as follows:
  

1. If you could see the impact of your life on others like George Bailey did in this movie, what might you learn about your impact on staff and the companies you worked for?
   
2. What leaders do you greatly admire, and what about them makes them admirable?
   
3. If you were to write a newspaper article describing your leadership throughout your career, what would be the key themes in it?
   
4. What causes are you most drawn to and do you give your money or time to?
   
5. If you overheard a conversation and absolutely had to join in, what’s the topic of it?
   
6. What one or two themes would you like to emerge in people’s testimonials about your leadership at your memorial service?
  
7. What do you want your children to remember and pass on to their offspring about you and your leadership legacy?
  
8. What are your God-given talents and strengths and where do you feel led to use them?



© 2005-2012. Nancy Branton.

Upcoming: Certified Leadership & Talent Management Coach and Certified Social and Emotional Intelligence Workplace Coach

Top Five Career Assessments for Career Transitioners for less than $75! Part II

My 4th suggestion of assessments for career transitioners is the Page Work Behavior Inventory. It  measures your clients’ work styles, leadership style, selling style, and more. Using O*NET® Online, they can compare their highest scoring work styles with occupations’ highest work styles to determine if various careers are a good match.

Often clients are unaware of their career values. The O*NET® Work Importance Profiler™, a free online assessment, helps them become aware of their highest career values and the needs that underlie them.  With that information, career transitioners can compare their highest career values with those of various occupations in O*NET® Online.

The SkillScan™ Career Driver is an inexpensive assessment to assist career transitioners in understanding their current skill sets and occupations that link to them, skills they’re motivated to use, and their highest priority skills to develop for the future.  Additionally, they gain knowledge and tools to link their skill results with their Holland-based interests and their four-letter personality type; doing so enhances their understanding of their multifaceted selves.

In summary, administering and interpreting these five assessments to career transitioners will help them fully understand their personality, interests, work styles, career values, and motivated skills. Then, they can establish a career direction that is most satisfying and motivating for them. The best news is that the above five assessments can be administered for a total of less than $75!

© 2011. Nancy Branton.

How Smart People Lose Their MOJO and How to Get it Back

Part Two: Seven Career Traps SMARTER People Avoid

In part one of the article, I introduced the concept of MOJO, and Marshall Goldsmith’s definition of NOJO. MOJO refers to the moment we do something purposeful and powerful- that leads to career success and significance. In sports, business and politics, the term has evolved to describe a sense of positive direction. MOJO can represent personal advancement: moving forward, making progress, achieving goals, clearing hurdles, passing the competition — and doing so with increasing ease. What you’re doing matters! Many athletes call this being “in the zone.” In my book Smart2Smarter, I refer to this state as being in “flow. Marshall Goldsmith calls this state “MOJO”.

“NOJO” is the opposite of MOJO. NOJO people appear negative, bored, frustrated, dispirited and confused. They ask “Why is happening to me”! Individuals who choose not to look inward to identify their role in an event, lose their MOJO and get stuck — and may stay stuck. Some people seem to have MOJO one day and NOJO the next. This volatility is often caused by a series of ongoing, hard-to-spot mistakes that can lead to a crisis. If we can recognize what triggers us to lose our MOJO early, we can prevent NOJO events from spiraling out of control.

The Seven Common Career Traps Smarter People Avoid…….tell your smart friends!

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Top Five Career Assessments for Career Transitioners for less than $75! Part I.

After coaching numerous clients to make a career transition, I found that career assessments are an integral part of that process. Armed with their assessment results, career transitioners can evaluate their current career and make wise decisions to prepare for their next career.

I recommend five assessments to use with career transitioning clients to help them uncover what’s most important to them for their next career. They are:

1. Golden Personality Type Profiler (GPTP) or Myers Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®);
2. Career Liftoff ® Interest Inventory (CLII);
3. SkillScan™ Career Driver;
4. O*NET™ Work Importance Profiler™; and,
5. Page Work Behavior Inventory (PWBI).

Both the GPTP and the MBTI® are based on Jung’s Theory of Psychological Type, and are excellent and reasonably priced assessments to administer to career transitioning clients to learn about their personality type preferences on the following four scales:

• Extraversion—Introversion,
• Sensing—Intuition,
• Thinking—Feeling, and
• Judging—Perceiving (or Organizing—Adapting in the GPTP).

Based on their preferences, career transitioners find out their four-letter personality type, which is one of sixteen possible types. The Golden Personality Type Profiler has an additional scale: Tense—Calm that shows how they tend to react to stress. After they know their personality type, they can learn more about whom they are, the careers that best fit their personality, and what aspects of the social work environment will fit them best.

The Career Liftoff ® Interest Inventory is an inexpensive assessment to administer to career transitioners. The CLII gives them their highest Holland Themes, top occupational interest scales (OIS), and occupations that link to their OIS’s. As they view their top six OIS’s, they can brainstorm possible new directions for their career. Using O*NET® Online, they can compare their highest scoring Holland themes with occupations’ highest Holland themes to determine which careers are a good match.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© 2011. Nancy Branton.

How to Write a Phenomenal Online Brand Strategy

How to Write a Phenomenal Online Brand Strategy:

Creating a branding strategy is probably the last thing on the mind of a solo business owner when they are juggling so many different things. BUT I promise you it can be the one thing that turns your business around from lackluster to golden.

I often have people ask what it takes to put together a branding strategy. So in today’s post I’m going to give you a 7 step formula for developing your own brand marketing plan. My plan is a living, breathing document and I can go back to it any time to find things I need when I’m preparing to promote my business through a radio show, on a sales letter, in an in-person networking event, and more.

If you take the time to complete the sections I’ll describe, you will be amazed at how much clarity you have to move forward.

Why is it a great idea to have a brand marketing plan? Because it can help you understand where you are now, how you want your brand to be seen, and what it will take to get you there.

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