Wisewolf Coaching

What is appreciative enquiry? Appreciative Inquiry focuses on the positive!  It works on the principle that what is good now that can be built on to achieve a vision for the future. When thinking about change people often focus on what is wrong now – what is deficient. This has been the traditional approach to making a change. Appreciative Inquiry starts the other way round.  It looks at what is good and valuable now. What is good now can be the foundation on which to build moving forward. Once the foundation is established you can explore the future possibilities. And you can do it with much greater confidence. All change In all change, something will be lost but with Appreciative Inquiry you can make sure that much of what is good remains.  People can honour the past and have confidence in the future! Appreciative Inquiry was developed as a tool for changing organizations. But it works very well for individual people and teams.  They can approach change with greater confidence. If y

What is the personal development mindset? Having a personal development mindset means that you take responsibility for understanding yourself as an individual and for identifying and developing your own strengths and talents. It means you take control and become responsible for your own life and what you make of it. You begin to manage your own success and happiness. But you can receive support from others in developing the mindset and in helping you to develop yourself. Personal Development - Time to Grow[/caption] Personal development includes understanding your values and living in accordance with them. This in turn helps to strengthen your self-image and self-esteem. Then, you begin to be able to see your own potential and you can work towards fulfilling it in  all parts of your life -  at work and in the rest of your life. Personal development enables you to; Expect to succeed in your own terms, Take risks that are right for you and set challenging goals, Go forward

Are you feeling unhappy at work?  Even when we are doing a job we really love, there can be days when we don't feel happy. That happens sometimes to all of us. But do you feel miserable at work most of the time?. Maybe you started out happy but now when you wake up in a morning you get that feeling of dread. Or maybe you're just bored with it. All the passion you felt at the beginning has gone. Perhaps something has changed, you have a new boss or you have new colleagues you don't like. Or maybe you don't feel your contribution is recognised these days and they are not giving you the opportunities you expected. Or may be stress at work is just wearing you down and you think it might even be starting to affect your mental or physical health.  Sometimes stress comes from ethical or moral differences - you don't agree with something the organization is doing. I know my employer treating my colleagues badly once led to me quitting. Is your unhappiness is affecting both

How To Get Promoted – are you doing well in your present role but feel ready  for the next step up? Even in this tough economic climate some people are still managing to get promotion. But how do you make yourself part of that élite group?  Today over on our sister site we have a two post series on how to get that precious promtion.  Here is a link to Part 1 –  link Wendy Smith  is a career consultant, life coach and business coach with depth of experience in  organisational development, management, coaching and personal development. That experience means she is equally at home helping clients find a new career direction, starting-up new businesses or dealing with life’s more challenging personal issues. You can contact her at  wendy@wisewolfcoaching.com Wendy has written a little eBook on how to get on with your boss and a book on job search - you can find all her books on Amazon at this  link          

Image via Wikipedia My last post said that with practice you can learn to think positively and confidently about making changes.  You   can develop a resilient mindset.  This post takes this further and offers help! People with inborn talent may be good at what they do—but experience shows that only the mentally tough reach the highest plateaus in their field. Mental toughness is something anyone can learn. Director of mental training for the St. Louis Cardinals and a top-tier executive coach, Dr. Jason Selk knows everything there is to know about developing mental toughness! Inspired on the vision of legendary basketball coach John Wooden , Dr Selk has developed a program that is as simple as it is effective. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. You will have to put effort in if you are serious about being successful.   But this is a great way to build up your mental “muscles.”  Dr Selk provides hands-on daily exercises for breaking old, self-defeating patterns of behaviour.

According to Alan Keith of  Genentech  " Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen”. A leader is a person who influences a group of people towards a specific result. But how that person influences varies with the style of the leader. Leadership styles can range from the autocratic (“I’m going to tell you what to do”) to completely free reign (“You do it your way but get it right!”).  The easiest way to think of it, is in three main flavours. Leadership Styles Transactional Leadership Transactional leaders provide rewards if, and only if, people perform as they require and are believed by the leader to work hard enough! This leader wants to contract with you in detail to set the exact reward you will receive for an exact amount of effort. This leader is unlikely to want to change how things are done or to listen to your suggestions for improving things; just make sure the agreed performance goals are met

"For me, leadership is a shared responsibility for creating a better world in which to live and work.  It manifests in our passion to engage others in bringing about purposeful change."  Leading From Within -  Nancy Huber Harvard Business Review on the Mind of the Leader Emotion is not always given its due importance in leadership literature. This is what the Harvard Business Review  has to say about ‘The mind of the Leader’: “If you are looking for leaders, how can you identify people who are motivated by the drive to achieve rather than by external rewards? The first sign is a passion for the work itself — such people seek out creative challenges, love to learn and take great pride in a job well done. They also display an unflagging energy to do things better and are forever raising the performance bar.” Since we can’t all lead, all the time, it is emotion - passion for a particular work - more than intelligence - that can help us find who has the potential for leade