Photo by dominikgolenia

Positive words are as refreshing and life giving as water is to life. Words can hurt and shock, or they can heal and lift spirits. Words can change life for better or for worst.

Leaders use power and influence in many different ways and with different results. Some seem to feel the only way to influence people is by using negative words, threats, and criticism. People respond out of fear. Others are able to move people harmoniously toward exceptional results through positive words and influence. Today I invite you to reflect in the kind of power and influence you want to wield. I posit that positive influence is more desirable, leaves less “collateral damage,” and gets better results.

Steps. Photo by Ada Gonzalez via Flickr

I’m in front of a long staircase that will take me to interesting and challenging places. As I look up, I’m daunted by the challenge. I’m already tired from wandering, exploring, trying to understand, making connections, finding new ways..

Suddenly, I understand: all I need to do is commit to take the first step. And then take the next, and the next. Once I get to the top I’m exhilarated. The view, new perspectives, new possibilities, new choices, new languages, new collaborations..

Masks. Photo by robynejay via Flickr

Honesty has to do not only with what we say, but with our authenticity and integrity. It first requires honesty with ourselves. To have honest conversations, we need to take off our masks and present our authentic self. To share with integrity our thoughts and feelings. If you want to know more about my thoughts on Authenticity, take a look at last year’s blog: Mind Reading 101 for Leaders: 2 - Be Authentic. Today we are going to focus on how we can successfully hold those honest conversations.

Honest Dialogue. Photo by Ada Gonzalez via Flickr

I believe that honest conversations are essential for successful leadership. In working with leaders I have seen the problems that occur when leaders are not forthright in their communications.

According to recent research, organizations that have leaders that engage others in open and honest communication perform in the top half, and in some areas in the top quartile, of their industry. What makes some leaders more open than others to honest conversations?

Photo by Ada Gonzalez

We sit in a circle in an array of comfortable couches and chairs. There is a low coffee-table in the middle with objects that represent basic elements needed for successful conversations: a candle for the fire of passion that includes dissent, suffering, confusion, as well as possibilities, transformation, and warmth; a shell to represent the calm, clarity, and soothing power of water, as well as its power, danger, and energy for change; and a wooden basket full of chocolate, to represent the need for a nurturing container that will bring safety, trust, and comfort to the conversations we are going to engage in over the course of the three days executive retreat we are starting; a talking stick to remind us of the need to follow good dialogue guidelines.

Image courtesy of fbobolas via Flickr

At the end of year we tend to get bombarded with all kinds of writings regarding New Year’s Resolutions. Yet, I agree with Mike Brown in Brainzooming and with the study reported recently in The Guardian that most New year's resolutions are doomed to failure, because of the way they are made. They tend to be too vague, general, and with no thought for how to achieve the goal.

By the beginning of February, most people and organizations don’t even remember anymore what their New Year’s resolutions were. Many have given up on even trying to anything about them. That is why I want to make a case for finding a way of keeping New Year’s resolutions. It only requires a few tweaks. . . It’s relatively easy if you decide to REWIRE your brain to create your future

Have been there. . . Photo by littletriggers via Flickr

The end of the year tends to be conducive to thinking about past and future. Today I was reading in the New York Times The Big Zero by op-ed columnist Paul Krugman. He names this decade "The Big Zero" because he contends this “was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.”

Worst yet, besides zero job creation, zero economic gains for the typical family, zero gains for homeowners, zero gains for stocks, “what was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.” He concludes that this was “the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing.” If true, what a bleak, sad, and unfortunate statement!