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Guest post by: Kim Freedman
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Listen and Learn

Listening isn't just a nice to have soft skill. With organizations and individuals so fervently focused on the bottom line, actively listening has never been as important as it is now. A focus on listening can lead to more effective teamwork, higher productivity, fewer conflicts and errors, enhanced innovation and problem-solving, improved recruiting and retention, superior customer relations and more. As authors on leadership development have noted through the years, listening is not just a nice thing to do, it’s essential!

The One Word That Can Shift Your Thinking

Nothing stops initiative and innovation faster than “Yes, but….” Or, “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” You might as well say “No.” It’s not just about semantics. In fact, “Yes, but” may be the No. 1 phrase for killing personal hope, putting great ideas on ice and threatening innovation in organizations. The words we use reflect our thinking. Are your words positive and expansive or negative and restrictive? Try using the phrase 'yes, and' to shift your thinking and see new possibilities.

Stop Reinventing the Wheel: Create Systems to Save Time and Money

Most of us run our lives on a handful of systems. Between our smart phones, calendars, and our e-mail inboxes, we have organized ourselves and our time. And if you ever doubt the importance of these systems, recall your panic the last time you couldn’t access your email or your hard drive crashed. Yet as important as these systems are, most of us don’t take advantage of what systems can do to improve our businesses and simplify our lives. Systems are simply ways of automating or structuring processes so that they can occur systematically without so much thought or attention-and by more than just one person, so that the business can continue to run if the owner takes a vacation.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Studies have shown that the negative effects of workplace conflict can reduce team productivity by as much as 50 percent. Most people would agree that in our increasingly competitive global marketplace, anything that gets in the way of productivity is a serious issue. Conflict in and of itself is not a problem. Rather, it is the negative byproducts of unresolved and mismanaged conflict that are the problem. Unresolved interpersonal conflict can escalate and manifest itself in such ugly behaviors as backstabbing, gossiping, withholding information, judging, and undermining. This article looks at the most common cause of conflict and offers advice on how to respond when you find yourself in a conflict situation.

Promotion Panic

It happens every day in the corporate world, good individual performers are promoted before they are ready to take on a leadership role. And, if these new team leaders, supervisors, and managers receive any leadership development at all, it is a short training class covering operational procedures and the major employment laws. In a poll, one in five business leaders ranked promotion as the most challenging life event they have had to face – more challenging than the death of a loved one, divorce, or moving. This article offers some advice for newly promoted leaders.

Bad News Doesn't Improve with Age

Got bad news to deliver? Start talking! It’s almost impossible for a leader to over-communicate during such difficult times as impending layoffs, leadership shakeups, news-breaking scandals, and mergers and acquisitions. This article provides a cautionary tale of waiting too long to share bad news.

It's About Time: The Path to Productivity

How well do you manage your time? Do you sometimes feel like you spend most of your work day putting out fires instead of being productive? Often it seems we’re so busy putting out those daily fires that we don’t ever get to accomplish anything of real significance—those things that would make us the most successful in the long run. Every day becomes something to “get through” instead of an exciting path to greater fulfillment. We all have the same amount of time; it's what we do with the time we have that makes the difference.

The Leader As Coach

With the changing demographics of the workforce - retirement of the Boomers and entry of Gen Y - as well as the prevalence of distributed work teams, there is a growing trend for managers to take more of a coach-like approach to leading their teams, especially when those teams are made up of knowledge workers. This article looks at how coaching is different from traditional management and identifies three crucial skills for effective coaching in the workplace.

5 Common Mistakes That New Leaders Make

Moving from an individual performer role into management can be a challenging transition. Quite often, individual performers are promoted before they are ready to take on a leadership role. And once on the job, these new supervisors, team leaders, and managers struggle to develop the skills they need to succeed. Most experienced leaders will admit to having made more than a few mistakes, especially during their younger years. This article looks at five of the more common mistakes that newly promoted leaders tend to make.

Active Listening: A Critical Success Factor

In management and sales, active listening is a critical success factor. A focus on listening can lead to more effective teamwork, higher productivity, fewer conflicts and errors, enhanced innovation and problem-solving, improved recruiting and retention, superior customer relations and more. As authors on leadership development have noted through the years, listening is not just a nice thing to do, it’s essential!

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About the Author: Kim Freedman

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Kim Freedman, President of Catalyst Leadership Coaching, LLC, works with business leaders who want to stop fighting fires and start empowering and engaging their team members. She also works with career-minded women who want it all - the 'big' job and a fulfilling life outside of work. Kim's tool box includes coaching, training, assessments, and mentoring. Visit Catalyst Leadership Coaching to read Kim's blog and to sign up for her monthly newsletter - Momentum: Leading at Work and in Life. Please also visit and LIKE Kim's business fan page on Facebook.

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More from Kim Freedman
The Leader As Coach
Listen and Learn
The One Word That Can Shift Your Thinking
Bad News Doesnt Improve with Age
Stop Reinventing the Wheel Create Systems to Save Time and Money

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