Leaders making difficult choices should learn whether to listen to their head, heart or gut feeling says Karlien Vanderheyden.

Last week April Armstrong (one of our Justice Coaching Center coaches and consultants) and I attended four-day coach certification training on mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques). Over the past two years, I became drawn to the notion (and subsequent research) that our complex neural networks operate in the heart and the gut as well as the brain.

What's Next?

Finding hope in chaos seems an appropriate exploration of the world that has me pondering, “what’s next?” I admit that recent national and global events have left me feeling somewhat down.

Recently I was listening to a radio interview where the interviewee spoke about unfulfilled expectations. Expectations are interesting constructs.

I recently received the gift of pausing and reflecting on authenticity. If you go to thesaurus.com and post the word authentic, you will be given a number of adjectives to describe its essence. Some of them are:

• Validity
• Factualness
• Realness
• Truthfulness

Perspective: A Point of View

I often use the analogy that gaining perspective means you must turn the beach ball to see other colors.  According to dictionary.com, one definition of perspective is: [t]he state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.

Ever sit around a table with your intra and interdependent partners and believe that the verbal consensus to a plan of action is equal to the commitment? Most leader’s have had this experience and scratched their heads when there was a failure to execute an agreed upon strategy and plan of action. We posit that consensus does not equal commitment and that many well-intended leaders fail to recognize the difference.

Our eight-phase model for achieving sustainability puts forth the belief that a leader’s investment at the front end will help ensure a lasting and sustainable outcome.