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There are lots of words that describe me. The "professional" ones include: author, speaker, trainer, consultant, facilitator, business owner, Chief Potential Officer The Kevin Eikenberry Group - Your Leadership Help Button (of The Kevin Eikenberry Group) and leader. The "life" ones include: husband, father, son, brother, friend, Purdue Graduate, reader, and learner. The "personal" ones include, Boilermaker fan, farmer's son, tractor collector (yes, the real ones), auction lover and optimist.

All of these things (and more) make me who I am and are relevant to this blog and why it will benefit you.

Below you will find ideas, thoughts and suggested action steps to help you become a more effective leader – whatever your professional and life roles are. The path towards Remarkable Leadership (and a Remarkable Life) is just that - a path. The goal of this blog is to help you on that path, and through learning and action, become your Leadership Help Button.

Coach and Be Coached

Coaching, Love and Belief

by Kevin Eikenberry on March 10, 2010

in Devloping Others, Leadership, Learning

Coach and Be Coached Event!

Coach and Be Coached Event!

If you read my newsletter or follow this blog, hopefully you know about our big Remarkable TV online event next week, Tuesday March 16th from 11 am – 3 pm ET.  It is called Coach and Be Coached and is designed to help all of us reach higher levels of performance through, coaching and being coached! (Learn more and register here)

Given our ongoing planning for this event, I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about coaching.  Here is the quotation I shared with our Powerquotes subscribers last week.

“Coaching is a profession of love. You can’t coach people unless you love them.”

  – Eddie Robinson, Hall of Fame College Football Coach

This may not be a facet of coaching you have considered before, or maybe you are uncomfortable with the word love.   Maybe you don’t think about loving those you coach.   While I would encourage you to think about that, let’s think about a connected or related thought – one that you might feel more comfortable about.

Belief.

Do you want a coach that believes in you?

Of course you do.  You know that belief is a powerful thing, and that if they don’t believe you are capable of improvement they won’t be as diligent or even interested in helping you. (why would they?)

I agree with Eddie Robinson – you can’t coach people (very well) unless you love them.  Even if you aren’t ready to make that leap, you can make this one.  you can’t coach people (at all) unless you believe in them.

Here’s your leadership activity for today:   determine your belief level in those you lead and coach.  If your belief is sagging, explore why, and consider getting a new perspective.

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Rules of Thumb

by Kevin Eikenberry on March 8, 2010

in Books, Leadership, Learning

This week’s Resource Recommendation – Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business without Losing Your SelfBy Alan M. Webber

Among other things, Alan Weber has served as Editor of the Harvard Business Review and is the co-founder of Fast Company magazine. In this book he has taken his experiences from these roles and others (which admittedly have given him access to interesting situations and people), tied them together with his writing skills and created an easy-to-read collection of Rules of Thumb.

Rules of ThumbEarly on he talks about a habit of collecting truths and ideas on 3×5 cards. He took the best of the ideas and insights on those cards and created this book. What it leads to is 52 somewhat random ideas, lessons and, yes, rules of thumb.

Some people love this type of book because each chapter varies, and it moves quickly. It provides bite-sized pieces that can be read in very short periods of time, whenever desired. However, if you prefer or are looking for a treatise on any of these topics, this style and this book won’t be as effective for you.

Overall, I liked the book (or I wouldn’t be recommending it to you, would I?). I found the value of the ideas varied – some were excellent (sorry there are no examples as I am writing this while traveling without the book), others less so, at least for me. Many of the examples and lessons are especially important and relevant if you are interested in starting up a business or are an entrepreneur – but there are MANY that are far broader in their application.

This is a book where you will find nuggets that will teach you, or remind you of, very important lessons to create the business and life you want to have.

Learn More and Purchase

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Five Powers of Coaching

March 8, 2010 Leadership

Spiderman, Wonder Woman and Superman all had super powers; they had special skills that allowed them to be super heroes.
They had great powers given to them at birth that made them special. Generally speaking, they didn’t have to develop those powers, they just had them. We too were born with tremendous skills, but unlike like [...]

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Do We Nurture or Build Relationships?

March 3, 2010 Leadership

Members of the Remarkable Leadership Learning Systemare focusing on the skill of Nurturing Relationships all this month.  In our teleseminar on Monday I explored differences between the words building and nurturing and why those differences matter when thinking aobut relationships, especially as a leader.
When we build something we form or construct or assemble it.  When [...]

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Coach and Be Coached: Coaching to Achieve Remarkable Performance

March 1, 2010 Devloping Others

This week’s Resource Recommendation – Coach and Be Coached: Coaching to Achieve Remarkable Performance – for Others and Yourself! A Remarkable TV Event
We’re are excited to announce that we are tipping off our next Remarkable TV event, Coach and Be Coached, on March 16 at 11am ET.
For 4+ hours I will be interviewing successful coaches [...]

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Seven Leadership Lessons from Great Basketball Coaches

March 1, 2010 Devloping Others

The first thing I remember purchasing with my own money that I earned was a basketball.
As a boy, when I wasn’t working on the farm, often I was shooting baskets. While my high school career stalled for a variety of reasons (being small, 5′9″, and having mononucleosis as a sophomore didn’t help!), I’ve always loved [...]

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Defining Leadership in Six Words

February 28, 2010 Leadership

Yesterday I had the chance to speak with a group of aspiring leaders – high school freshmen from west central Indiana.  Early in my session I asked them to write a definition or description of leadership in exactly six words.  After they had done that individually, I split them into 3 teams to share their [...]

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Coaching Matters

February 24, 2010 Leadership

I promise there are valuable messages in this post – bear with the first couple of paragraphs, ok?
It is after midnight on Wednesday.  I’m sitting at my kitchen table writing this blog post in part, because I can’t sleep.  It is rare that I can’t sleep when I choose to.  Tonight (well, this morning) it is because I [...]

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Don’t Just Stand There, Make a Difference

February 23, 2010 Leadership

I’ve been writing and telling people for a long time that we can all be leaders and that the exciting fact is that leaders can make a difference in the world.  Who wouldn’t want to make a difference in the world?
While I still believe everything in the last paragraph with my whole heart, I’ve been [...]

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Go Givers Sell More

February 22, 2010 Books

This week’s Resource Recommendation – Go Givers Sell More by Bob Burg and John David Mann
In December 2007, I reviewed a business parable called The Go-Giver.
I’ve known for more than a year that a sequel was coming, titled Go-Givers Sell More. The book has just been published, and I just received a copy. I [...]

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