Category: Relationships
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Workplace conflict: how to nip it in the bud
You’ve noticed things don’t seem too cheery in the office. There’s palpable tension in the Comms team and you’re beginning to wonder what on earth is going on. Did Hannah really walk out of the room the minute Sam walked in last week? And that sniping in the yesterday’s meeting! What was that all about?…
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Conflict at Work: Four Foolproof Phrases to Avoid it
There are now 68 million refugees and displaced people in the world. My teenage daughters and I heard this shocking statistic the other day from a UN spokesperson in a breakfast interview as we headed off to school, exams and coaching. It stopped us in our tracks. What the interviewee said next was scary. “The…
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Strong and stable or weak and wobbly?
I was talking with one of my coaching clients yesterday. She’s the director of a social enterprise in Manchester and was sharing how challenged she’d been by how to ‘be’ with her team after the recent terrorist attack. I really felt for her. There was a lot of anxiety and disbelief in the office and she…
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It’s lonely at the top
Do you ever get to the end of a week at work and feel as if you’ve just sailed single-handedly across a vast ocean? You’ve managed a dozen mini crises. Had a multitude of conversations. Made some easy and some difficult decisions and steered the organisation, as successfully as you know how, through the ebbs…
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Loneliness at work – what you can do
A while ago I worked for a large UK charity where I shared space with four colleagues in a bright, well-equipped office. There were dozens of others working on my floor. The organisation employed hundreds of people around the country. And yet, I was thoroughly lonely. On paper, the job was perfect, but sharing an office with heads-down introverts where…
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Is there anybody there? How to ensure your people have a voice
I was talking to one of my third sector coaching clients the other day about someone in her team who’s giving her a hard time. They’re withdrawn and passively disruptive but won’t open up to her as a senior leader. She knows it’s her responsibility to help close that ‘them and us’ gap and is at…
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Is a difficult colleague getting to you?
One of my coaching clients is having a really hard time at his job with a third sector organisation. A difficult colleague is making his life very tough. She’s blocking his ideas. Blanking him in the corridor. Undermining him in meetings. And it’s really beginning to take its toll. He’s stressed and anxious most of…