Join me as we explore my latest coaching insights.

08 Dec

Posted at 10:38h in Miscellany by
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Happy holidays to all my clients and followers of Letting go. Stepping up; it 's a time to reflect and recharge. Have a restful and reflective break and return in 2015 to focus on those aspects of your life and career that are most important to you. In doing so, please browse some of my favourite posts of the past year.

24 Nov

Posted at 17:42h in Influencing others by
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Late yesterday Bob, one of my high-flying clients in a listed corporation, called me in a perplexed state. He was wondering about how he could influence others when making decisions. During the day he had landed in a near shouting match with his favourite direct report, and later with his boss, the chief executive, he had enjoyed ‘one of the best one-on-ones we have ever had’. In both conversations substantial decisions were scheduled for immediate action. Driving home, he couldn’t for the life of him understand why they felt so different, so he called me.

29 Oct

Posted at 21:03h in Career transitions by
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I'll call her Jess and through her story show how when one door closes you can open the next one. Jess was making her rise through the corporate ranks look easy. Her company promoted Jess ahead of her peers. Making her sales budget was a breeze for Jess who worked extraordinarily hard, often sacrificing her private life for the job. Overall, life felt good. Abruptly, all this changed.

30 Sep

Posted at 03:17h in Happiness by
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Last month my post titled ‘It is possible to be happier, but not for the reasons you may think’ generated a good deal of interest. So much so in fact that I searched for more practical guidance on what you can do to be happier. Here's some key things we've learning about happiness through science, courtesy of Mindful newsletter columnist Stephany Tlalka (whose helpful synopsis of current research I quote and gratefully acknowledge).

16 Sep

Posted at 08:04h in Curiosity by
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Curiosity killed the cat refers in everyday parlance to the dangers of needless risk-taking and experimentation. But a lack of curiosity is what kills many an executive’s career. This is a story about Luke Potter (pseudonym) who believed the reasons for his previous success as a CEO could easily be transferred to his new role. Luke is still wondering why he failed and why he was asked to leave.

26 May

Posted at 09:13h in Career development by
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Working with a client in his late-50s I asked, “James will you live your last 20 summers to the full?” I wasn’t suggesting I was prescient about the actuarial probability of his lifespan. But I was wanting to give him a wake-up call. James had it all wrong in my opinion. I use ‘your last 20 summers’ as a metaphor for the period after you leave your full-time role in an organisation and I suggest all of us should plan to generate good income during our ‘last 20 summers’. Here’s why I think James had it wrong.

08 Mar

Posted at 09:01h in Career transitions by
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For leaders, it is important to replace your musts and shoulds with wants and wishes. Every truly effective leader senses this, yet too few recognise that this simple formula empowers them to respond and act in an emotionally intelligent way to stressful situations. When you replace your musts and shoulds with wants and wishes you avoid the traps that create stress, sap your energy and distract you from the main game.

12 Feb

Posted at 11:33h in Leadership by
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My January 2014 post is about how to become an authentic leader. Authentic leadership is about your self-concept and the relationship between your self-concept and your actions as a leader. So I was delighted when one of my regular readers was inspired to send me this piece of wisdom from best-selling author and spiritual guide Deepak Chopra in The Soul-Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential for Greatness: ‘Leaders and followers co-create each other. They form an invisible spiritual bond. Leaders exist to embody the values that followers hunger for, while followers fuel the leader’s vision from inside themselves.’

27 Jan

Posted at 12:12h in Leadership by
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In December last year my post ‘To be an authentic leader, first be true to yourself’ caused many to write and call. How to become an authentic leader was a common theme in these conversations. This post, Construct your life story and develop as an authentic leader, shows how by constructing your life story you can develop as an authentic leader. Let me explain.

22 Dec

Posted at 16:05h in Miscellany by
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This is my final post for 2013. It’s my opportunity to reflect on the joys of working with wonderful clients, teaching and learning through my blog, continuing to build my practice as an executive coach and being a non-executive director of two professional services firms. Merry Christmas to all my followers. Have a restful and reflective break and return in 2014 to focus on those aspects of your life and career that are most important to you. In doing so, please browse my favourite posts of 2014. Perhaps you’ll let me know which one/s you found most useful and why. Drop me an email at margaret@beatonexecutivecoaching.com.

02 Nov

Posted at 12:52h in Career transitions by
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Break is the important part of breaking through when you make any significant life-career change. You need to leave aspects of your past behind to move on, out or up. And when you make the break you will find new energy and creativity emerge, enabling you to think and act differently. Here’s why and how to make your break.

22 Sep

Posted at 12:17h in Career transitions, Page: Transition Coaching by
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The thought that ‘you will miss the road to your future’ is taken from Charles Handy’s great book The Empty Raincoat. Among the many gems in The Empty Raincoat, Handy explores one of the paradoxes of being successful. What helped you to get to where you are today is most unlikely to be what will keep you there in the future, let alone drive you to greater heights.

30 Aug

Posted at 18:19h in Career transitions, Page: Margaret Beaton by
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Seven shifts are necessary for you to step up from a technical or functional role into one of business unit or organisational leader for the first time. There is always a significant transition when a leader takes on a new role. And the transition is biggest when it’s into general management. This is the most challenging for any leader to make. Here’s why. And the seven shifts that assure success.

15 Jul

Posted at 13:57h in Career development by
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In our parents’ time adult life had three periods each with a clear finish line. For professional people these periods were education (i.e. development that ended with a graduation ceremony), work (i.e. productivity that ended with a ‘gold watch’ presentation) and retirement (i.e. a period of leisure that ended in death). But today it’s quite different. For our generation retirement isn't a period or even an event for that matter. There is no finish line that demarcates the end of work. Here’s why understanding this is so important and why planning for it is essential.