As your role grows in scale and influence, so too must your ability to listen. But listening is one of the toughest skills to master — and requires uncovering deeper barriers within oneself.

Take, for example, our client, Janet, a successful principal in a management consulting firm.  She recently received 360-degree feedback from colleagues that she needed to improve her listening skills.  This confused her — she had always thought of herself as an active listener.  When we asked her colleagues why, they described how she wouldn’t exactly answer questions in meetings — and how she often had different takeaways from the rest of the team.  Janet wanted to explore what was happening.  It seemed simple enough, and yet why was she having trouble? The key, ironically, is to focus on yourself. READ ARTICLE

According to a study at Sun Microsystems, mentees were promoted five times more often than those without a mentor. Eighty-eight percent of respondents to a Center for Creative Leadership survey believe that having a mentor is useful for career development. It never hurts to have a few good mentors behind you. But what happens when a good mentor goes bad?     READ ARTICLE