Joe Contrera is the Founder and President of ALIVE @ WORK LLC, a leadership development company dedicated to helping Extraordinary Leaders Achieve Extraordinary Results. He is the author of three books. His latest, Extraordinary Results: Mastering the Art of Leading, Coaching, & Influencing Others, is quickly becoming a must-have resource for leaders in organizations across the country. It will not only change what you believe about leading, it will help you build your leadership skills so that you can successfully influence others.
Defining Leadership … I’m an Excellent Driver Defining leadership is about as easy as trying to describe the experience of tasting chocolate to someone who has never experienced sweets. Why? Because everyone has a vastly different opinion about how to define leadership. I once heard a so-called expert on everything define driving in traffic and not…
How To Achieve the Results You Want in Life If asked, “Do you know how to achieve the results you want in life?” How would you answer? If then asked, “Are you as successful or happy as you want to be?” How would you answer those questions? We’ve all heard the saying that happiness is…
Influence: The Power of Failure … One way to more powerfully influence others is to leverage your failure. People don’t realize the power of failure and how it actually creates an opportunity to be more influential than if they succeeded the first time. Let me explain … A lot of folks won’t experiment, try, or…
Leadership, Influence & Communication: The Power of Story Your ability to lead others is directly tied to your ability to influence them. One of the tools you can use to more powerfully influence others is the use of story in your interactions. Stories can magnify a point or grab an audiences attention during a presentation.…
A colleague and I were having a conversation about the overall effectiveness of leadership training. Both of us have been coaching and developing leaders for more than twenty years and so comparing notes was both an enlightening and educational. While discussing some of the challenges we came to the conclusion that there are certain factors…
A colleague and I were having a conversation about the overall effectiveness of leadership training. Both of us have been coaching and developing leaders for more than twenty years and so comparing notes was both an enlightening and educational. While discussing some of the challenges we came to the conclusion that there are certain factors…
A colleague and I were having a conversation about the overall effectiveness of leadership development programs. Both of us have been coaching and developing leaders for more than twenty years and so comparing notes was both enlightening and educational. While discussing some of the challenges, we came to the conclusion that there are certain factors…
Why Leadership Development Fails or When Ads Subtract Yesterday, I sat down at my computer after being away for a few days to catch up on the latest news so I opened up my web browser and clicked on an article. In less than a nanosecond my screen was filled so many ads that I…
The A.R.T. of the Question – More Powerful Than a Locomotive (Part 4/4) I was working with a Fortune 100 client for a couple of years. Not long ago he made the decision to take his team through our Leadership Development Program, The Art of Leading, Coaching, & Influencing Others ®. During one of our group…
The A.R.T. of Questioning Others – (Part 3 of a 4 Part Series) Asking great questions is an art. Questions have to be simple, well thought-out, and you have to be patient. The challenge for most leaders is that in coaching conversations they get impatient. Task-driven leaders may approach these types of conversations as an item to check off their…