1) Self-compassionate leadership and strengths at work In our group workshops, we explore research about people’s attitudes toward their strengths. Seventy percent find it hard to articulate where their strengths lie clearly. This, combined with our caveman brain negativity bias to dwell on negative feedback and remember peak negative experiences, can undermine our levels of wellbeing and confidence. Negativity bias might come
Unlocking the Power of Understanding: What Motivates Your Colleagues? Whether you are a team leader, new in a work role or a student, understanding another person’s “why” is an essential collaboration and life skill. Some of our clients are natural super communicators and collaborators. They understand that through curiosity and genuine interest in another person, they can deepen their understanding
Applied Positive psychology – playing to your strengths In our introduction to strengths workshops, we often ask people to reflect on the VIA strengths list of 24 and pick two strengths they thought were most important to them in helping guide their actions in the coming months. VIA stands for values in action and subtly differs from the strengths-profile assessment
Strengths-based feedback – creating the conditions for connected conversations at work In our Breathe Australia communication programs giving and receiving strengths-based feedback is a key element of positive communication. If you are on one of programs read through the information in your workbooks and watch the following videos. In this newsletter we explore simple ideas for giving and receiving feedback,
Building stress resiliency If you have completed one of our workshops with our stress resiliency experts, Andy Roberts or Dr Delia McCabe, you will already know some powerful insights from the session. Here are some of the main takeaways: When we face an emotional trigger, we might engage in the stress response or SNS. This prepares us to fight, run
A guide to emotional intelligence in leadership The ABC “This Working Life” podcast with Dr Kirstin Ferguson, explores several important leadership concepts. This a link to the article at the bottom of this short article. Ferguson’s leadership framework contains eight abilities vital for the modern leader (four capabilities, which are head-based and four heart-based.) Head-based Heart-based In her book, “Head
Recognise, celebrate, and share each other’s strengths – using VIA to build a strengths-based culture at work This three-minute article provides tips and tools for interpreting your strengths profile results and using them to build resilience, increase energy at work and when studying, collaborate better with colleagues and build focus. At Breathe Australia, we often use an open-source assessment of
Emotional contagion and the role of positivity in leadership Emotions and energy levels flow between teammates; one of the most important people setting the tone in a team is its leader or leaders. It’s natural that energy levels ebb and flow in any team – there are always challenges, setbacks and disagreements. And although full transparency of information between teammates
Recognising our own emotions and their impact on effectiveness and collaboration – the bedrock of emotional intelligence at work The better we are at describing an emotion, the more likely we are to understand what it may feel like in another person. If we can imagine the other person’s feelings, we are more likely to empathise. And if we can
