The Great Canadian Leadership Podcast

Empathy in Business

Empathy is one of the most important leadership skills you should be using more often. The research says that 76% of people who experienced empathy from their leaders reported they were engaged, compared with only 32% who experienced less empathy.

Empathy is a crucial business skill because it enables collaboration, motivation, and feeling respected. You create a ripple effect where people’s perspectives and emotions are acknowledged - it doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but they feel heard and understood.

In fact, 67% of people with highly empathic managers report often or always being engaged, compared to only 24% of people with less empathic managers.

In this episode, you’ll find some ideas that can help with building your awareness of empathy and how to make this soft skill a business behaviour.

This episode is called “Empathy in Business”. Our host, Joel Silverstone, shares with you the strategies and insights to make empathy your opportunity to engage and collaborate in your professional (and personal) settings.

This is part of our 4-part series on the soft skills you need for 2023 – Change - Turning Resistance into Resilience, Persuasion in Your Writing and Communication Skills, and Leading Complex Projects with Clarity.

Do you have a question or comment about the episode? We’d love to hear from you and appreciate your thoughts - email us at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

• Check out more free resources on software and soft skills with webinars, blogs, and tools

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Our series on soft skills - Change, Empathy and Persuasion
• Showcasing Your Value
• Great First Impressions - Why They Matter to Employee Retention
• Our series on Teams - Collaboration and Technology

 

Leading Complex Projects with Clarity

When leading a complex project, how do you get to the desired outcome? How do you lead and communicate to motivate and engage towards the outcome?

In this episode, Leading Complex Projects with Clarity, we discuss the importance of the human factor, the people that are going to make this successful. According to our guest, Nada Darwiche, projects are not linear lines and where we get stuck is the ‘on time, on budget’ result. A successful project focuses on the people – making sure they understand the message being delivered and why it matters to them, their team and the organization.

This is part of our 4-part series on the soft skills you need for 2023. Our other three parts are: Change - Turning Resistance into Resilience, Empathy in Business, and Persuasion in Your Writing and Communication Skills.

Our guest, Nada Darwiche, is a Principal at NDC Group and a Sr. Lead Consultant with Optimus SBR. She has more than 20 years of business experience consulting for Fortune 1000 companies in the areas of change management, strategy, project management/implementation, process improvement and pitch development. She has led many client engagements focusing on key strategic initiatives, delivering sustained, bottom-line benefits as well as enhanced key partner relationships.

Listen in as Nada shares her experience as Project Leader #3, how she had to switch hats from project management to change management, and how she dealt with the resistance of teams to get the project back to ‘on time and on budget’!

Check out more free resources on software and soft skills with webinars, blogs, and tools from The Great Canadian Training and Consulting Company.

Do you have a question or comment about the episode? Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Our series on soft skills - Change, Empathy and Persuasion
• Great First Impressions - Why They Matter to Employee Retention
• Showcasing Your Value
• Our series on Teams - Collaboration and Technology

Change - Turning Resistance into Resilience

Have you committed to making a change, or are currently dealing with a change? Maybe it’s your resolution to get fit. Or maybe at work you’re navigating a hybrid environment; your team is having to do more with less and navigate new technology and new roles. Change can be exciting, stressful or a combination of these heightened emotions. Logically, you understand all this – so why is change difficult to implement? 

 

In this episode, you’ll find some ideas that can help with change and relate to the examples of not just dealing with change, but how to build resilience from it.

 

This episode is called “Change - Turning Resistance into Resilience”. Our host, Joel Silverstone, shares with you the strategies and insights to make change an opportunity to move forward and not backtrack or get stuck.

 

This is part of our 4-part series on the soft skills you need for 2023 - empathy in business, persuasion in your writing and communication skills, and leading complex projects with clarity.

 

Do you have a question or comment about the episode? We’d love to hear from you and appreciate your thoughts - email us at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

• Check out more free resources on software and soft skills with webinars, blogs, and tools

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Leading Complex Projects with Clarity
• Our series on soft skills - Change, Empathy and Persuasion
• Defining Your Brand
• Our series on Teams - Collaboration and Technology

Winning the Retention Game Through Renewal

For 2023, it’s not just a ping-pong table that’s going to keep employees (and you) motivated and feeling appreciated. HR trends for 2023 say that organizations will need to focus more on the well-being of employees. A Forbes article shares that 20-50% of all employee attrition is attributed to burnout.

This episode we’re discussing how to win the retention game through the idea of renewal. How do we make people more resilient against burnout? The importance of quality short breaks moves us to a better flow and quality to our work. We have been moving between hybrid, remote, and the office…we start to run out of mental energy, stop making rational decisions and feel stressed. For 2023, it’s important to prioritize renewal. How do you lead that? What does that look and sound like?

We discuss with Kerry O’Brien, Sr. Talent Development PM at Axonify, about how to put renewal into our work and why it impacts the retention and productivity of the people in your organization.

Our guest, Kerry O’Brien, is a 14-year veteran of Talent Development, primarily growing and scaling teams in the tech sector. This experience, combined with his master’s degree in leadership, has led to a leadership practice that centers on self-care, curiosity, and goal achievement. You can hear him on podcasts and keynotes talking about everything from learning frameworks to story crafting to energy management and being a better listener, usually with parenting stories thrown in for good measure.

Burnout is real for an increasing number of people in the workplace. A 2022 study by the McKinsey Health Institute highlighted how the impact of the pandemic has seen burnout levels reach an all-time high, with one in four employees experiencing symptoms of burnout. Microsoft’s Chief People Officer, Kathleen Hogan, encapsulates the challenge as a Human Energy Crisis.

 

Do you have a question or comment about the episode?  Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca.

• Check out more free resources on software and soft skills with webinars, blogs, and tools

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Leading Complex Projects with Clarity
• Our series on soft skills - Change, Empathy and Persuasion
• Our series on Teams - Collaboration and Technology

Shared Experience Extravaganza #3 ”Connecting the Dots in Leadership”

Have you missed an episode? Do you want to strengthen your leadership and communication styles and are looking for the star highlights from the past 6 months? Get ready to take notes, as we bring you the Shared Experience Extravaganza #3 "Connecting the Dots in Leadership."

In this episode, we reflect on the 'Greatest Hits' from our guests and our own experts on leadership and professional skills. These are the themes you can take away from this episode:

• How we think and deal with change
• How we can lead; the skills to develop
• How the future of training may look 
• How we can connect to inspire, persuade, and motivate
• How we can be better presenters and have better presentations
• How we can adapt when we may not have all the answers

Thank you to our guests, amazing leaders and experts who brought their insights, shared their ‘failure ta-da’ moments and inspired passion for leadership and communication styles. 

1. Diane Crawford: “How to Use Neuroscience to Feel More Confident”
2. Rance Greene: “Getting Started with Business Storytelling”
3. David Kelly: “The 9 Behaviours of Leadership Part 1 & Part 2”
4. Betty Dannewitz: “Soft Skills and Virtual Reality”
5. Rhonda Scharf: “What Makes a Great Presenter?”
6. Christine Irons & Jon Neuhold: “What Makes a Great Presentation?”
7. Caroline Cohen: “You Don’t Have to Know it All”

You can’t have an extravaganza without a special guest: Joy Neuhold, Co-Owner of The Great Canadian Training & Consulting Company. Joy Neuhold knew she wanted to be a consultant and start her own business from a young age. After working for a small IT business and then moving up the career path for an insurance company within a year and a half, Joy took a travel break. She came back in 2002 to start what is now The Great Canadian Training & Consulting Company, offering a range of software and soft skills training across North America.

• Do you have a question or comment?  Send us an email at podcast@greatcanadiantraining.ca
• Check out more free resources on software and soft skills with webinars, blogs, and tools

And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming episodes:

• Winning the Retention Game through Renewal
• Leading Complex Teams with Clarity
• And our series on Teams - Collaboration and Technology

You Don’t Have to Know It All

Are you in a new role? New team, responsibilities, skills? Many are changing roles and having to do more with less but still be a leader - so how does one adapt?

It starts with ‘You don’t have to know it all’. In this episode we discuss with our guest Caroline Cohen how to adapt, build trust and delegate - without having all the answers! Caroline went from a learning and development leader to the NEW Head of People & Culture at a new company, industry, and role. Not to mention, this is happening during Covid lockdowns, work from home to hybrid.

• Getting the most from your teams and networks
• Delegating effectively
• Building the right setting for trust
• Communicating a vision

Our Guest Caroline Cohen is the Director of People and Culture at Medisca, a distribution company specializing in pharmaceutical compounding products and services.

Caroline began her career in the area of training development and performance improvement for the airline industry before moving on to a transportation, logistics and supply chain company for which she headed a training department. Caroline has extensive experience at leading teams, managing multiple concurrent projects, implementing processes and, most importantly, approaches her work with the attitude of "anything is possible".

 

Speaking of Leadership skills… At Great Canadian Training we are offering our unique Leadership Packages. You can choose from:

1. LEAD with Trust
2. LEAD Strong Teams
3. LEAD with Executive Presence
4. LEAD Effective Presentations
5. LEAD Your Own Path

Email info@greatcanadiantraining.ca and mention ‘Leadership Packages’ to get more information about these packages and how you can build, develop and stretch your leadership skills.

Top 10 Great Presentation Tips (in 12 minutes)

Are you getting ready to do a presentation soon? You got this - but you would like some more tips and techniques just to feel more confident. In this episode, we’re sharing 12 minutes of our top ten tips to feel ready and confident to not just show up, but to show up as an insightful, engaging and more assured presenter.

This is the final episode of our significant 4 podcasts series on Presentation Skills.

Our host Joel Silverstone will be sharing his experiences as a speaker and presenter to varied audiences globally, from boardrooms to conferences, to the virtual world, as well as coaching hundreds of leaders on their presentation skills.

Joel is the Sr. Professional Skills Facilitator & Coach at The Great Canadian Training and Consulting Company. For over 20 years, Joel has helped leaders and their teams globally feel more confident and impactful with their communication and leadership skills. A former professional actor and improviser, Joel applies those acting skills to being a better presenter.

This episode can help with tips and strategies to make you feel great delivering your next presentation.

Take a few minutes to listen in as our host Joel Silverstone shares ten simple techniques you can use immediately.

 

Speaking of presentation skills… At Great Canadian Training we are offering our unique GREAT Series:

“Become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills”.

• In one day, you will learn powerful skills and tools to connect and engage your audiences by developing and mastering your MS PowerPoint and presentation skills.
• Email info@greatcanadiantraining.ca and mention ‘great’ to get more information about our GREAT Series and how you can become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills.

 

How Great Speakers Overcome Their Fears

Do you have a fear, or feel anxious when it comes to public speaking? You’re not alone - we’re all nervous to speak publicly. In this episode we discuss the tips, techniques and mindset you can use to get past those nerves.

This is episode 3, as part of our significant 4 podcasts series on Presentation Skills.

Where do the nerves come from? Or, as our guest Melina Nacos asks, “What makes you tick?”. What behaviours or beliefs have kept you stuck with your doubts about speaking in public?

We certainly didn’t learn presentation skills at school. We were graded but did we get the tips on being better at it? Not really…  

We discuss:

• Nerves are deep rooted; how do you break that habit?
• Making the uncomfortable feel more natural
• What are the beliefs holding you back?
• How to change your script
• How to be more confident networking in person
• How are you preparing and why does it matter?

Our Guest Melina Nacos is the founder of Melina Nacos Coaching Inc. working with dedicated, thoughtful people, providing support, inspiration, and the direction you need to become the person you've always wanted to be and develop a legacy of positive change. 

For 20 years, Melina has worked with her clients to hone their skills and confidence and empower them to be in service of others for their own success. With a degree from York University and Adult Certification from George Brown College, Melina takes the time to learn each of her clients’ personal traits and build off of them, customizing her service to affect positive changes in defined areas of need.

• Speaking of presentation skills… At Great Canadian Training we are offering our unique GREAT Series: “Become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills”.
• In one day, you will learn powerful skills and tools to connect and engage your audiences by developing and mastering your MS PowerPoint and Presentation skills.
• Email info@greatcanadiantraining.ca and mention ‘great’ to get more information about our GREAT Series and how you can become a Great Presenter with MS PowerPoint and Presentation Skills.