December 2016

Dear Colleague,
Happy Holidays!!

December is a great time to reflect on the year including all of our accomplishments, opportunities and learnings. Another important ritual is to plan for the new year ahead. One thing I have gotten in the routine of doing for many years is blocking off two hours on the second Friday in December to do my goal setting for the following year. This has resulted in more accountability for myself with quarterly reviews as well as successfully achieving my goals. I encourage you to consider doing the same. Going through this process each year allows us to appreciate our blessings, be truly grateful for the positive experiences we have enjoyed, reflect on learnings we have gained, and start the new year with focus and purpose. Take some time to invest in yourself, make your career planning a priority, celebrate your successes, stretch in new ways and continue building on a strong foundation.

I wish you and yours a very happy, healthy, safe and prosperous holiday and 2017! I continue to be so thankful for my family, friends, colleagues, clients and contacts…and to be able to do what I love and call it work! My specialty areas continue to be in executive coaching, career coaching, team coaching, leadership development, management training and career development. Thank you for your continued business, referrals and support! Look for many of my offerings in these areas in the year ahead!

Please take a moment to read and/or share some of my recent blogs, articles and podcasts below.

Best Regards,

Rita Balian Allen

The Necessity of Owning Your Career

A Podcast with Caroline Dowd-Higgins

The Value of Coaching - A Business Strategy for Competitive Edge

By: Rita Balian Allen, Rita B. Allen Associates
Published on The Huffington Post

Executive coaching has become a highly desirable offering in many successful companies and viewed as an effective retention tool. Organizations that want to invest in their talented executives, leaders and managers will partner them with a coach as a proactive developmental strategy. They appreciate the value they bring to the organization and would like to provide additional resources to enable them to grow and progress further. It is development based and focused on the individual's growth. It's an investment not only in the individual, but also in the department, function and organization. Providing the benefit of coaching acknowledges individual talents and potential as a business strategy. It embraces and enacts a culture that truly believes human capital is their greatest asset and the foundation of gaining a competitive edge within the marketplace.

The ultimate objective of a coach is to earn trust, build a relationship and create a partnership with the individual they are coaching. The objective of the partnership is...

Read the full article, "The Value of Coaching - A Business Strategy for Competitive Edge"...

5 Ways to Build Emotionally Intelligent Leaders in Your Organization

By: Rita Balian Allen, Rita B. Allen Associates
Published on L&MB

Emotional intelligence has been identified as a strong indicator and even predictor of effective leadership. It has been studied and researched resulting in evidence that strongly suggests that organizations with emotionally intelligent leaders results in a higher return on investment. We have all read that EQ is defined as our ability to identify and manage our own emotions as well as recognize that of others and groups. It requires effective communication between the rational and emotive centers of our brain – it represents the path between feeling and reason. The brain science surrounding EQ is quite powerful and compelling. As reported by Daniel Goleman...

Read the full article, "5 Ways to Build Emotionally Intelligent Leaders in Your Organization"...