Sabina Nawaz, a former Microsoft team member and now an executive coach with clients in 22 countries, says empathy is a critically important skill to have, but many leaders don’t do it well. In particular, she points to five things that leaders should never do when they’re trying to be empathetic. 1. Don’t tell others you know how they feel Says Nawaz: “We each experience events uniquely. We can’t truly know how someone else feels, so saying, ‘I know how you feel’ comes across as presumptuous or condescending. Your intent is to connect, but it can have the opposite effect....

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By Owen Phelps, Ph.D. Director, Yeshua Institute Our church’s feast on Nov. 1, All Saints Day, is one of my favorites. It reminds me that the church’s leadership does not have a monopoly on designating saints – and doesn’t want one. Yes, of course the church’s highest leadership, in this case the pope, reserves for himself the right to designate – canonize – official saints of the church who are held up around the world as models for us to imitate. And the pope’s declaration comes only at the end of a formal process outlined in detail by church law. Even so, up un...

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If you’re one of the thousands who have participated in a Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus Encounter, perhaps it’s time to start sharing the life-changing experience with others. You can do that as a Certified Facilitator of the program – something that is free and easy to obtain if you can find your way to Rockford, IL, on Saturday, Nov. 18. The Yeshua Institute is offering a free Facilitator Training session from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center, 200 South Bell School Rd., just west of the I-90 E. State Street exit. The Institute is even throwing in a free con...

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It has been our dream at the Yeshua Catholic International Leadership Institute to begin making The Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus more accessible to Catholics everywhere around the world. One of our strategies has been to begin offering webinars. But frankly it’s been a struggle to evaluate the cost and features of all the various webinar software packages on the market. Every time we get back to our evaluation there is new software on the market – and many of the old packages have been updated and/or re-priced, making much of our prior research obsolete. So to date we haven’t made any d...

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By Owen Phelps, Ph.D. Director, Yeshua Institute This isn’t patting ourselves on our back or feathering our own nest – although we are incredibly blessed to have Father David Beauvais on our Yeshua Team. The truth of the matter is that his selfless service over more than 50 years of priesthood would have brought him his most recent reward – and a host of others – even if he wasn’t part of our team. Still, I feel honored to report on the latest recognition he has received for his incredible service to his church, its people and the larger world. From my perspective, he is a model Je...

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Anyone who has ever participated in a Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus Encounter is being invited to become a Facilitator of the program at a free training session in Rockford, IL. The training session is set for Saturday, Nov. 18, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center, 200 South Bell School Rd., just west of the I-90 E. State Street exit. We’re even throwing in a free continental breakfast, provided by the Yeshua Institute. The training will certify participants as Facilitators of the Catholic Vision for Leading Like Jesus Encounter, which means you will lead the Encounter...

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To be sure, the incredibly successful online search company Google does not teach its people how to Lead Like Jesus. But sometimes it’s interesting – even enlightening – to step outside our explicitly Christian approach to leadership to see how others are nurturing leaders. Very often, while the language is different, the basic concepts are remarkably similar. After studying more than 10,000 data points regarding performance reviews, surveys, and nominations for top-manager awards and recognition, Google identified six key attributes it tries to instill in its managers. Here they are: 1. Minds...

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By Owen Phelps, Ph.D. Director, Yeshua Institute Early in our Catholic Leading Like Jesus Encounter experiences, we show a short video that depicts Jesus’ encounter with James and John – and their mother – in the Gospel of Matthew (20:20-28). Whatever else it is, it is certainly an awkward moment for Jesus – and quite possibly for James and John, who may have had no clue that their mother would choose this moment to play the role of the proverbial stage mom. As it turns out, that one awkward moment begets another soon after. But as you might expect, Jesus is up to handling both of them w...

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By Owen Phelps, Ph.D. Director, Yeshua Institute So there I was, on a porch overlooking a lovely pond, the branches of the trees between me and the water waving to catch my attention. I was soaking in the glories of God’s country. Or I should have been. Instead, I was peering down onto my phone screen, checking my email for the umpteenth time in the last half hour – in that moment totally oblivious to all the majestic beauty in which I was actually immersed. It made no sense at all. I was in a place I had dreamed of for decades. And when I found it, I designed the porch to provide this pricele...

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By Owen Phelps, Pd.D. Director, Yeshua Institute Today, Oct. 4, is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, perhaps the second most beloved saint of all after the Blessed Virgin Mary. And a wonderful way to mark the occasion would be to order and read Leading Like Francis – Building God’s House by Carl Koch, a Fellow with the Yeshua Instiute. About the saint Born in 1181 or 1182 into a wealthy family, Francis first reveled in the high life of a rich young man, but then famously rejected all of the trappings of wealth and adopted a life marked by simplicity, kindness, love and devotion. People and ...

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