Athena Online has provided video "SmartBytes" featuring Marshall Goldsmith. These "SmartBytes" are similar to the resources that Athena can provide to their customers, featuring many of the management world's top thinkers. Each "SmartByte" contains a two minute video with Marshall's thoughts on a common question concerning coaching for leadership.

Free online videos provided courtesy of AthenaOnline.

Video descriptions below:

Summary: It's important to create an environment for your employees and peers to offer constructive feedback and criticism. The successful we become, the harder it is to accept critical feedback that could very well be accurate and helpful for us to make positive changes in our work and our lives.

Corresponding Article: All of Us are Stuck on Suck Ups

Summary: It has been found that most of us say we hate sucking up behavior yet we surround ourselves by suck ups! The truth is we all have a tendency to encourage favoritism. Discover how to tease out favoritism in your life and get feedback that counts.

Summary: What happens when we succumb to destructive comments? Does our team morale suffer? Yes! What happens to the quality of our teamwork when we verbally attack each other? It deteriorates. So why do we keep doing it? Learn ways to get feedback on how to limit and eliminate your destructive communication.

Summary: We all have a tendency to avoid negative feedback. This is most true of successful people. No one likes to be told that they are doing wrong or are wrong. What are some ways you avoid negative feedback? It can be very hard to face the reality of our own behavior. Have the courage to reach out and find out what's really going on. It's okay, we all mistakes but they cannot be fixed if you avoid uncovering them.

Corresponding Article: Get Out of My Face Time

Summary: Learn how to not delegate more or less, but how to delegate more effectively. Discover ways to dialogue with your staff for ideas on where you can let go more and do things more appropriate for your level as a leader.

Summary: Self-determination is another important characteristic of successful people. People who are doing what they do because they choose to are more committed than those who feel they have to. Success is considered a choice for those who are successful and guess what? This attitude is actually highly correlated with success! However, this self-determination can keep successful people from letting go of a project that obviously won't work because "successful people don't quit."

Summary: Marshall highlights the key differences between a coach and a mentor. Often the two terms are confused and misunderstood as being the same.

Corresponding Article: Avoiding the Superstition Trap

Summary: Successful people have a "Can Do" attitude. They also tend to be superstitious! Believe it or not, the more successful we become, the more superstitious we become. We tend to fall into a trap of confusing correlations with causation. Find out what Marshall means by this and how to avoid copying the traps successful people may fall into.

Corresponding Article: Why Good CEO's Don't Always Win

Summary: Most successful people enjoy winning. However, they can fall into the trap of trying to win too much. The need to win can lead to stressing out over the little battles and not focusing enough of their talents on the big ones. You don't have to be on trivial issues: Leaders are paid to be right on the big issues.

Summary: Over the next 10 years, we are going to see some huge breakthroughs in communication and technology and this will have far reaching impact on leadership development and coaching. Opportunities to learn what you need, when you need, from who you need it, from anywhere in the world will be the way of coaching in the future.

Corresponding Article: Coaching Free Agents

Summary: Today's young employees and leaders consider themselves to be free agents. Learn what Marshall's research has shown about managing these high potential free agents. There are some key points to remember that will help you leverage your work and relationship with this new generation of employees.

Corresponding Article: Try Feedforward

Summary: Learn about this experiential learning exercise on self change. Marshall outlines the steps in this exercise that will help each person in the room begin their journey of self-improvement.

Corresponding Article: Helping Successful People Get Even Better

Summary: What are the keys to helping successful people change? Marshall offers some key steps that will help successful change and become more successful. This goes beyond what makes them tick by providing practical solutions on how to interact and motivate them.

Summary: Related to listening, many of us could benefit from holding back our opinion when others are sharing their ideas and feedback. If you ask for input, is it necessary to give your opinion before you've stopped, listened, taken notes, and thought about what it is they suggested? Commit to listening and trying to do what you can.

Summary: The next time someone comes up to you with an idea that you may already know, fight the tendency to tell them that you already know. Attempt to stop, listen, and commend the person for a great idea.

Summary: A classic dilemma of smart people is having the patience to listen. When other people are speaking, does out behavior show we are listening or are we saying in more ways than one, "shut up," "get on with it," "hurry up!" Learn how to take the time to listen effectively.

Summary: How often do you start a sentence with 'No, But, or However?' How often do you use negative and negating language in your day to day speech? Before speaking, stop, take a breath, listen, and try to start the sentence with, 'yes.'

Summary: What are the unique challenges of helping successful people change? The research has not been done on successful people and how to get them to change. What keeps them from being more successful in other areas? What truly makes successful people tick? Marshall shares with you some of his answers.

Summary: Ever ask yourself why you didn't say more nice things to those that have impacted you in your life? Giving recognition can be difficult but Marshall discusses some practical techniques on how to do it and how not to do it. His advice is simple and clear on how to give positive recognition that is focused and impacting that only takes a couple of minutes a week!

Summary: Marshall provides three basic guidelines on how to respond to 360 feedback and how not to respond. Receiving feedback can be just as difficult as giving feedback because we can feel particularly vulnerable. However, following these guidelines will help you see the benefits and appreciate the advantages to receiving 360 Feedback

Corresponding Article: Retaining Your Top Performers

Summary: Keeping your best people is always a challenge. Be clear on who they are and let them know you appreciate them. Most high potential people would stay if they are recognized and appreciated. Learn this and other ways to retain high impact people.

Summary: It can be hard for successful people to not fight the urge to be right all the time. Consider the cost of victory…does it exceed the value? If it does, Marshall strongly encourages that you don't do it!

Corresponding Article: The Six Question Process

Summary: The secret to effective coaching your team through six basic questions. These questions focus on the company's direction, your team's perception of it, your perception of it, what is going well for both you and your team, and what areas can we all improve. These questions can help us learn more about our selves, our team, our company, and what we want for the future.

Summary: How often do you think before you talk? How often do you speak when angry? What happens when you do? This may be difficult at home as well as at work. However, if we take the time to stop, breath, and think, we can be that much closer to constructive relationships than destructive ones.

Corresponding Article: Adding Value but at What Cost

Summary: Do you find that you are adding to much value? In other words, are you contributions doing more harm than good? Do your suggestions become orders? Before you speak, stop, breathe, and learn to ask yourself one question…is it worth it?

Summary: Marshall offers some simple suggestions on how to value the opinions of others. He highlights choices you can make to help you let go of little points and win the big points. Beyond winning, you can win without having to prove they're wrong!

Summary: Does your company value people? Are you or do you know a leader who yells and can't control his/her anger with his/her people? Do the companies values match the behaviors of the people? Marshall discusses how to reign in our emotions and anger when we feel we may be out of control and avoid destructing the relationships we have with our peers, family, and friends.

Summary: What often make successful people successful can also be the same things that make it difficult to make a long term positive change in behavior. Learn more about how each of the four main areas of what makes people successful can also hinder them from taking their success to the next level.

Corresponding Book: The Leader of the Future

Summary: A recent study conducted of high potential leaders asked what qualities are most important for leaders of the future. Many came up with obvious answers, however there were some unique to our challenges and changes happening now and within the next few years.

Summary: The number one challenge for the leader of the future is to become a great listener. Get in the habit of asking people for input and as they respond, try not to speak. We tend to "grade" or judge ideas and feedback which in turn discourages people from giving us constructive and helpful feedback in the future.

Summary: How does it feel when you are being rushed? How do you think others feel when you are rushing them? A pitfall for many successful people is that they can have very little patience. This behavior can be insulting to those around us who are our top performers. They may not want to deal with your problem with impatience and may leave when you could have spent an extra few minutes listening and being courteous.

Summary: The more successful we become the more optimistic we are in our self-assessment. Successful people can chronically overestimate how good they are compared to their peers to a point of delusion. Believe it or not, this belief in our own greatness is actually correlated with success! The challenges is for successful people to realize that their self-assessment is higher than what others may see and also to accept feedback that is counter to our self image.

Corresponding Article: Why Good CEO's Don't Always Win

Summary: One of the biggest challenges of successful leaders is winning too much! What does this mean? We may spend time trying to be right and win every argument and discussion point when all we are doing is losing respect, losing buy in, and losing relationships. Focus on the big fights and try to shut up about the little issues!