News & Insight

Richard Sackett brings over 20 years of experience in guiding leaders’ development, particularly in the areas of Executive Presence, Communication, Influencing Style and Leadership Skills. His background as a Licensed Psychologist has enabled him to develop a keen understanding of the attitudes and behavioral habits that are employed by the most successful leaders across industries. Richard is known for his detailed assessments of leaders’ mindsets, emotional strengths and weaknesses and behavioral patterns and pinpointing where growth and development are needed. He is highly skilled at delivering sensitive feedback in an actionable manner and imparting direction and encouragement in a way that executives find highly effective.

Richard has coached top leaders at a wide array of companies, including those in Financial Services, Professional, Pharmaceuticals, Media and Communications and Technology. He has coached individuals in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Executive coaching works best with adequate follow up. Without it, long-term commitment to personal change can be short lived. The effort to find just the right coach is wasted if insights gained do not lead to sustainable change.

Some executives know what they should do differently without coaching but their motivation to change doesn’t last longer than their New Year’s resolutions. The key to successful change is to support coaching with essential follow up processes.

Since disappearing nearly two weeks ago, speculation regarding the whereabouts of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 has been rampant. Families of the passengers have suffered from long delays in getting information. And when updates do come, they’ve been muddled - filled with incorrect, vague or contradictory statements. Traditional/online news outlets, and social networks have filled the information vacuum with theories and rumors of terrorism, hijacking, electrical fires, meteors and government cover-ups.

Malaysia's response has been overseen personally by its Prime Minister, who in turn put his cousin in charge of the day-to-day interactions with the media. These leaders represent a government that has been in power for 57 years and hasn’t had a lot of practice being held accountable by its people, or scrutinized by the dozens of other countries it is trying to lead in an enormous search and rescue effort.

WJM Senior Coach Alan Siegel has been coaching senior leaders and high-potential executives for over 25 years throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. As an organizational psychologist, he brings a uniquely broad perspective to his coaching, viewing his work as providing a “practice field” for a leader to explore and develop strategies and actions for greater impact.

Going beyond the typical “skills and tools”, Alan has the leader focus on how he/she shows up in the world: how language, emotions, and body presence serve or hinder them from attaining desired results. Alan creates a safe environment for insight, courageous dialogue, and focused action. Alan ensures that the coaching is embedded in real business challenges and linked to valued personal/business outcomes.

After an impressive short program in Sochi last week, 19-year old figure skater Jason Brown from Highland Park, Illinois, put himself into medal contention in his debut Olympics. If he reached the podium, he would be the youngest Olympic figure skating medalist since Viktor Peterenko in 1988.

Brown’s exuberant, joyful style has made him a crowd favorite. His routine at the 2014 U.S. Championships has racked up over 4 million views on YouTube. His ponytail is famous for having its own Twitter feed. His blend of technical skill and artistic sensitivity has made him one of the most popular skaters on the planet.

You are a senior leader in your organization (or hope to be one day) and you’ve decided to engage the services of an executive coach. Congratulations! Partnering with the right executive coach can be a tremendous catalyst in helping you achieve meaningful and long-lasting development as a leader.

But how to choose one?

Each month, WJM highlights a Faculty member who has distinguished him/herself by delivering high-impact executive coaching or other leadership development services for WJM’s client companies.

WJM Senior Coach Carolyn Ott partners with corporate leaders to maximize their ability to influence and inspire others. Known for her Stakeholder Mapping process for aligning senior teams, Carolyn’s innovative program designs have received international recognition from the Organization Development Institute. Carolyn has worked with senior staff and teams in the Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Financial Services, Technology, Energy, Utilities, Manufacturing, Entertainment, Telecommunications, and Non-Profit industries.

Fending off a scandal that could threaten his career, the question hanging over New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is not “what do traffic jams in Fort Lee, NJ have to do with the 2016 Presidential race?”, but rather, “what does this political crisis tell voters about Christie’s ability to effectively lead NJ, and perhaps someday, the U.S.?”

Being in the business of assessing leadership effectiveness, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at Christie’s behavior in response to the current political crisis, and with the help of Dr. Robert Patraw, one of WJM’s resident personality experts, review the talents and challenges that a leader with Christie’s (hypothetical) personality might exhibit.

Roughly 18% of companies currently use personality tests in the hiring process, according to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management. This number is growing at a rate of 10-15% a year according to many industrial and organizational psychologists, as well as the Association for Test Publishers.

When used correctly, cognitive and personality tests can increase the chances that new employees will succeed. Since the cost of a bad hire is widely estimated to be at least one year’s pay, there are huge incentives for organizations to get hiring right. Unfortunately, too many organizations use the wrong psychometric assessments in the wrong way. Here’s what organizations need to know in order to minimize potential risks and maximize the predictive accuracy of these tests.

The Client

Public Services Enterprise Group (PSEG) is a publicly traded diversified energy company with revenues of over $9 billion. The company was named to Fortune Magazine’s 2012 List of Most Admired Companies.