Kristen Carter is a seasoned communications professional and certified coach who helps business leaders and managers improve their own communications skills and their relationships with peers, subordinates, their own leaders, clients, suppliers – even their families and friends.

A senior manager and consultant herself for more than 20 years in the U.S. and South Africa, Kristen deeply understands the communications challenges and stresses that
face anyone responsible for leading other people. Originally an employee and manager herself in corporations and consulting firms, she now combines that expertise with a variety of coach training and runs her own consulting firm and coaching practice.

Back in the mid-‘90s, when she was simultaneously head of employee communications and the employee satisfaction program for The Liberty Group in Johannesburg, Kristen saw almost daily the impact poor interpersonal skills had on people’s happiness and commitment to their work and to the company.

“Time and again I saw that it wasn’t necessarily someone’s technical expertise that made them good leaders, it was their ability to relate to other people,” Kristen says. “But even the managers whose teams rated them poorly on communications and other interpersonal factors were able to improve their scores if they were willing to be a little introspective and develop their skills.”

That experience led Kristen to develop a newsletter, Communications Brief, designed specifically to help managers improve their interpersonal skills. The blog on this site has the same purpose.

In addition to her corporate expertise, Kristen is also a coach certified in a variety of coaching methodologies that complement her consulting, including:

• The Enneagram in Business, which she uses to help individuals understand their dominant personality style and how that style affects their behavior and the way they interact with others. Enneagram work is also powerful in teams, as it can help explain why each team member behaves the way they do.
• Career Invention, which comes in handy when people feel they might not be in the right job or would like to learn how to draw on their inherent strengths and talents in their current position.
• Conscious Embodiment, which offers valuable techniques for getting and staying calm and focused – these come in really handy when preparing for and engaging in difficult conversations such as performance appraisals.
• Martha Beck Life Coach training, which looks at the person in a much broader framework than their work. Kristen draws on many of these skills and tools when working one-on-one with coaching clients but they can be valuable in team settings as well.