The Look & Sound of Leadership

A highly effective leader finds herself in the middle of a terrible mess, not of her own making. When her coach marvels at her ability to stay calm amidst the chaos, she shares a lesson she learned from her dad.

Tools and concepts in this episode:

“People are doing their best” embodies acceptance, and acceptance creates better outcomes.

Quiet cycles of doubt by:

1. Clarify what exactly are you upset about;
2. I...

A chief officer reflects on the burdens of senior leadership. While grateful for its privileges, he’s keenly aware his title can put up barriers between himself and others. 

Typical burdens of leadership:

• People put up barriers because of your power;
• You are a public figure and will get judged, often harshly;
• You are always on display;
• Feeling entitled because of your heavy lifting.

Tom suggests three tips to help you...

With her company on the brink of disaster, a leader hungrily tackles the art of delegation, learning three models on the way. 

The episode frames delegation as being primarily about getting your people ready.

To get people ready, screen each delegated task against three filters:

1. Skills & Will – do people need training or coaching?
2. Control – who has it and how much?
3. Measurement – what is each person’s...

A chief officer finds himself repeatedly triggered by a peer. Afraid he’s going to say or do something he’ll regret, he asks his coach for tools.

Three categories of self-regulation tools:

1. Physical
2. Internal
3. External

A visual tool with specific tools in each category is in our Tool bin. 

Ready for coaching? Reach out to Tom here.

There are always more resources in our monthly email. 

Hear Tom’s most...

A brilliant but rather shy leader is challenged by her management to be bigger, more executive, speak up more. She is grateful to work with a coach.

You can build muscle around getting your voice heard by creating homework for yourself. Think of it like going to the gym: working out regularly helps you build muscle.
 
 When creating homework, ask yourself three questions:

1. What am I going to pay attention to?
2. What ...

Tom interviews Dr. Lois Frankel about women in the workplace and other ideas in the just-published third edition of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office.

Listen to the full, unedited conversation here.

Get the “Nice Girls” book, here.

If you’re curious about a chemistry call, pop Tom an email.

There are always more resources in our monthly email. 

COACHES!

You are always welcome at the Executive Coaching Sp...

Before testifying in a high-stakes case, a theorist and his coach swap horror stories about their nerves hijacking them and the lessons they learned.

Tom’s top four idea for conquering nervousness:

• Write happy endings
• Celebrate incremental improvement
• Externalize your nasty voice
• Ignore your nerves

Applying these techniques using our free PDF about mastering nerves. 

The clip of Emma Stone battling her anxiety before a...

A leader is getting pressured to stop being so prickly and gain some humility. With her coach, she explores whether it’s even possible for humility to ever be a strength. 

Core concepts in this episode:

• Humility is confidence without defensiveness.
• Assess yourself on the humility scale. “How do I respond to challenges?”
• Humble leaders are confident in their authority.
• Ask frequently: “How might I be wron...

A chief officer is infuriated by the behavior of his egomaniacal CEO. With his coach, he explores how to be a healthy leader while reporting to a boss he doesn’t respect.

Core concepts in this episode:

• Egomaniacs rattle our sense of self.
• They will not change.
• Worrying does not help.
• Be accountable for how you show up. Manage yourself.
• Don’t take anything personally. They’re just a piece on a chess board.
• Ask yoursel...

A senior vice-president worries that attention on his people’s development will get overwhelmed in the volume of work. He asks his coach for tools to make the process effective and efficient. 

Download our free tool that maps the Three Conversations Development Plan.

Core Concepts 

Prioritizing professional development is hard.

The 3-Conversation model makes development easy for the leader and meaningful for the person.

...

After a leader turns around the performance of one of his direct reports, he and his coach explore how it happened. And how to make it stick.  

Core ideas in the episode:

• Workplaces improve when positive feedback is present
• Our natural human negative bias is a barrier to giving positive feedback.
• Learn to notice when things go well.
• Tell people how they are helping solve the puzzle that is work.
• Research says the most effective ...

A toxic boss destroys psychological safety on her team. One of her direct reports talks to his coach about how to survive. And how to keep his own team safe. 

Core ideas in the episode:

• Don’t take other people’s bad behavior personally.
• You are not a victim. You have choice.
• Document repeated bad behavior.
• Openly discussing mistakes without blame creates safety on a team.
• As the leader, be willing to admit your own m...

Concerned his introversion makes him less effective, a corporate vice president asks for coaching – from an extrovert! Together, the coach and client explore ways to assure his introversion is a strength.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator assesses four preferences. One is Introversion and Extroversion. Download a free sample of the profile report here.     

The six tools unpacked in this episode are:

• Manage your ene...

A leader with a direct report who is, she says, the most defensive person she’s ever known, devotes an entire coaching session to gathering tools to help her cope. 

All the tools and ideas and scripts in this episode are in an easy-to-understand infographic. Download it for free here. 

To work on “deserving” dive into The Four Agreements.

Dig into more tools for managing defensive people in our podcast libr...

Still traumatized over an angry explosion she’d aimed at an abusive leader years before, a leader asks her coach to help her access healthy assertion to use during moments of conflict.

Where are you on the assertion scale? Our assessments will tell you.

In the episode, ASSERTION got divided into two skills: 

AWARENESS and EXPRESSION.

The four-step script to build healthy ASSERTION is:

• Situation
• Feeling
• Want
• Outcome

Part ...

Convinced that participants need to engage in order to learn, a leader is discouraged after the cheerless rollout of her online learning program. She turns to her coach for help facilitating virtual groups.

Tools in this episode:

Tone-setting at the opening:

1. Get people engaged by using the chat to think together;
2. Get people engaged by thinking about how they will show up (ground rules);
3. Ask: “How engaged do you want to be?&rdq...

Knowing she’s never been good with people, a leader seeks coaching to her deepen relationships in ways she can tolerate.

Two ways to deepen workplace relationships:

Matching & Curiosity

4 Ways to Match:

• Match Purpose 
• Match Energy 
• Match Conversations 
• Match Vulnerability 

Express Curiosity by Asking Deep Questions

• Make sure your questions are open-ended
• Invite reflection
• Keep the other person talkin...

A leader is losing credibility with her senior leaders. Her boss thinks she can turn it around by learning the sorting tool that transformed him as a communicator, so he brings in the coach who taught him.

Sorting & Labeling! The grandaddy of all communication tools. If you can sort and label you will sound like a leader.

The four steps in Sorting & Labeling:

1. Use a headline
2. Use a number
3. Label each number
4. Transition with clari...

A leader was given one goal for his coaching: improve how he answered questions. Knowing he struggled with this not only at work, but at home, he asked his coach for tools. 

Our free PDF shows the two scripts: one for closed-ended questions, one for open-ended. Download it here.

Don’t assume you know why people ask what they ask. You don’t. Ever.

The closed-ended script:

• Answer what’s asked
• Match Length
• Check f...