Coaching Skills For Leaders
Coaching Skills For Leaders
Navigating the Fog of Poor Management: Upward Coaching Tactics for Empowering Leadership
Ever feel like you're stuck under a cloud of poor leadership? You're not alone. Join us, Jana Henderson and Neil Thubron, as we reveal the secrets to managing upwards, transforming difficult relationships with superiors into opportunities for growth. Our recent conversation dives into a range of scenarios that many leaders face - from favoritism to poor communication - and showcases how mastering coaching skills can be your compass through the storm of bad leadership. We share anecdotes and insights that will change the way you perceive and interact with your bosses, setting the stage for a healthier work environment.
We understand the power of self-reflection and self-coaching, and in this discussion, we illuminate practical techniques that you can use right now to regain control of your workplace experiences. From introspective questioning to breathwork, these tools are designed to help you break free from the cycle of negative reactions and take charge of your responses. Our focus is on your circle of influence, empowering you to set realistic goals and act in alignment with your true aspirations. We've also taken a page from Tim Ferriss’s fear-setting technique, helping you face your professional fears head-on to foster decisive and clear-minded action.
As we wrap up, remember that empathy and vulnerability are not signs of weakness but strengths that can reshape your leadership interactions. By applying a coaching mindset to your relationships with higher-ups, you're likely to uncover the motivations behind their actions and start a dialogue that could lead to positive change. If our conversation sparks new ideas or if you have your own experiences to share, don't hesitate to connect with us. Your journey to enhance your coaching abilities doesn't end here; it's just getting started. Share this episode with anyone who might benefit, and let’s keep the conversation going.
Welcome to the Coaching Skills for Leaders podcast with Jana Henderson and Neil Thubron. The purpose of the podcast is to help leaders anywhere develop their coaching skills to transform the lives of those they lead, as well as their own well as their own.
Speaker 2:Hello again, welcome back to Coaching Skills for Leaders, your very favorite podcast, where we that is, neil Thubron and I, jana Hendrickson are talking about all the great ways that you, as a leader in business, can use coaching skills to enhance your life, your work relationships and your business results.
Speaker 2:And today we've brought something to you that just keeps coming up in our coaching sessions with executives and leaders, and that is how do you deal with bad leadership with a boss? You don't get along with those kinds of conversations, and so Neil and I thought we'd pick this one up, and we're really going to break it into a couple of different sections. One, we're going to talk about what that looks like for our clients and people that we work with. And secondly, we're going to look at how coaching skills might help you to be well within yourself, to coach yourself. And thirdly, we're going to look at how we can use coaching skills and working with your bosses or those leaders that you are not enjoying too much of. So, neil, why don't you kick us off with some examples from your work lately?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no thanks, shana, and you know the is. I thought this, this, we thought this topic is so such a great topic is. We've talked a lot about leading downwards and coaching downwards, and now this is gets some time for you, for you to help you as a leader with your emotional state, with your um, how you react to things, and then how you might help your boss develop by using coaching skills upwards. And you know, I see, unfortunately I see so much poor leadership, um, you know, and I can think of three companies I'm working with at the moment where a lot of coaching time is spent when I'm working with the leaders, helping them and work out how do they deal with their boss or how do they deal with themselves, with the behaviour of their boss. So example would be I had someone message me the other day and said you know, I've just put an offer out for a hire of this new employee and my boss has overruled me and put an offer out to someone else. You know how can I deal with that and how they'd feel about that when you know your boss is phoning you up every single minute of the day to get an update on a deal, or they don't trust your forecast or they're threatening you with your job because your team's not performing or your business is not performing.
Speaker 1:I see it with just boundaries. You know where they feel like. They can ring you up at six in the morning, at seven or eight, nine, ten at night or on weekends, and you will answer the phone and if you don't, they then start. You know, are you taking this job seriously? Because I need you on it all the time. I need you on it seven days a week, not just Monday to Friday. So there's so many examples of bullying. It's definitely bullying aggressive leadership, lack of emotional intelligence. Intelligence I see amongst the the senior, so the senior, so that could be chief exec, senior vice president that are filtering down, and those are the kind of examples I'm thinking.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you, if you've got any other examples yeah, I think the only one that kind of sticks out to me that maybe haven't said in the exact same way is communication skills, right? So when I coach senior leaders that still have bosses above them, then it tends to be that bosses, or, you know, the C-suite is communicating, or founders right C-suite is communicating, or founders, right, owners of businesses are communicating in a way that makes sense to them but that may be not exactly translating to the individual and a lot of times, you know, there's some favoritism going on, some cliquing politics that people suffer from, or, you know, certainly, some version of, maybe, aloofness. You know, I find that because, you know I don't want to generalize this at all, but you know, when there are male leadership figures, there can be an element of, you know, aloofness that gets them to that level of success as well, right, like, just like narcissism can.
Speaker 1:I call it arrogance, actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be. Be you get my point, though, right like there's something there that people can sometimes feel, where you know success, um you know, leads to, or you know some sort of personal predisposition to being a little bit less emotionally focused. Let's call it that politically correct. Hopefully. Um is, you know, leading to success but at the same time, leading to conflict when it comes to team management, right, because there might be, um, might be, people in teams that are just not at the same level, not communicating in the same way, not understanding. It's not very clear, um, you know there's not clear leadership in terms of goals or specific tasks, um, etc. Etc. So I feel like the just this whole aspect of communication is really just the one that I wanted to add yeah, I, I agree and I think and why is this relevant in a coaching skills for leaders conversation?
Speaker 1:because a because we coach people a lot on it, because it comes up a lot. But be you know, in that situation, if you know, if you don't have a coach, how do you coach yourself, how do you help yourself with those emotions? I mean, like you know many of my clients, when these things happen, they, you know, they lay awake at night, they can't sleep. They're not the father they want to be or the husband they want to be, because they're worried about having to get something done for their boss, or they are, they're not being great for their team. So being able to coach yourself, which is the first thing we'll touch on, is going to be absolutely key in how you deal with those situations and how you might use coaching skills to help you. So where would you like to start on that? So helping with some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I think that you're absolutely right, that I would imagine that some leaders are somewhat, uh, or might be surprised to hear just how much their staff need coaching sessions in order to just make sense of what happened, to find a different perspective on it, to not take it personally, to be able to formulate their own boundaries, what's okay for them when it comes to working hours or demands that have been placed on them. I do think that would probably surprise a lot of people that are in leadership functions. So I think this will be beneficial in two ways right, like it obviously will help people be more equipped with some specific tools, but also, you know, for leaders to be more aware that this is going on. You know, because we get hired by bosses to coach team members frequently enough, but we all know that sometimes the one who needs the coaching is the leader, right?
Speaker 2:But we all know that sometimes the one who needs the coaching is the leader, right, and so I feel like the first thing that I address this with, when situations like that are being brought, is validation right that we have in our coaching session with complete care and regard, and just letting them know that how they're perceiving things, what they're thinking that's all valid, and not trying to sort of reframe it for them in an instant where whatever the boss is doing is right. I think that's really really important to hold that frame of validation. And secondly, I think it really comes to creating awareness first which is probably where I spend a lot of the time in at first as to what exactly is actually happening, because sometimes people can also run away with stories about why the boss said this and why the boss said that, and very often it's nothing to do with the individual, isn't it? So it's really just saying you know how I always said one of my mentors always said what people say and do says something about them, not you.
Speaker 2:So you know that's like one of the things I probably say more often than not in this kind of situation, because people make things mean stuff about themselves when really oftentimes it has to do with the leader being under pressure, et cetera. So, really creating awareness about what's actually happened, what's factual, and dissecting a little bit with, for example, the self-coaching one-on-one model what's the fact, what's the thought, what are the feelings, what, therefore, are the actions and the results and really helping them sort of you know, untangle the the web of the ball of feelings that they're having in the first place as a reaction yeah, and I think that's that's it's it's that breath to take a step back, and yeah, so I've just heard that I've just had, you know, my boss screaming at me that my job's in danger because I haven't closed that deal when I said I would close it, or you know that we're missing this profit number or whatever.
Speaker 1:Now, was that directed at me? Was that? Or was that as you say? Was that a reflection of them? And we'll come back to how we might help them in a minute. But actually, and the kind of exactly the same as you just said, the kind of things that someone could do if they were self-coaching themselves, is, you know, it's the Byron Katie questions as well, you know, is that true what they've just said? Is that true? Have I really not done everything I could have done to close this deal or drive this business this quarter? What do I know is true about me? What is true about me? And one of the things I find really fascinating about humans in general is we can hear 99 fantastic things about us and we hear one criticism and that's all we can focus on. We can't take our focus off that one criticism. That's a bizarre thing and that and that's you. You may have closed 99 deals and there's one deal that didn't, but that's the deal you're getting shouted out.
Speaker 1:You might be and you might be over your number, but I'm talking about sales, obviously, but there's obviously lots of other options. But you know, there's that one thing, and why is it that? That's the thing we keep awake at night about. We don't sleep soundly about those other 99 things.
Speaker 2:Which is really exactly pointing to what I think the awareness can often lead to, which is why is the thing that the person said, or how they said it, triggering for us, triggering for us? So understanding the underlying trigger, I think, is really really important because it can give clues as to where we can look for ourselves what we believe is true. So say, for example, if we already felt badly about something that the boss is criticizing, or that that wasn't okay or wasn't done, or whatever the situation might be, then of course you know they're kind of just poking at the thing we already kind of knew wasn't right and that's something we can then with responsibility, we can take responsibility for and we can make a change in that area. We can get empowered by way of coaching. But there there might be other things where we understand oh yeah, this is just like you know my dad would always shout at me, or this is triggering something where I'm just like going to fight or flight or freeze you know kind of reaction.
Speaker 2:The person is able to pause before reacting and responding and just to take a breath and to look at what's actually happened and what are they actually feeling? Are they feeling embarrassed? Are they feeling pressured, are they feeling stressed, are they feeling angry, right, like what is it that we're actually dealing with and what has factually happened and what is factually true? Because oftentimes the thing that causes all the feelings is the story we run away with, right? We're like, oh, and then he probably said this to the other person and that's probably how this all came about, and that's the thing, I think, that we cause ourselves a lot of harm with. And so that's where I think self-coaching can come in, where we really pause, create the awareness and realize that we come to a crossroads. We can go down that road where we, you know, react in the same way that we would always react, or we have a new choice of doing something slightly differently, and that can be simple things like very somatic things like breath work, going to the bathroom to get a break, you know, just to like to just have a state change, um, it could be things like talking to a friend, not somebody at work, um, bringing this up with your coach, right, there are a million different things that we could possibly do other than just be like, okay, great, then I'll, you know, I'll leave, I'll quit, you know, whatever the reaction might be or to feel, you know, just to feel down and depressed and, you know, beaten self-doubting never I can never do anything right.
Speaker 1:You know I'm always doing things wrong, and so I think, yeah, that pause and that stepping back and changing perspective, you know that's a, that's a great, uh, a great coach self-coaching tip. I think the other thing that I try and get people to do and this again, this I would encourage but is think of the circle of influence or the circle of control. You know what's what's actually in your control at that moment in time, what's not in your control, and you know the only things that are actually in your control are your thoughts and feelings and that. That's that and how you interpret it, and then the actions you take around those.
Speaker 1:So, um, and I don't know how many whatsapp messages I've sent when I've been sitting on the sofa at night and I've had a client message, meapp messages I've sent when I've been sitting on the sofa at night and I've had a client message me through. So I've just had this dreadful email from the and I'll say what's okay, tell me what's in your control. You know, um, forget what's not in your control. You know you can't affect what other people are doing, and I think that's a great self-coaching tip as well is just be get things in perspective of you know what actually can you do with this situation well, but that's often the thing that's so frustrating, right, because we do want to defend ourselves, we do want to justify, we want to change somebody, somebody's mind, we want them to act differently.
Speaker 2:Right, like, how many conversations are you and I having about how my goal is that this person doesn't do this thing anymore? Right, like where we're trying to defer our goals to really something we cannot actually influence. And so I think the critical piece there is to find a solution that honors what your goals are in terms of your work experience that you'd like to have, that also allows for the other person to remain unchanged, because we cannot in a coaching conversation, we cannot coach the boss. We can only work with you, right, which is where it's limited to a certain extent. And so sometimes there can be a desire to kind of hang on to the pattern because, no, the boss is wrong or the person is not. You know, they're just a, you know, a bad person, a bad leader, and so when we have that story, it's obviously not helping us. It doesn't even matter whether it's right or wrong. What matters is is it helping or is it not helping what we want?
Speaker 2:And, of course, I think, another thing that's also important to remind them is that the person that we are talking to, or the, the coachee in them in this sense, or the person who's experiencing the bad leadership, that you are always at choice.
Speaker 2:So, whether you are in this job and position or not is a choice, and, yes, it may feel like you don't have choices, but really we usually do have various choices, and so I think one important aspect is to consider well, you know, even in this small hiccup situation, what are my choices at this point? What can I do? And therefore, really, what do I actually want to accomplish? Do I need to change their mind? Do I need to close the deal? Do I need to be right? Because a lot of this is about feeling right or feeling wronged. Feeling, you know, I think, having feelings of being at the receiving end of unjust, unfair criticism or whatever it may be right, like our story, is different, and so I think, with coaching, what we tend to do is help people see that your version of the story is just as true as their version of the story, and it's very likely to be different.
Speaker 1:It's not the same yeah, 100, and the choice thing's key right, because the choice, you have a choice as to how you want to react, how you want to feel, uh, in that moment, and and yeah, and so that that's really important to remember. And I think the the other, the other coaching model I know it's a coaching model, but it's another model that I quite like is Tim Ferriss on the. I can't remember what he called it. It was something about it wasn't. It was something about goals, but it was the opposite of goals.
Speaker 2:Fear setting.
Speaker 1:Sorry.
Speaker 2:Fear setting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fear setting, thank you, yeah, it was fear setting. Yeah, it was the three steps of fear setting, which some people don't like it, but actually I love it and when I do it with clients it really works, really works. You know what's the worst that could happen and what if the worst happened? What would you then do? And then what could you do now to prevent the worst happening? And that those three questions really help.
Speaker 1:And a great example I had was with someone who's you know, was feeling quite threatened in their job. They said, you know, I said what's the worst thing? I could lose my job. And actually I did. Did ask the is that true? Question um, so is that true? And well, yeah, because I could. I said, well, what evidence have you got of that? Because in this particular company that was in a european country where getting rid of people is very, very hard, um, it wasn't true. I said. I said how many people do you know in the last 10 years that have been five. Performance zero, it's okay. So where's that story come from, you know? So the worst, so this worst thing that you're gonna, so that that fear setting, I think that can work. Sometimes I've had one client where it didn't work and actually scared them and it laid them awake at night thinking about this worst thing that could happen. Um so that. But that is another self-coaching model that you could use as well. Just write it down.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of um, a slightly different form of four questions that probably speak to something similar, which, um, I always find it like initially confusing, but actually, as you write it down, it's very clarity creating. Which is, what will happen if I do, what will happen if I don't, what won't happen if I do and what won't happen if I won't? Wow, right, so you're essentially looking at a quadrant of all the different things that I anticipate may or may not happen, and that tends to bring a lot of clarity as to what actions you might want to take. So I like that too for clarity. But really, in in terms of wanting to coach yourself, I think one thing we haven't spoken to at all is what's your actual desired outcome? So some you know, you might know, of this book, crucial Conversations, which is all about.
Speaker 2:you know how we approach any crucial conversations, and in that book, the one thing that it makes so crystal clear is, before we have any conversation, any reaction, anything else, we need to know what is our actual desired outcome. Really, at the end of all of this, whatever actions and words we tend to deploy, what do we want to have accomplished? Is it that, you know, we want to have a good working relationship with that boss? Is it that we want to remain in our jobs or, you know, retain our work? Do we want to change something about the project? Do we want to change something about? You know, like there's a million different outcomes and based off of that, how do we like, what actions are we going to take, right? So we kind of using the self-coaching, one-on-one model that we've talked about before, where we're working our way backwards from the actual best possible outcome, outcome which you know in many cases is everybody has their jobs, we accomplish the thing that we want to do and we get along, roughly speaking. Then how can we make that happen?
Speaker 2:And I think one thing, when you mentioned Stephen Covey there and his circles of influence, right, or circles of concern, was um, I always liked from his book the seven habits for highly effective people, um, the number five, which is seek first to understand before being understood. And I think this is such a classic moment where you it's so hard to do because you really feel like you want to defend yourself, you really want to just say what you're thinking and feeling and you're wanting to make the other person wrong. But if you can find it within yourself to pause, then you might be able to say and go back to the boss and clarify, because you're seeking to understand first before being understood what they meant, what they were trying to accomplish, what is you know on their what? Are they pressured about something right? So here now we're getting into this other where which?
Speaker 1:what they were trying to accomplish. What is you know on their? What are they pressured about something, right? So here, now we're getting into this other way, which is coaching as a person. That's perfect segue, perfect segue. So how could you help people by using coaching skills to help your boss? And yeah, actually I had that written down. That was one of the things I was going to mention. I used it this morning with a client.
Speaker 1:I said habit five seek first to understand before. It doesn't matter you telling someone, you need to understand them first. So, yeah, so let's talk about that. So how could we, as leaders that want to develop our coaching skills, use those coaching skills to help our, our bosses? So one of them is that is exactly that.
Speaker 1:So I, I hear what you're saying. Can I just understand a little bit more about what's behind it? Where are you coming from? Um, what's driving you to you know, to make for this to be so critical? Now, right, you know, and do you know?
Speaker 1:One of the things that I think is worth bearing in mind so this isn't coaching, but it's just worth bearing in mind is many of the threatening bullying behavior is coming from a place of fear, right? And if you keep that in mind when you're talking to you, when your boss is talking to you is, um, this guy's in fear of something. How could I help them? You know what do they need? What? What is it that that's going to support them? And so, yeah, seeking first to understand is definitely one of them, um, and, and actually one of one of the clients I've been working with recently. I just asked him just go and find out some more about your boss. Just sit down with them, try and understand them a little bit more. This wasn't a specific situation, it was just ongoing. Just what, what's going on with them that's making them behave like this every day?
Speaker 2:yeah, just go and ask them a few questions, try and understand them a little bit more yeah, very, very likely, I think, when, when people lash out in general, there's other stuff that's going on that has nothing to do with you, right? And so I think how, however, you go and find out more about that person, I think it's almost indifferent, as long as it comes from a place of genuine care and curiosity and not any sort of malintent, right? So you could use things like the six human needs and think about, well, what does my boss actually really need and want? What are the primary driving forces here? Does he just or she need certainty right now, right? Is that? Because there's like lots of of changes? Maybe the whole arc structure has changed, like, are they seeking to create some form of stability right now, or are they looking for connection or are they always wanting to feel significant? Then how can I help them feel significant? How can I help them look good, right?
Speaker 2:So I think, when you're, when you are deploying your empathy and your curiosity and you know you look a little bit like you know, at the leading leadership style of that person, then really what you're just doing is you're essentially taking that person, that leader, as they are and, without making it about yourself, work with that person, right and their character and their needs, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And I think far too often we just make it mean something about ourselves, which is going back to my point about triggers right, because there's some belief that we have about we're just not good enough, we're never fast enough, we should be somewhere else in life, we shouldn't be in this position, all of these kinds of beliefs that we hold, that we have the responsibility to dismantle. But if we're wanting to work with somebody in that kind of a setting, I think, first of all, managing our own story is really the core critical tool, because you cannot really go and be kind to a mean boss until you come from a place of openness and acceptance and curiosity and you, you have the ability to separate what's been going on or what's being said from your identity and yourself, capital s self yeah, and you, you know you've summed up beautifully, which is this you've got to come from a place of curiosity.
Speaker 1:This isn't about manipulation. It's not about trying to get the right thing, right answer for you. It is about really caring and using your caring as a, as a leader who embraces coaching, to try and help someone and, you know, just being able to ask genuine questions and then listen with no agenda.
Speaker 1:And how I've seen it with in my own situation, with my own when I was in corporate world, and I've seen it with some of my clients is you know, I get it, boss, I get it and I'll make sure we deal with that, and you know. How are you feeling about this situation? How are you feeling about you know the fact we're missing our number? How are you feeling about you know what, what's what, what, what? How are you feeling? I think it's always a great place to start, because they don't expect that. They don't expect someone to actually be interested in them and ask them. They don't expect someone to actually be interested in them and ask them.
Speaker 2:So I think that some people might some people might find it tricky to ask about the feelings or, you know, expect like that their boss wouldn't respond to that, and so it might be easier to start with. You know how is this affecting you or what else is going on right now. You know what is. Are there any pressures that I'm not aware of? Right, like you're just seeking to be mindful about what else might be going on, and I do think something that I get a lot of pushback on this. Okay, so I'm not sure why it may or may not be working for people in their job situations, but I always think that vulnerability could actually be a real superpower in these situations.
Speaker 2:So, if you know, said bad leadership boss is, you know, coming at me as an employee, a team member, I think it's okay to let them know that really affected me. I think it's okay to be like saying, look, I understand this and this is the issue. I just wanted to also let you know that this has really impacted you know how it felt about cause my, the story I'm telling myself from this is this and this and this. Is this even true? Like you're clarifying your own story by way of, you know, being somewhat vulnerable. Now, I'm not talking about oversharing or anything inappropriate in that way, and that may be why it's so delicate, because it's like a very fine line to walk. But I do think it's okay to say, you know, when you were shouting at me earlier, like that really knocked my confidence or that really affected me in a way that probably isn't conducive to creating the result here. Right, because that's also feedback. I don't think leaders get very much because it's it's like deemed as yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 1:It's a. It's a really interesting approach actually. I love it. Uh, I. I think there are people out there who would take advantage of that um approach, and so you see.
Speaker 1:I told you you know, you're just not tough enough for this job, you know, um, but but I think there are a, a lot of leaders who are just driving pressure down because they're under pressure and actually, if you say, look, actually do you know what? Um, I had a really bad evening the other evening after you made that call to me and, uh, if you just raised it with me at this time, or if you did it in this way, it would have been much better and we'd have got there I think I think you mentioned something very critical that I was going to speak to as well.
Speaker 2:It it's instead of telling them what you don't want in that conversation, you can help them by being very specific about how you can receive that feedback better or what would work better for you. So I understand you wanted this in this result. What would work better for me is, if you do this, this and this, sometimes, you know, put it in an email with three like top things that you need happen, or whatever the method might be that works for you, and I think it's okay to to in some way state that whatever method they were trying was not working for you. You know, because ultimately they do want to get the most out of you and if you tell them how they would get that, why shouldn't they be interested in listening? Yeah, but I do get that people might be hesitant to share feelings because they're worried that it will backfire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you have to know your boss, because some people just aren't coachable or don't want to be coached or don't want to have that conversation. But if you think about some of those coaching skills that Jana's just talked about, we've talked about here, it's just approaching your boss as a human being and with a feeling of curiosity, compassion, trying to understand a bit more about what's going on with them and how you could support them with that. And I think if you just have that mindset and you'll know your boss better than we will, then you'll know the best way of approaching them. My suggestion would be don't do it via email. If you have to do it by a phone call, then maybe, but it has to be live. It has to be so you can react to the conversation. If you can do it face-to-face, even better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And any attempt at working with the boss is going to just work much, much better if you're in control of your own story and your internal dialogue there. Right, and there are things like you know, using Tony Robbins' triad of creating an empowered state, right, a peak state, where you are somewhat intentionally choosing your physiology, your focus and your language before you even go into having that conversation. You don't want to go in there feeling like the depressed, like completely beat down kind of employee, right, that's not going to probably lead to the result, to the crucial conversations outcome that we've talked about just a second ago. So focusing on how you are, in what state you are yourself, I think, is a great coaching tool in and of itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely I agree. So I think we've covered quite a lot of topics there. So we've talked about how you can coach yourself to get yourself in the right state, the right mind, after these sort of situations, and a few ideas there because you can use these coaching skills on you in self-coaching. And then how might you use those to help upwards with whoever's sitting above you, whether that's a boss or a board or you know whoever's causing these challenges, and I know this is not uncommon. I know that the more senior you get, the more these types of conversations happen. So hopefully that's been useful. Is there something you want to add?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I was just thinking like the very least that anyone can do. If you do nothing else when these kinds of situations are going on, maybe sit down and just journal about it, just write about it. I think people are so resistant to it, but it's been proven over and over in studies that if you just write your thoughts and feelings down, you create that space that we're talking about. Right, that any any thoughts you have with the bad leader, about the bad leadership or about your feelings, it helps to create some clarity and insight and, you know, even present some solutions. So I would definitely just start with focusing on creating that pause and, you know, even just understanding for yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, what is there a boundary that's just been crossed? What is the boundary that's just been crossed for me? Maybe I haven't communicated that clearly, right? Maybe I've. I've always worked till 10 PM and now suddenly it doesn't work for me anymore because I'm in a new relationship or I have a baby on the way, or something Right. So I think being reflected within yourself can just is probably the most important.
Speaker 1:That's a really good point you just made. It's just kind of as we're wrapping up, but yeah, don't assume people are mind readers, because we do assume people are mind readers and so, yeah, that's a really good point to finish on. So hopefully there's been some useful ideas and tips there that you can use and thank you, as usual, for listening. And you know, please subscribe, please leave your comments, please let us know what else we could help you with, what else you'd like to talk about, love, to hear your stories and things like that.
Speaker 2:Jana, I'll let you just wrap. Yeah, no thanks. Thanks so much for listening and we hope this was a helpful um episode. If there's anything that we've left out, that we haven't talked about a scenario, um that is, you know it's happened to you then please let us know by email or leaving us a comment. And and yeah, happy coaching and deploying your wonderful coaching skills in your life and your job. So, wishing you well, Bye, bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Coaching Skills for Leaders podcast with Jana and Neil. If you found the conversation useful, please share with your colleagues and friends. Please also leave us a rating and a review, and if you would like to connect with us directly to discuss your own or your business needs, you will find our contact details in the show notes below.
