Episode 54: Coaching Others - Two Big Ideas

What if the way you’ve been “coaching” is actually holding people back?

In this episode, discover two powerful mindset shifts that turn everyday conversations into transformational coaching moments. Learn how the best leaders create trust, unlock potential, and help others rise—without micromanaging or overcomplicating the process.

If you want to lead better, influence deeper, and bring out the best in others, this episode will change how you show up forever.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Does fear doubt or worry limit your leadership potential? Are you ready to transform those fears into your greatest strengths? Then the Deep Fear Podcast is for you. If you're ready to start your journey towards self understanding that leads you to become your best, highest, and most inspired version of yourself, then here's your host, Susanne Biro.

Welcome to the Deep Fear Podcast, where we recognize that adult life and leadership is frequently terrifying, confusing, exhausting, and lonely. And this is true whether you lead a multimillion or billion dollar organization. Whether you are currently a stay-at-home parent, seeking to lead and raise our next generation, or perhaps you are brand new to the world of business and leadership and navigating your very first [00:01:00] leadership role.

Hi, I'm your host Susanne Biro, and my goal in this podcast is to bring you insights and tools with clarity levity, and when I can, a little humor such that you might enjoy your life, your work, your relationships, and any leadership role you hold significantly more than I know most successful people do.

Then today I wanna talk about coaching and give you two big ideas as to how you can more effectively coach others for performance. Now you've chosen to spend time here listening to me, so I wanna give you a quick sense of why this will be worth it for you. So a little context. First, for 25 years, I've had the honor of working one-on-one with CEOs and senior leaders at some of our world's best organizations.

And I am literally tens of thousands of conversations in where I have learned what really works to advance human beings and their [00:02:00] performance. I also spent over a decade of my career. Creating, authoring, and then delivering a coaching skills program that I taught to senior leadership teams and executive leadership teams in, again, some of our world's best organizations and in many different parts of the world.

So today I wanna share two of the most powerful ideas from that work. But please know this won't be so much about me teaching you something new as it will be helping you access what it is you already know so that you can more intentionally apply it to those you work with and through both at home and at work.

My aim is to leave you with something practical and something you can use. So let me share two big ideas with you. The first big idea. Is that coaching is a very unique relationship. So if you're going to coach someone to higher [00:03:00] and higher levels of performance in their life and in their work, I want you to really understand the nature of the relationship that you're gonna enter into.

Now, the best way that I know how to describe this unique relationship that coaching is, is through the use of a metaphor. And so I'll share it with you here. If you consider every other relationship in your life, like you and I sitting across the table at a restaurant. Where we're having a conversation and the focus goes over to you, it comes back to me.

It goes over to you and what you wanna talk about in your agenda, and it comes back to me and about what I wanna talk about and my agenda. But we both have a vested interest in what the other person says or does, and we're both listening to what does this mean to me? How do I get my needs met in this conversation?

That would be most relationships in our life. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're both in the relationship, but coaching's [00:04:00] different than that. Coaching would be more like you and I sitting side by side at a movie theater, and we're both focused up on the screen, which would be your life, your goals, your performance, your dreams, your uh, deliverables.

We're both sitting side by side partners focused on one person's ultimate success. So if I'm your coach in the scenario, I'd be sitting side by side with you, looking up at the screen and saying, Hey, what do you want? Where are you in your life? Where are you in your career? Where are you now? And where do you really wanna go?

And what do you need to do to accomplish that? And more so, who must you become? Where do you think you're highly effective right now, and where do you really wanna improve and how can I, as your parent, leader, coach, [00:05:00] friend, best assist you? And because I'm a partner in this and we're both looking up on the screen and I come with my own vast array of experiences, I can see things in you you might not be able to see in yourself.

And I might point those out to say, Hey, do you see how the main character that would be you is behaving in a way that's really so much less than who you are and all that you are? You're so much better than what you're demonstrating. Or it might be, do you see how what you are doing is creating a lot of work for yourself and others, and instead of communicating in this way, you might try this.

Do you see the difference? Or if I'm your leader, I might say, do you see how the questions you're asking are actually, uh, beneath the role that you hold or the one to which you aspire? What I want you to be thinking about and asking is these kinds of questions. So we can point things out and we want to be able to do that [00:06:00] all with the intention of making the other person more aware and more successful.

So in this analogy, do you see that coaching is a conversation in a relationship that is focused solely on one person's wellbeing and their greatest future success? So if we're gonna coach, please know, that is an incredible act of generosity. You are spending your time in conversation, in relationship focused only on the other person's wellbeing and their greatest future success.

That's the difference in the nature of the relationship. So that's the first big idea. Second big idea. I wanna ask you a question that I have literally asked thousands of leaders over the years, and the question is simply this. I want you to think about who had a significant and positive impact on you becoming the person and professional that you are today.

[00:07:00] Like who was one of your own best coaches? Now, you might not have called them a coach at the time. We didn't use that language. And perhaps this person was your, uh, caregiver, your mom or dad, a aunt or uncle, a grandparent, uh, a sports coach, a music teacher, dance teacher, a first boss or manager, maybe your current boss.

But just give some thought to who comes to mind, who is largely responsible for your current level of success. And I want you to pick one person. As you think of that one person, I want you to think about what was the nature of the relationship that they created with you. And see if you can describe it, write it down, make some notes for yourself.

Then I want you to give some thought to, was there something that this person did or said that forever changed how you saw yourself, your potential or your future? Very often there's a memory of one thing they said or [00:08:00] did that stays with us in my book. This could be everything. I share that one of my own best coaches was my mom.

My mom would say, do everything with love, and you can do anything you set your mind to. And I do believe those two sentences are responsible for every success I have today. Now, if you're like the thousands that I've asked this question to, and as you think of your own best coaches, you will likely come up with a list that.

Is what I've heard from the thousands that I've asked this question too, is that my own best coach was someone who saw more in me than I saw in myself, and they held me to it. They were someone who was brave enough and cared enough to tell me the truth, even when it was hard or uncomfortable, but they always did with the intention of making me [00:09:00] better and more successful, and I felt that from them.

These were people who generally cared about me and my ultimate success, both in business and in life, and they, they told me the truth regardless of what that might have meant for them. They were happy to see me succeed and sometimes even surpass them. My own best coaches were people who, when they could, they opened doors and created visibility or opportunities for me that I couldn't have created for myself.

And my own personal best coaches were people who lived and led in a way that I respected. I admired them in various aspects of life. They were so fully on their own path to achieving their version of success that I wanted coaching from them. I sought it from them. See, this is one of the ways we earn the right to coach other people, is that we are so fully focused on our own version of success and advancing ourself there, that other people see this in us and then they [00:10:00] are open to our coaching.

So I can't really teach you how to coach as much as I can remind you that one of the best ways to coach for performance or parent, or be a great friend is to be this kind of person in the lives of the people we touch up, down across our organization, in and out of it, and both at home and with our friends.

Now, as you've been listening. When I've asked the question, who was one of your own best coaches, if you genuinely didn't have such a person in your life, please know that. I'm sorry. Some of us didn't get, and were not blessed with these kind of people in our life. Please know that you know what great coaching is, simply because you can look at who would you have loved to have in your life and what would they have said and done and what could, what kind of relationship would've made all the difference for you, and then you can work to be that kind of person in the [00:11:00] lives of others.

See, coaching isn't so much about particular skills that we apply. It's so much more about a way of being and a way of partnering with people where we care about them and their success. We tell them the truth, and we hold them to become who and all that they're capable of being. And in that kind of relationship, people thrive.

So now you know everything you need to know about coaching. If you truly want to coach others for greater performance, all you need to do is apply these two principles. Thank you for choosing to lead. Thank you for being here and listening. What you do and how you do it matters. If you want more, please go to susannebiro.com/book and you can pick up a copy of my book.

This could be everything. Thank you.

So that's it for today's episode of Deep Fear. Head on over to iTunes [00:12:00] or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on iTunes, we'll win a chance on Grand prize drawing. To win a $25,000 private VIP day with Susanne Biro herself, be sure to head on over to Deep Fear podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Susanne's gift and join us on the next episode.