Meet a Leadership Coach for Women

This episode explores the importance of accessibility in coaching, emphasizing that coaching should not be limited to corporate environments but made available across various industries, trades, and to young people entering the workforce. The conversation clarifies the distinctions between mentors, sponsors, therapists, friends, and coaches, noting that while mentors and sponsors may guide or advocate for someone's career within an organization, and therapists address past issues, coaches focus on partnering with individuals to help them achieve their goals through accountability and effective questioning.

Memorable workplace experiences are shared, including the unusual challenge of relocating a family's horses internationally and dealing with a disruptive employee incident. The discussion touches on the confidential and sometimes ethically complex nature of HR roles, highlighting the need for HR professionals to balance company interests with compassion for employees. For those interested in becoming executive coaches, it is suggested to do research, take classes, and consult with current coaches to understand the reality of the profession. Overall, the conversation sheds light on the myths and realities of coaching, the value of compassion in HR, and the personal fulfillment found in helping others grow.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors. I'm Elsa Barbie.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

And I'm Don Andrews. We have been friends since sixth grade. Somewhere between a car wash job, a few questionable boy choices, and 40 years of friendship, we became the kind of people who always want to know what was really going on, including at work.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Don spent 25 years as an employment lawyer digging into workplace drama from the inside out. I built a long career in the beauty industry as a brand educator with a few TV cameos sprinkled in for fun.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

We came up in very different industries, but we have the same passion: meeting new people and asking Helvin about their jobs, what they love, what they can't stand, and what happens behind closed doors.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Every episode we talk to a new guest about their lived experience in the world of work. And because our guests stay anonymous, they can spill the truth without the fallout.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

We get into the choices they made, the tiny cruelties, the surprise kindnesses, and some of the moments that never make it into human resources reports.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Equal Parts informative and titillating.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Let's start at the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

What was your very first job? My very first job was working at McDonald's in both high school and all through college. You know, McDonald's is actually a great first job, especially for teenagers, uh, because you learn the discipline of coming to work on time, of having to wash dishes and scrub floors and clean bathrooms. Uh, and it's customer service at its peak because nobody wants their fries to be cold. And then when you have to deal with people uh like that, it's uh um uh it's always an issue. So it's a great first job.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

And of course, from a job at McDonald's, how did you end up in your current field?

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Prior to being in human resources, I worked in sales. I I'm old enough to say that I sold yellow page ads. That's a long time ago. Uh sales retail, which is uh it started my formal career um in retail management, uh being a manager of a um of a um lady store. Human resources has been something I've always wanted to do. So I always wanted to transition towards that and got the ability to do that at a company in Atlanta uh for um for a very long time in different roles. I worked in international human resources, worked uh at a um as a human resources business partner, uh, and found my way to organizational development, learning and development, and talent development. And that was really my home, being able to support employees as they grow and develop in their organizations. And I've moved that now to coaching. So I'm an executive and leadership coach, and I specialize uh in women who want to be motivated to get to the next level, to transition from where they are now to where they'd like to be and need a partner to work with in order to do that. And I'm happy to support them in that.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Any point along your career journey where you kind of doubted that you were headed in the right direction, maybe you reconsidered it.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

There were many points in my career journey where I doubted and reconsidered uh that. I um had some times in my career where um my job was eliminated, where um I wanted to move up and wasn't able to do that in the organization. I had points in my career where I uh as human resources and we're supposed to be um supporting the employee. And you know, there's a point where you realize your job is to support the company, and sometimes that may be to the detriment of a specific employees, and that's not fun, and it's not um easy to deliver information that might be um um hurtful um to employees when you are representing the organization. So that's that's been areas where I question uh my role in organizations. What helped me uh continue to move forward in those despite those experiences was uh the ability to connect with individual employees, knowing that uh despite any issues with the organization, my role um specifically was in support of them. And while I had maybe may have to share unfortunate information uh with employees, I personally can support them in helping them through whatever that situation is. So my connection with individual um employees was always what kept me going.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Um, did you have any aha moments in your current position?

SPEAKER_03 5:05

My aha moment in coaching is the aha moment that my clients get. Oh when I see that there is something that turns them in them, where there's transformation, there's um ability to see what's ahead for them, to connect to what they already know they have inside of them and they're ready to move forward with it. Their aha moment is my aha moment that I'm doing the work that I'm supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

So awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

What's a skill that you use as a coach that no one warned you about? No one told you it would be necessary.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Uh a skill that I use frequently that seems to be um something nobody talked about is the use of silence and pause. Giving people space to come up with whatever they need to come up with come up with their own and holding the container of space for them as they think through something, as they um uh consider their options, being able to just be quiet and give them that container of space is a skill. And sometimes it's not easy to do. Sometimes you think, well, have I been too quiet too long? But it's always knowing um that you know, just be quiet and they'll you know, it may even be 30, 45 seconds, and finally they'll say something or they'll move forward and just creating and containing that space for them is a is a skill.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

We're practic I'm practicing my that skill right now.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

You should practice it more often.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Right. Oh, touche, my love.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Well tell us a little bit more about coaching. What's the best part of the job? What's the hardest part of the job?

SPEAKER_03 7:03

The best part of the job in coaching is working with people uh who want to make changes, who want the partnership that coaching provides, um, especially when they don't realize what it is, and and by not even telling them what coaching is, but actually showing them uh and practicing the craft of coaching with them, they get an aha moment of how it's going to help and and and support uh their goals. That's the best part for me. The hardest part of coaching is it's a business. While I would love to coach, uh only coach and only learn about how to coach better, then I wouldn't have many clients. So that that's been the most difficult part for me is how do I how do I manage uh the business part of coaching and and and to what extent do I want do that?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

But with that being said, if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing about this industry, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 8:12

To make it accessible to everyone in organizations, um, in places where we consider coaching as part of corporate a lot of times, but there are certain other industries that it would be wonderful uh for people to have access to that as well in other industries and the trades, and um for young people who are considering um what to do in their lives as they graduate from high school or college, it's not accessible to everyone. So the accessibility would be the thing that I would want to change.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

As a follow-on to Elsa's question, do you want to just explain for the audience a little bit about the difference between a mentor and a coach? So many people don't really understand the difference now.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Well, I'll expand on that because it's not just those things, it's several things. Um let me start with what it what it's not mentoring is uh if you're in an organization and you have someone at a higher level who um you've connected with and can support your career, you may share information with them about how you're doing, how you know, problems you're having at work, and they can give you advice about that. And um, so a mentor is someone who can support your your your um um what you do at work, and it may be a relationship that the two of you have agreed upon together, and you're gonna work with that person, and that person has a um a um connection to you and feel accountable to you to support you in your work, and you've agreed upon that. Another um person that we don't often talk about is a sponsor. In organizations, there are people who may be at a higher level than you who see your work and you may have uh developed a relationship, they may be in your line chain of um chain of leadership, or there may be someone else. And many times we don't understand that decisions are made about our careers and we're not in the room. Our boss may not be in the room with them when those decisions are made. So are there people at a higher level who know your work, who know what you're doing, and they can uh support you in your career? That's a sponsor, that's not a coach. Um, a therapy, um therapists spend a lot of time and also have a lot of degrees. We are not therapists. Therapists tend to look back and ask why is it that someone may have, how did you get here? What are the things that happened to get you here? We're not therapists, as a matter of fact, we're trained as coaches. If we see an issue that that is best suited for therapy, we should tell our clients that. A friend is not trained. A friend is is your confidant, a friend is someone who can support you, it's got your back, your BFF, um, uh, but they're not trained coaches who can support you in your career. A coach is someone who can partner with you, hold you accountable, um, let you understand, help you to understand that you have what you need inside of you uh to do all the things that uh you would like to do in your in your career, in your life, or whatever the subject is, it doesn't have to be career, uh, and they partner with you and and work towards that goal with you. Um coaches ask really good questions. Coaches, as I mentioned before, um hold space and and partner with you towards whatever goals that you have. And that's different from all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Well, the reason we're all here today is we want to get into the juicy part. We want to know what is the wildest, weirdest, most unforgettable thing that you've ever witnessed at any of your work, any any of your workplaces.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

The first one is I was in human resources working as a um manager for international human resources, and we sent employees and their entire families to other countries. We had a family that we sent to a European country, uh and the kids started horse back riding. They got really good at horseback riding uh and bought horses while they were there. They got ready to come back to the United States and called me and said, we want to bring our horses back. How do you ship horses from Europe? What does it take to send horse and how much does it cost to send horses from a European country back to the United States? There's so many things to think about. So one of the weirdest things I had to do is figure out okay, what are the laws there? What are the laws here? Do they have to be in quarantine? Is the family okay with the horse being in quarantine? Um, you know, is the company willing to pay to ship horses? And what if it dies? You have to have insurance on it. So that was that was very interesting and different. And I don't know anybody who's had to ship horses. I mean, um dogs were common, but not horses. Another weird thing is I uh worked at a company where I had to do training in different locations. I got to a location one morning and everybody was all abuzz because an employee had unknowns to anybody else spread feces across the wall of the main floor. My gosh. It was awful. Not only did they do it, not only did they do it once, they did it twice. And because they did not have internal cameras, they could not figure out who it was. And months later, I found out they did find it out, but just the idea of how can an employee be so upset or so, you know, I don't know if it's something personal or something against the company, but to be able to do something like that is just wild. And the employees who had to deal with it um up and down leadership, and then having to manage the fact that everybody in the location triggered found out about it that day. That was the wildest things I've ever I've ever had been a part of. Okay, what do we do about this?

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Either in your HR roles or as a coach now, uh, do you feel like you know where the bodies are buried? I mean, are you entrusted with information that sometimes blows your mind?

SPEAKER_03 14:42

I know where bodies are buried. Yes, but um I think in any human resources role, uh, when you make decisions, uh when the company makes decisions that they don't necessarily want people to know about, um, there are discussions behind the scene, there are um conversations as people are making these decisions. And while we may not agree with them, um we have to be quiet and allow it to happen because someone has made the decision that those things are going to happen and we move on. Um, which is why I believe it's important to have uh human resources professionals who have some compassion, who have the ability to still um think of the employee as as part of their um the importance of the employee experience and the employees um um the employees lived experiences in humanity. But I have so many friends and family and colleagues and uh and um people who don't trust human resources, and that's why they don't trust human resources because we as as a field give the impression that we're not uh um in the best um we're not working for the comp for the employee we're working for the company.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

If somebody who's listening to this today has some interest in being an executive coach themselves, um what would be something that they should know before jumping into a career like this?

SPEAKER_03 16:22

One thing I think people should know if they're interested is to find out more about what it is, what it really is. Take a class, talk to some people who are current coaches, whether executive coaches or life coaches or nutrition coaches, um learn about what it actually is, find out what the pros and the cons, and uh and everybody has different perspectives on it. People bring their own lived experiences to the roles of coach. And um, if you find out what people are doing and how they're working and and um how they make money uh in it, then you can better make a decision about if this if this is what is something for you.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

That's a myth about coaching that makes you nuts. And anybody can do it. What keeps you going when the coaching biz gets tough?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

What keeps me going is doing the coaching is the community of people that I coach alongside uh the learning um and the ability to continue to do the work that I'd love doing. So the craft of coaching and the learning about coaching and the actual doing the coaching um amongst people who were um also doing the same thing keeps me going.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Um D and I definitely appreciate your story. You've officially joined the ranks of the brave and the bold.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Thank you. Thank you, ladies. I appreciate it. I've enjoyed uh talking to you. I love your connection with each other, and um, I look forward to seeing you interview more people and seeing what the, especially what the stories are.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

That's it for this week's confession. We've laughed, cringed, and maybe questioned our own career choices.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Big thanks to our anonymous guests for keeping it real and reminding us that behind every job title is a story worth telling.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

If you've got a workplace confession of your own, we're all ears. Hit us up at our email address. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share. Your support helps us keep the secrets flowing. Until next time, keep your badge click, your coffee's strong, and your stories wet.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

This is Workplace Confessions Behind Closed Doors.