The Look & Sound of Leadership

How to Deal with Difficult People

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

Overcoming the Barriers of Leadership

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 other

The Three Elements of Effective Delegation

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 pri

Managing Emotions

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 sel

Getting Your Voice Heard

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

Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office

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 th

How to Conquer Nervousness

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

Humility as Strength

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.

Leading When Ego at the Top Is Unchecked

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.

How to Grow Your People

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 eff

How to Motivate and Inspire

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

How to Guarantee Psychological Safety

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

How to Supercharge Introversion

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 assu

How to Manage Defensive People

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

How to Own Healthy Assertion

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 moment

How to Create Engagement Online

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 f

How to Deepen Relationships at Work

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: Mat

How to Talk so People Understand You

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

How to Answer Questions Powerfully

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 tool

How to Build Self-Esteem

A leader suddenly hears how harshly she speaks to herself. Wanting help, she turns to her coach who gives her tools to build a practice of self-esteem.      The three se