The Leader's Couch

How to lead with confidence when you are not sure what you are doing.

Maybe you have worked years and years to get to the place you are now: in charge. Maybe you came upon it by accident and find yourself leading people without ever intending to do so. Either way, here you are with people depending on you to make decisions and figure out how it all works. And here you are making mistakes on the regular and wondering how you'll make it through and do your best for your team when its all so...messy.

Leading people is all the things: It is lonely, invigorating and inspiring. It is fun and most of the time it's just the day-to-day life of whatever the work is that you do. But it can also be exhausting and so soul-crushing that you just want to jump back to the years when you didn't make decisions. I thought it was just me. I thought it was imposter syndrome. Now I know it's simply part of leadership, and what we need the most is to know we are in the company of other's who feel or have felt the same way we are feeling. To know that we are not alone. Because if the only person in your organization who you can talk to about your work as a leader is your boss, you need someone else in your corner, too. That's what the Couch is for. The Couch is for resources , connection, and for taking a moment and getting yourself centered so you can keep going. You have people counting on you and if you are going to do your best, you need to take moment on Couch and regroup.

Who I am

My first official leader job - where there wasn't anyone "above me" on site, was 10 years ago as a Nursing Home Administrator. I was in charge of 200 staff members, a budget, and 160 patient beds. Me. Me, who decided to do this because it seemed like the next step and hey, why not. WHY NOT. My coursework and training were largely focused on the nuts and bolts of the "job". The exams for licensure were focused on the regulations. Not one course was about leadership. I was lucky to have been mentored by kind leaders who had good intentions in the way they made decisions. I found myself in that skilled nursing facility scared, lonely, and feeling like it was just all too much and I was going to fail the company, the employees and the patients. I didn't. I led with my gut and learned early on to accept responsiblity for errors. I apologized pubically. I was careless with my words and did not undersand the impact of my role. I was not the best boss.

After about five years of being in that role I starting seeking professional help -- in the form of books and articles. I started consuming leadership content and spending a lot of time thinking less about how to make 'metric X ' and a lot more time thinking about how to support the staff. It became clear to me what this job was and what it wasn't. This job wasn't about me and it wasn't really about the patients - it was about the staff. Maybe this was what "servent leadership" was. Maybe it wasn't. Whatever this lesson I was learning was, it made me centered and confident and really, really happy in my work. I felt purpose and pleasure in leadership and finally understood why it was the path I had chosen. My metrics came together and I was successful with my organization. I developed a reputation as a subject matter expert in my field and as a strong local leader.

Contact me at TheLeaderCouch@gmail.com

What makes a Leader

There are so many pieces to leadership. As I mentioned earlier, when I started in my first "big" leadership role, I was focused on the tasks of my job and the goals that were set for me re: organizational metrics. It took me years to learn that the chemistry of leadership included a large dose of my own development and learning journey, and without that I would not have sustained success or satisfaction in my work. For every hour of study and reflection I receive boundless benefits.

The Leader Couch seeks to provide you with resources to support your development as a leader. Maybe it's a quick pick-me-up you need to address a specific issue you are having right now. Or maybe you are looking for your next read or listen. I'm not here as your coach, I'm here to provide resources to what has helped me and what I know has helped many others. This is pretty much the same approach I have as a leader: I'm not the "mentory" type; I'm the "I hear you and I see you and here are some things that might help -- let's keep talking"-type.

Real Time Leadership Lessons

AN APOLOGY TOUR

Sometimes it seems that weeks go by without me confronting some kind of leadership folly in myself or a teammate. We just go along our days, getting the work done and doing the things. This week I found myself ending the week with an apology tour. An apology tour sounds awful, but it can be one of your most effective leadership actions.

Here's what happened: I was in a meeting (virtual) with three of my team members, one who is my direct report and with whom I have established a lot of trust over time, one who is a brand new report to me, and one who is about 90 days into the company and reports to someone else on my team. At some point something came up that triggered me to be really annoyed. I let that be known by interrupting who was speaking and saying my piece. The meeting went quiet and the person speaking stated understanding then resumed the discussion. The call ended and I had to immediately jump on another call. I felt awful. As soon as I could, I personally apologized to each person on that call. I appreciated their grace, but knew that me taking the time and being very clear about how my behavior was unacceptable was telling them three very important things to help foster our work culture:

Leaders apologize
That type of behavior is not acceptable on our team
Their psychological safety and comfort at work is important to me

I didn't apologize for me, though I did feel better. I apologized for them and for our culture. Leaders must take very opportunity to foster culture and built trust. The times when you falter are the biggest opportunities you have to do this and taking action works wonders for you and your team in the trust-building department. Years ago I might have apologized via email, likely after a team member was strong enough to tell me what I did that caused harm (and I think about how many times I caused harm and no one told me...). Today, I know when it happens immediately, I take personal, thoughtful action quickly and take the time to reflect on how I got there so I can improve. And if I don't notice it, I have team members who know my committment to culture and trust our relationship enough to tell me that I faltered. This is the biggest win I have recognized for myself and I continue to hold gratitude for all of the leadership content out there that focuses on building and fostering psychologicaly safe workplace culture. I have internalized so many of these learnings and, in this instance, I heard both Brene Brown and Kim Scott telling me to 1. fix this and 2. use this as a leadership tool for myself and my team rather than wallow in my "mistake".

Cheers to another day in leadership,

COMMISERATING VERSUS TAKING ACTION - Responsiblity vs Accountability

For a year I listened to one of my Directors talk about being overwhelmed. For a year I witnessed her overwhelm. I felt hamstrung and concerned that I wasn't going to be able to see her through it. I didn't see any obvious fixes and I was just kind of waiting for her to arrive at some peace and to get through it; I saw my role as standing by her. And I did stand by her. And she did get through it.

Over the last few weeks our leader team has found ourselves confronted with the outcome of some serious neglect in one area of our program. The leader with direct oversight of that piece of the program is the leader who was experiencing overwhelm over the last year. The leader I stood by. The leader who stated over and over that she didn't have the time to dedicate to oversight. I heard her saying what she couldn't do and but instead of really listening and providing some path to resolution, I commiserated with her.

While some might see the failure of her piece of the program as a failure of her management, I clearly see the failure as my leadership fail. I oversee the operations of the entire program so in that vein, it's clearly my responsiblity. That is an easy step to take and it doesn't feel great but it's not really taking accountability for the fail. As this Director's leader, I am accountable to her and by failing to take the time to understand her overwhelm and commit myself to considering a course-correction, I allowed her to to fail. With this realization, I saw that by not serving this leader, I created the path for her part of the program to fail. This has created a lot of angst and work for the whole team and so it is critially important that I recognize my part in this so that the next time a leader is in overwhelm, I take the time to form action rather than simply commiserate. It's importa

Resources

Resources are listed by need, general category, or relevance to specific leadership need. If you have specific desires and needs re: leadership content, send me a message at TheLeaderCouch@gmail.com; I'll respond and post something specific to your request. If you need it we know you're not the only one! Speak up for your fellow leaders! I'm happy to do the work to find the content that might help you; I love consuming leadership content. I'm here on the Couch reading up for us all!

Please note that these links contain affiliate links.

Dare to Lead

The consummate leadership book and the one that got me hooked. I have listened to this book fully through thrice and have chapters and passages flagged for tune ups. Her site is amazing -- she and her team share so much content to help you in your leadership journey.

Click to read about and buy the book: https://amzn.to/3NsaTbN

Radical Candor

This one is closest to my leadership style and I have turned more people to this book than any other resource. Reading this after Dare to Lead makes sense, because in DTL you discover yourself and in Radical Candor you put practices in place.

Click to read about and buy the book:

https://amzn.to/3NYsBFn

Crucial Conversations

This is third in list but by no means last in the running for most influential leadership text. This is a reference text and should be taught in graduate course work. Read this book with a pack of sticky notes becuase you'll want to go back and review certain sections right away. After reading you'll want to go back to certain sections to reference before a discusion with a staff member. After reading this book you will never go "blind" into a crunchy conversation again. This book is a tookkit you don't want to be without.

Click to read about and buy the book: https://amzn.to/44hDjMq

Coming Soon!

We'll soon have up a place for you to comment or ask questions; this how we'll create community around the Couch. In the meantime, please email me your comments, questions, or leadership content needs and I'll post a section as a response. You can ask me to recommend a specific podcast or written content about a specific leadership topic and I'll happily find it for you! TheLeaderCouch@gmail.com