How Do I Lead When Being the Expert Isn't Enough?

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Speaker D: I'm executive coach Muriel Wilkins and this is coaching real leaders. I've spent over 20 years working with highly successful leaders who've hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump so they can lead with a little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show we have a one time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing.

Speaker F: Today I'm coaching someone we'll call Jay. He has a highly technical background and has worked in a number of industries before landing in his current role.

Speaker G: Every two years or so, I venture into a new field altogether. I like the technology behind it and I like building upon what I've learned. So it kind of compounds when you start moving in multiple dimensions and start connecting them together to create complex solutions. In the current role, um, I'm required to bring in multidisciplinary subject matter expertise. So that puts me at the crossroads of working with multiple stakeholders, whether it's business and technology. I like working on both sides.

Speaker F: Jay was excited about this position because it would allow him to expand not just the school of his work, but also the impact that he could make.

Speaker G: There was this idea always of making an impact at the highest level. And I was asking myself, what next? Like, how do you actually get to the place where your word is actually translating into serious action? And suddenly I saw that, oh, okay, this is what the next big leap is. And this is where a lot of impact can be made, which is meaningful. And that kind of gives me a purpose to move forward with what I have so far developed.

Speaker F: Jay jumped at the opportunity to scale up his leadership and have a bigger impact without being siloed in a technical role. But things have played out a little unexpectedly. I asked him how things are going so far.

Speaker G: It's kind of a time travel, because I don't think I've had a single weekend that I haven't spent not working. And this is. This is not my first job. And I know when you're straight out of college, you're very excited of, like, oh, wow, I'm working and I'm doing this and that. But this role is so dynamic. It changes so quickly, and the stakes are so high that you're always on. And to a lot of people, that can become, uh, an initial case of what we call a burnout. For me, it's energizing so far. And it's just that it's hard for me to unplug and not think about things, because it's just that it's a constant thinking. You're developing something that is completely new, unknown to others. To make that a reality is what keeps you awake at night. And so I just feel very energized. Going to work. It's just that, uh, once you start thinking about what's next, what's next, what's next, you just don't want to stop.

Speaker D: So you're working in an area that has meaning for you, and it has impact because it's at scale meaning, because it can change lives. It is changing lives. The work is energizing. It's always on. You can't unplug, and yet you love it for most people, if you burn out, as you said. But for you, it actually energizes you because so much is at stake. And you feel. What I'm sensing from you is almost a feeling of Responsibility for how the technology that you're working on is deployed.

Speaker G: That's correct.

Speaker D: Okay, so why are we talking today? What made you seek out some coaching here?

Speaker G: What really brings me to you and explore together is I grew up in a very difficult environment and for me survival was directly related to high performance. And typically high performance means merit based performance. When I reach a level where I'm supposed to influence upwards, sideways and down, those skills are useless. It's almost like it's a shift in skills to be developed and honed even more so as technical skills are becoming commoditized beneath me, the lower rungs of the corporate ladder is being thinned out. It's almost like playing Jenga, you know, they're like just pulling out one by one to see how much they can get away with. I feel like this is unsustainable in long run even though in short run we can see that it has maybe some financial benefits at the same time. I'm supposed to adapt because I'm in middle management. And one of the most critical segment of corporate that is being hit by AI is the middle management. Organizations are becoming flatter very quickly. We are expected to produce and manage at the same time. So now it's becoming an amalgamation of several roles into one. Where after having seven or eight meetings back to back in one day, I'm still expected to catch up with technology as it evolves. And so we are almost performing at our best levels at this point. AI is not the solution for all the organizational mess that exists. It gives you a sense of being convinced by the way the words appear to you. But it's nowhere near a subject matter expert, it's nowhere near the dynamic that goes behind making those decisions. Whether it's organizational behavior, critical thinking, the human part of it, of managing relationships, having the deep intuition. And so we are looking at a tool which is inherently closed to find solutions that are out of the box. I feel like the problem for any middle management person is multifold a how to keep up with the skills, how to balance these skills, how to, you know, meet stakeholders expectations and how to develop these solutions in an empathetic manner that the other side, when they receive it, they're able to use it in the right manner.

Speaker D: So I hear the concern around being able to keep pace as a middle manager with the impact that AI is having organizationally.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker D: Junior levels are being thinned out. Expectations around productivity at the middle management level is going up. How do I keep pace with that? I'm also hearing just by the Sheer nature of the work that you do. This inherent knowing of what you're working on is capable and. Or not capable of doing, and therefore a level of responsibility that you feel in doing this work.

Speaker G: Did I capture that those are the two broad topics? Yes.

Speaker D: Okay, so broad topics I want to kind of drill down. What is the tension that this is? If there is a tension that this is creating for you that you want to address? And when I say you, I mean specifically you, Jay, not other middle. Cause they're not sitting with me, right?

Speaker G: It all comes down to survival instinct and what skills we are using as humans to survive. For me, excelling in technical skills has always been the path to survive and thrive. I see that path disappearing really quick. And now something new sits in front of me saying that if you don't learn to hone these skills, which are going to be absolutely critical, not the soft skills, it's more about being strategic. It's more about being influential. It's more about reading the room, knowing whom to say what is getting even more and more important. But time is a, uh, limited resource. Traditionally, managers could do this when they were relieved of the workload of which was largely technical. Then given that room to grow and mentor others and be mentored and be coached and participate in this system of developing each other with an added requirement to produce. It shifts me back into, oh, this is back to survival. Where do I fall back to? That's the dilemma that I have in my head. And I don't have the right tools to really put together in a short amount of time before I want to get out of the middle management to a place where I actually see my influence clear out.

Speaker D: So what I'm hearing from you is what has always been the path for you, what has led to your success, right, which you've defined as both surviving and thriving has been your technical skills. And what you're seeing. Not just what you're seeing, but what you know because of the nature of the work that you're doing. You're actually kind of an advocate for this, right? A proponent of this happening. You're sort of enabling, right, that technical path, or relying solely on your technical skills is not a sustainable path to surviving and thriving, that it is disappearing. And therefore you're feeling like in order for me to thrive, I have to learn these other skills, which quite frankly are going to become even more important, which are what have traditionally been known as the soft skills. But really aren't soft strategic thinking influencing, communicating, reading the room? What you have aptly Put as like the human relational connectivity skills. And you're saying these are going to have higher currency than the technical skills. I need to learn them. But you know what? I don't have the time because now there's increased pressure on my productivity because of what's happening with AI. And so because of that increased pressure, when I feel pressured, what do I go back to? I go back to my survival skills, which are my technical skills, but they're disappearing. They don't add value.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker D: Okay, so you are in a cycle. Does it feel like you're in a cycle?

Speaker G: Yeah, it's kind of a Sisyphean effort. Right. The more you push up, the more moss it gathers in the. And the rock pushes you back.

Speaker D: That's right. It's a little tragic.

Speaker G: Yeah. It's why it probably it's called the awkward middle. When you're in sitting in the middle management, we are relaying information. We are brokers of moving information through the organization. But to put that information in the right context and guide it to the right target crowd, it still needs time to sit and develop those skills. Luckily, my firm is very human centric. The reason why these skills, they become even more pronounced as we move forward in time is that the future roles that will shape because of the evolution of AI are going to be around judgment, ethics, impact on society. Probably it might fundamentally change economics.

Speaker D: So what I want to do, Jay, is sort of bring it back because I can appreciate that what you're interested in is the system of systems and that excites you. And I can see and I can appreciate and I can go right there with you around sort of thinking about this at a meta, meta, meta level. And you are dealing with the day to day, right? Which begs the question of like, what does this mean for you on the day to day? Which what I'm hearing around the day to day is hey, I want to develop these skills, but I really don't know when I can find the time to do it. And inherent in that question are two questions that we need to answer. The first is what exactly are the skills? We're going to take a little bit of a deep dive on both, right. The first question is what exactly are the skills that you're looking to build? Like let's talk about them at a practical level. And secondly, what is the time that you would actually need? Cause I feel like there's an assumption there around, there's an assumption around the skills and there's an assumption around the time needed. And I want to make sure that we're kicking the tire or that we have clarity on both so that we know what we're moving towards. Okay, so let's start with the skills. I want you to imagine we're being futurists now. Okay? I want you to imagine that it is a year from today, and we are having a conversation. And what you're reporting back to me is, Muriel, I can show you the positive delta from, um, this time last year to this time this year here. I have evidence that I have built or I have grown in these three skills that make me therefore demonstrate my value, be valuable, operate in a way beyond my technical skills. I want to hear from you, Jay. What would be those three skills, and what would be the evidence that you would have at that time that would tell you that there has been a positive delta?

Speaker G: The core skill that I want to develop first is to become, uh, a good judge. Having a good judgment of things across different situations is what the next level of jobs are going to be there. Because if generative AI produces a lot of content, somebody has to judge and evaluate them. And not only just evaluate them, but also judge whether the noise that is coming out of this entire production is manageable or not. To me, it looks like having a good sense of judgment would help one build better decisions in future. That's the first skill. The second one would be perception management. We are increasingly seeing that leaders who are very good at, uh, managing perception and image of certain things are influential. It's kind of ironic to say that in an age when things are getting so technical and everything can be fact check real quick, perception is the currency in the future. It's going to be one of the skills that how you shape narratives is going to be a key skill for future leaders. The third and, um, the most important one is how to enable others to become good judges themselves. Because that's just me sitting in isolation, influencing myself as a career path. But if I were to be a leader in an organization, what kind of culture am I going to bring in? And what could be the ramifications of it? Because a lot of work now that we are seeing is just looking at something and saying, thumbs up, thumbs down. You can do it, not do it. Even if we do it, we will do it with a few iterations. So those are three top skills.

Speaker D: Okay, so judgment across situations to make better decisions, how you shape a narrative and how to enable others to be able to make good judgment. What you are naming are, uh, core leadership competencies that have been around for a Very long time. So what I love about this is it's a universal, you know, the competencies themselves haven't changed. The question is, how do you build them, um, in this given context? So that's important to understand. There's nothing new here. Right. These are leadership qualities. What I'm seeing is that what you're really talking about is how do I make the pivot from relying solely on my technical skills to also relying or moving to relying on leadership skills. My friend Jay, this has been the question of everyone who has wanted to develop themselves as a leader pre AI during AI. And I'm not a futurist, but I'm just going to name it. It'll probably be post AI. Okay, it's the reason why I have a job, but I'm trying to work myself out of a job so that you can build the capacity to build it yourself, which is what we're doing. So I just want to normalize this for you. How does that land with you when I say that? To normalize it, apart from AI Sense

Speaker G: of validation, feel validated that the intuition is at least in the right direction.

Speaker D: And please let me apologize in advance for my lack of scientific knowledge. What I would offer you is not to necessarily create some causality between what you are observing and really deepen because of the technical aspects of your work and where you are now in terms of this bridge. Because again, this is a very natural leadership development arc that you're talking about. You know, developmentally, it's very normal. It should happen. Da, da. Now, might it feel a little different? Might there be contextually? Of course, we're within a system. But I want you to own that this is part of leadership development. So let's look at it from that perspective for a minute. If these are the three areas that, you know, you want to work on, uh, or you're like, this is what I would be able to do a year from now. I'd be able to have judgment shape, narrative, enable others. What is your assumption around the time required to be able to develop those competencies?

Speaker G: Yeah, that's one thing that keeps me awake at night is when do I get the time to develop this? I don't have a magic figure or even a ballpark at this point. I can't put a finger to a number. I would say this is a lifelong effort with little bit of increment over multiple cycles. And even the best of the best leaders for the skills that they have would always have the sense of, oh, there is still something that I need to work on and I can do better in this XYZ field or whatever I've been doing in a better sense. So for me, what time is needed? It's not like a step, it's more like a ramp which extends from now till, I don't know, forever. I think this is going to be a slow incremental process that develops naturally over time. The issue that I see here is the substrate and the folks with which I'm going to interact and the way I'm going to interact to develop these skills, that is shifting. So traditionally, if I were a traditional manager director, I would have interns or probably juniors who were to be onboarded, trained, mentored, and I can give that time of the day to invest in these folks about that. And that in turn helps me develop my leadership skills and helps them to see what real leadership looks like. How do I work with inanimate objects like a text file, which is what an agent is? And now we are having this increasing load of managing multiple agents, which is what is called agentic AI here. Well, how do I take this person out for, I don't know, hanging out after office, right? Like that whole humanistic part is missing.

Speaker D: We'll be right back after this M

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Speaker F: you've been with this show a while, you know one theme comes up again and again. There's a real gap between how a leader thinks work is getting done and how it actually is happening day to day. That gap matters because when you're deciding what to automate or where AI could genuinely help, you end up making those calls on assumptions and gut feel instead of data. Which is exactly the problem today's sponsor, Scribe, was built to fix. Scribe's workflow AI platform is already trusted by 94% of the Fortune 500. Their optimized product, in particular, passively captures how your team actually works across the business apps. Your admin approves and uses AI to surface your real workflows, the bottlenecks and the biggest opportunities. No interviews, no manual discovery, no extra effort from anyone on the team. I've seen this play out in my own business. We think we're working through things as well as we can, but then something happens that shows us inefficiencies in our process. The difference between what we think is happening and what's actually happening can at, uh, times be eye opening. What I appreciate about Optymyze is that it actually closes that gap. Log in and the dashboard shows you live which workflows are running, what tools they live in, how much time they're eating up, and where your biggest opportunities are. Not a report from last quarter what's happening right now. It mines those workflows automatically in the background. Nobody changes how they work and it follows a process even when it jumps from one tool to another. The discovery that used to take three months of workshops is just there when you log in. Then it surfaces your top issues and it doesn't just flag them, it tells you why they're happening and gives you AI powered recommendations to fix them with estimated time savings built in. So you're not just spotting problems, you're getting clear direction on how to improve. And this is a leadership visibility tool, not employee monitoring. Optimize only runs on the apps your admin approves, personal activity is never captured, user level data is anonymized by default, and sensitive information never leaves your firewall. All the insight without compromising anyone to see Optimize in action, visit Scribe How Muriel and mention Muriel for a 30 day risk free trial. That's S C R I B E How Muriel. Jay came into this coaching session with what seemed like stress and uncertainty about where his career and his organization is going. As someone with a technical background, he's always relied on those skills to succeed. He wanted to be proactive and find continued success success.

Speaker D: But he's facing dual forces.

Speaker F: One, he's at a point in his career where to get to the next level he needs to develop certain skills and on the other hand, one where what is required of managers is changing. While he thought what might be getting in the way of his development is time, he now realizes that that's less of an issue than he initially thought because developing leadership skills is something that he can provide pursue on the job. And while things today feel uncertain because of technology like AI, he's actually staring down a pretty classic leadership issue that existed way before AI came on the scene. How to build certain universal leadership skills needed to level up your career. As I said, the competencies he's looking for actually haven't changed. And often reminding yourself that there's nothing nothing new here can be a really important first step in normalizing leadership challenges you may be facing. Let's get back to Jay and start breaking down the exact skills he's looking to build before he creates a development plan for himself. AI notwithstanding,

Speaker D: The issue is if I want to learn how to play baseball, I've got to be able to Supposedly to have a ball and a bat, I have to find a baseball field. So you just said this is a humanistic endeavor, which means your sense, tell me if I'm hearing you correctly, is in order for me to work on these human elements, which is what's going to add value in the future, I need to work with humans. And the types of humans you don't have are the interns, the people more junior than you. So I want to flip a little bit. Okay, We've established what you don't have. Who are the humans that you do have?

Speaker G: For now, it's my peers, immediate team members, and my immediate manager and probably his manager. But then again, those folks are also being loaded with so much work that the amount of time they can dedicate for me or uh, like developing me, uh, or training me, in some cases it has worked out, but in most of the cases what I'm hearing is they have lesser and lesser time.

Speaker D: So Jay, I think you're in a situation though where like I hear all the, uh, non ideal conditions. The constraints. I hear the constraints. And I'm with you. I'm in no way dismissing what they are. Okay. When there are constraints, which are always will be, there always will be. Just like the competencies, there have always been constraints. There are constraints and there will always be constraints. You are not the first person to come to me and say, oh, I know I need to develop myself in these areas. But you know, there's no time, there's no budget, there's no this, there's no that. That's what makes development a little hard because there's not this like urgency of you have to do it. You know, kudos to you to even taking on the assignment and respons. And now the question to me is, how can I develop myself in these areas that you have articulated with what I have, with what I have. So if I don't have the bat, what do I do? I go find a stick. If I don't have the ball, what do I do? I go, I, uh, literally this is what we used to do in the neighborhood when I was a little kid. You would find a bunch of rubber bands and put them together. Rubber bands, rubber bands, rubber bands. Look at that. It makes a ball. Or what is a proxy for the real thing. I think here's your choices. You can wait for the ideal conditions to be in place that would provide you with the ideal environment and actors and resources to develop yourself. That's option one. You can wait, you can identify the ones that actually are in place, recognize that they are actually there and use them to the extent that you can. You do have humans in your life, to what extent can you use them? Option two, Option three, can I create proxies for those conditions, that is the rubber band ball, that is the stick for the bat. Knowing that it's not ideal and it gets me further than where I am today. Option number four is do nothing, which is still doing something. Okay, just not doing anything. And so these are the options. There might be others, but these are the ones that are coming up for me now. And so I think you have to pick a lane or maybe there's an and there's multiple lanes that are aligned with what it is that you want, which is to develop in these skills. Before we can talk about, well then how do you use that lane for that particular skill?

Speaker G: I see that being a combination of these options as a path forward, the ideal obviously is not something that one can create. That's not a feasible option. Creating proxies as simulations or like as looking for opportunities to correlate or uh, relate some of the leadership skills that are being provided as training and recall them in these interactions and reinforce it in your mind. When we meet somebody else for a short period of time, could be a half an hour meeting. One thing that I have taken a step forward is to record and journal some of the interactions that I've been having and map it to what I have learned so far from the training that I've been given to become a better leader. And it's just a matter of self directed practice, how quickly this becomes automatic. I don't have the luxury of spending next 5, 6 years in this middle management just you know, focusing on leadership development, management skills. But whatever time that I'm getting, I try and make the most efficient use of it. And the key word here is recall. If I can recall those concepts and skills correctly in time quicker, it's like learning how to play a sport. If I can just recall those actions that I have to take at this part of that moment, it lowers a lot of work to be done in future. It's just like learning another sport. I always like working and making this analogy of working in corporate with playing sports. That sports training analogy always fits in because we have different positions, different roles to play on a field and we all cooperate to make a larger effort succeed. This is just a different field slightly with different rules that I'm being exposed to. The only thing that is constrained now is, well, it's kind of a Limited time as a resource and opportunity as a resource of interacting with humans, which is forcing me to develop more efficient methods to reinforce these leadership skills.

Speaker D: Yeah. So a couple of observations from what you just said. Okay, I'm just playing back to you, what I'm hearing to see if it resonates with you and if it reflects your perspective and your approach. Number one is I actually love that you're sort of saying, I can do this. As long as I have the recall, I can learn it and then I can apply it. But what I have to find is the discipline to actually do that, the self discipline, which is the practice. Let me tell you something, that's half the battle. Because what stops most people is they don't have confidence that they could actually learn the thing. So, Jay, what you are entering with, which is a huge asset, is a growth mindset. You're not saying I can't learn these things. You're saying I can learn them, I just haven't learned them yet. And I'm looking for what's the best way to learn them. You know what that means? That means you are coachable. That is great. You're coachable, my friend. I think the second thing that I want to, you know, highlight for you is everyone else is kind of dealing with the same thing. Like, it's not like some people are not dealing with the increased productivity and others are, uh, like again, you love systems, right? This is a contextual shift. So we're all experiencing how do I develop myself when the conditions have shifted, you know, when the context has shifted, there's demand on us and higher productivity. Okay, so that's number two. Number three is, and this kind of brings us into a question. You said there's almost like limited availability of the human resources that I need in order to, to build these muscles. So I'm going to offer you something. There is one human that is with you all the freaking time to me. Yes, sir. So I have a question. I'm curious. Even if that's all you had as the human element, you're a human. You are your own organizational system. And I always say, good luck trying to transform anybody else, enable anybody else, support anybody else, develop anybody else, if you don't have the capacity to do so for yourself. So in what ways could you even use yourself to increase your capacity for judgment across situations, to make better decisions?

Speaker G: I think I've been taking a few steps here in terms of exposure across different industries and the kind of work that I've been involved in over last few years now, that range of interactions that I've got, each one of them brings out an aspect of me that I wasn't aware of. For good or bad. The feedback so far that I've got from my senior leaders is that I have great people skills and I can, for what? They have a stereotype of, uh, a technical person. They say you're a little more personable, that stakeholders would want to come and talk to you. The ones who don't have a technical mindset, you put things together in a way that lands very well with others. So that's been the first sense of reflection that I've got. In near future. There is a lot of noise that we generate ourselves in our mind. Depending on the time of the day or how the weather is outside, we can land up executing a, uh, different versions of ourselves for the same given tasks at the same given time. This is going back to a basketball player who kind of takes, um, ah, a free throw depending on which player you're talking about. They're making the exact hand movement. They have practiced this so many times, but there is that noise in them that half the time it doesn't go in where it's supposed to be going, right? And these are the best players in the world. So if I were to ask that to myself, well, hey, uh, you have practiced free throws like a million times in your life. Why is it that half the time it doesn't land where it's supposed to land? Well, there is that unpredictability of just being a human that comes out of your own existence. So when I look at myself as multiple versions of that noisy me, it gives me that chance to bring out aspects that I have not yet discovered. I mean, I'm not an old guy yet, so I'm just learning here. And there are so many things that I have probably never even realized about myself. So to put it very succinctly, Muriel, it would be a, uh, high level of self awareness without being self critical that could help alleviate this challenge to some extent.

Speaker D: I mean, look, that is the agency

Speaker F: you have right now.

Speaker D: Because what I'm hearing you say from the beginning of our conversation, Jay, is, hey, I want to develop in these areas and I feel like I can't because all these things outside of me, time, people, places, let's name them all, are not available to me, okay? And in a sense, because you are placing this causality of I can't develop unless those things are in place, which means you are outsourcing your capability to develop it is keeping you from having agency. Right. And this is exacerbated by everything that you know about AI because you see that as like, AI just reinforces that. And so in a sense, I'm like, wow, like, this is the perfect opportunity to really answer the question of yes, there are still possibilities of how you can develop yourself using these other things. We've identified them. You could use your peers, your managers, you know, with the limited amount of time that you have with them. But the opportunity that it really opens up, you're kind of in a forced predicament of having to source development from yourself as a baseline. Right? Let me not only outsource it where I can, but also use what I have, and what I have is me. So let me put that in practical terms. In order for you to use your words, survive and thrive on a daily basis, you've got to make judgments. You're making judgment calls all the time. You are making judgment calls all the time about different situations at work and outside of work, so that you can make decisions all the time. I think the difference in what you're calling in is if I was more self aware and if I brought a level of consciousness to those, then I could actually start working on that judgment in a deliberate way, which even though it might not be in the boardroom, et cetera, I'm still building that muscle of judgment. Let's use the noise story. I love the example you gave hundred free throw shots. And yet what could make the difference between getting that shot in or or not is the noise. Well, what is the noise? The noise is exactly what you talked about. It's the narrative. It is the narrative that we shape. And you just said we all carry noise. So there you go. You have an opportunity every single day to shape a narrative. What I'm offering you, Jay, is what if the starting point for you, not the only point, but the starting point for you, is to use what is at your disposal to develop the very skills that you want to develop and start with what it is that you are carrying around all the time, which is yourself. And secondly, use the situations that you're actually in, which means you don't have to create more time because you're actually in them. We'll be right back after this.

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Speaker F: It's easy to get overwhelmed by what you can't control or by the conditions not being ideal in this coaching session. It was important, important to help Jay see what he can do next rather than focus on what he can't. What resources does he currently have available that would enable him to work towards his goal even as the landscape keeps shifting? The reality is there are constraints in every organization at every period of time, in every industry. But what Jay can work on is what is in his power to shift while working within his constraints. He doesn't need to carve out more time or wait until he has new

Speaker D: skills he can start building.

Speaker F: Now let's get into specifics.

Speaker G: So I hear the part that leadership development can be to some extent a uh, solo activity in the sense that you're having a self awareness. No one's going to come and tell you you have to have that self feedback, self loop and self awareness as you speak. And there are certain chances of getting those feedbacks from let's say your managers or your peers because we have a 360 degree feedback in the organization. I still wonder moving forward in future, how many of those true moments are going to land upon us as more and more work and time is being squeezed out doing so many things at the same time.

Speaker D: And that's by true moments, what do

Speaker G: you mean true moments? Like when you have these conversations, one off conversations let's say with your manager and your manager is like yada yada. Oh, by the way, I like the way you did this, this, this, that becomes a part of some kind of an identity shaping in my head at least is that oh, this person sees this in me, which I probably didn't see in myself. And then that kind of reinforces certain positive behavior and gives that confidence that you were talking about that, you know, I don't have the confidence to learn that part that we are trying to solve. I do have the discipline to reinforce within myself. But uh, having that external agent give that confidence is what I kind of like needed a little bit more clarity on.

Speaker D: Yeah, and let me be clear, like in no way do I think development has to be a strictly solo endeavor. That was because let's start there because you have something there. And now let's Build on it. Right. What is the relational aspect? And what I hear you saying is, yeah, Muriel, like I can have the self awareness I can do, but I also wanna hear from other people how I'm doing. And I wanna hear, and so what

Speaker F: are your choices there?

Speaker D: And I want you to speak specifically about you, Jay, because I know you sort of think big picture and you think about how this is gonna impact everyone, and that's amazing. I want to make sure we talk about how it's going to impact you because you're the one I'm coaching right now. This is very selfishly. So tell me when you are not getting what it is that you need from someone, let's just even take it away from the validation, right? Anything. When you're not getting what you need, let's say you have a deliverable that you need, or you need a certain document from someone, or you need a certain technical something from somebody else in the organization, what do you do?

Speaker G: I take over agency myself. I think instead of sitting and waiting for others to come to the doorstep, I say, well, I can just do it myself, or whatever it takes for me to achieve the goal that I have in my mind.

Speaker D: Okay, so one is you can do it yourself. So that would look like, hey, I can provide my own validation. I can provide myself with that document. What other options do you have? Again, there's a document you need. One option is you can create it yourself. What are your other options?

Speaker G: I can reach out for help. I can actively communicate and state the intent that why I need this document or this particular thing that I would require and explain the purpose behind it and why this is important to both sides. I could also create an environment that enables others to share freely, to contribute and come out freely and contribute to this larger, expanding pool of knowledge and ideas, which is why we meet and work together in corporations and in organizations. So if I were to bring that to myself again, focus to myself again, and say, hey, what do I need to do to get from others what I want? I think the approach is not direct anymore. It's about creating the right environment that enables them to come out and produce what could be remotely close to what I'm looking for. Maybe not exact, but remotely close to what it's coming to.

Speaker D: Okay, so let's fast forward that into getting what it is that you want, which is the development of these skills not solely in isolation, but done in. Dare I say, you called it hive. I'll call it community, collective, not in a vacuum. What can you do to create the environment that would provide that to you, not to others, not to the industry, to you, you, Jay.

Speaker G: To me, purpose and meaning is the most important thing. Mhm. And people invest their time to develop some kind of meaning and purpose behind their actions daily. That's one of the reasons why we, a lot of times are engaged in work, not saying go to work engaged, like deeply engaged in work. That's one of the principles behind that, I feel, is engagement. If I were to say, well, people are engaged in producing behind a shared meaning and purpose, then I also have a, uh, confidence that they will bring the best out of themselves. People like agency, people like freedom, people still like that burst of creativity to come out, restricting that. And some organizations, some kind of workflows, they do restrict that, especially when it comes to judging it. And this is where the careful balance of, like, how do I train others to become good judges and myself to become a good judge without affecting that environment per se, is one of the things that I do want to learn over a shorter time horizon that we have discussed so far. If I were to take that out as a specific outcome.

Speaker D: I mean, look, let me be straightforward with you here. I think that there's a lot of conceptual around the way that you're thinking about this, and the conceptual can sometimes get in the way of forward movement. So to me, what I would suggest as homework here is that you list out and I would put the how do I enable it in others away for a second. Okay. I think you need to start with how do I enable it in me first. And I would take these two skills, the judgment skill and the shaping the narrative skill. And I would ask yourself a couple of questions. In what way am I using or not using those skills currently with myself? Meaning, what judgments am I making every single day? How do I shape my narrative every single day? What's working well? What's not working well? How can I do better? What practices can I put in place in the way that I'm currently doing my work? I don't even need to do anything different with my work. I don't need to go take on any other projects. I don't need to make any extra time in the work that I'm actually doing. How can I create a positive delta in judgment and in shaping narrative? So we're starting with home base, the work that you're actually doing. Then the next level is for the people who are at my disposal. My peers, my manager, my manager of managers, maybe even people outside of work. In what ways can I leverage the current interactions that I have with them to increase my capacity for judgment and discernment and shaping the narrative. So we're still using what's at your disposal. And then I think the third level is what is not at my current disposal. What do I need to go ask for in order for me to build these skills? Do I need to go ask for feedback? Do I need to go ask for an additional opportunity that provides me with more at bats in this area? Do I need to ask for, hey, once a, uh, quarter. Can I sit down with the person who I think is great at like using judgment and for 20 minutes just ask some questions? Do I need to go ask for it seems like you're an avid reader, right? Do I need to go ask for books that I can read on this topic? Do I need to take a course like development resources which are either people, programs, opportunities outside of your role, beyond your role. Do you need to ask for, hey, the next role? I want it to be one where I really get to exercise my judgment. You won't know until you ask. And I think this is where the environment that we're all in. I'm going back to the beginning of the conversation where you said, hey, what AI gives us is like a false illusion about the certainty of things about knowing. But what you're saying is no, actually because of that, I actually need to go ask for what I need rather than assume that it's already given. What we can't do today is kind of get down into that granular level. But you have categories that can move you forward. Let me pause there. I saw you writing. So what were you writing? Ah, your note cards.

Speaker G: Yeah, a lot of notecards. I like using these because I can just erase them and rewrite them and reorganize them in my journal. Then I think that we have really touched upon the let's go with two core skills that I want to take away and how to reinforce them. Judgment and narrative shaping. A lot of that comes from the self through self reflection that we discussed. But even more so to ask others for the interaction that supposedly I'm missing to reinforce those skills and even practice them as frequently as now. To just have this self reflective mindset about, oh, I just did this, what was the situation? Was I aware of what I said or how I thought about it and note down as feedback. At first it feels unnatural, like picking up any new skill. It just feels like this is not me. But at some point in future this becomes a part of identity which is saying, yes, this was me. I just wasn't aware of it.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker G: And this wasn't just reinforced because let's be honest, for most of my school life, this was not how I was moved up and promoted.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker G: Teachers are not looking at how self aware you are and how influential you are in the class. They're like, oh, did you get the good grades or not to get the good grades? Okay, all right, Pass, fail. So there's a lot of unlearning, um, also here, which I'm quite aware of.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, Jay, you're not alone in this, Right? Welcome to the whole community of having to unlearn what we learned to be successful. But now, as Marshall Goldsmith says, you know, what got you here won't get you there. And so what you're doing picking up is what is going to get you where it is that you want to be. Which for you is, hey, like, I've centered technology as, uh, technical expertise. I have centered that as my path to success, as my identity, even as a worker. And now what I'm doing is I am centering the human technology. Right. The human centric part of it I'm building on. That's not to abandon the technical expertise because it's still necessary. I mean, maybe it's disappearing, but it's still necessary. And how do I add these other parts? So you are not changing your identity. You're expanding your identity by building out actually these other muscles that already exist. You wouldn't have made it to where you are if you hadn't used some level of judgment, if you hadn't used some level of shaping narrative, if you hadn't used some level of enabling others, as you put it, you just now need to learn how to use those muscles in an, uh, expanded way and in a different game. So I think that that's the path for you and understanding. Yes, you can source it from yourself, and yes, you can source it from some of the opportunities that you're already working with. That doesn't take more time. You're already in those situations. And what else do you need? Ask for it, Ask for it, go find it. Versus waiting for the conditions to be in place. What's the worst that can happen?

Speaker G: You gotta know.

Speaker D: You gotta know. Which puts you exactly where you are now, which isn't that bad. All right, Jay, how are you feeling now versus the beginning of our conversation?

Speaker G: Wow. Uh, the whole thing shifted quite a bit. I started with something on my mind to talk about with you, but you literally took me from one circle of Thoughts and ideas and expanded that and moved it into another landscape altogether. Letting those words come out from myself instead of being prescriptive that you, you need to do this, this, this. It's just an art, you know, to get people to get from point A to point B by themselves is something that I truly enjoy today. It's something that I want to take away today as kind of a path forward that should bring out a part of me that I'm not yet much aware of. And how this evolves over time is something that I want to be more and more aware of and verbalize it to myself that I am this person versus whatever I've been saying that, oh, yeah, I am this person still, but I'm also this person that I have not yet been aware of. And so this interaction kind of gives that kind of a hope that, oh, okay, there is a possibility that somebody sees you and not just sees you, made you realize it yourself through your own set of thought process that, oh, uh, this is something that existed. You just had to put that into words and play it back to yourself to hear yourself out.

Speaker D: You have it. You've just got to realize that you have it and continue to use it and then look for the tactical opportunities to grow those. Okay. It has been such a pleasure working with you. Thank you.

Speaker G: It was fantastic.

Speaker D: The reality is that leadership development rarely

Speaker F: happens under ideal conditions. Most of us imagine growth occurring when we finally have the right mentor, more time, clearer feedback, or a, uh, less demanding environment.

Speaker D: But the truth is, the workplace has

Speaker F: always been evolving, and the moments of rapid change often force us to become much more intentional about how we grow. The good news for Jay is that he already has the confidence to learn and a, uh, growth mindset, which are an invaluable place to start. Judgment, influence, and communication aren't abstract leadership concepts. They're muscles we strengthen in real time, in meetings, in decision making processes, and even in the stories we tell ourselves. By not solely relying on outsourcing his capability to develop, Jay comes out of this conversation setting himself up for success and taking more control over his path forward.

Speaker D: That's it for today.

Speaker F: Come back in two weeks for a new Coaching Real Leaders Ask Muriel anything episode.

Speaker D: If you want me to coach you through an issue or have a question you want answered, head on over to coachingrealeaders.com and let me know. And if you want to unpack episodes from Coaching Real Leaders, you can join me at coachingrealeaderscommunity.com where I host live discussions about each coaching session you hear on this show. You can also follow me on LinkedIn, Muriel Wilkins and on, um, Instagram oachmurielwilkins a reminder that if you love these coaching conversations, it would mean the world to me if you would go to Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to, subscribe to the show and leave a five star review. Thank you to my producer Mary Dew, sound editor Nick Krinko, music composer Brian Campbell, and my Chief of Staff Emily Sofa. Um, much gratitude to the leaders who join me in these coaching conversations and to you, our listeners who share in their journeys. I'm Muriel Wilkins. Until next time, be well.

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