Leaders Who Coach

Welcome to the Generous Benefits Podcast, where we help employers build people-first benefits that make business sense. I'm Amanda Brummitt. Today, we're talking about coaching as a leadership skill, not hiring an executive coach, but leaders learning to coach their own teams. Jessica Taylor joins us to explain what coaching looks like in real conversations, when it's the right leadership tool, when it isn't, and why proactive coaching strengthens performance and trust.

We also cover practical methods, including the GROW framework and how HR leaders can apply it every day. Let's dive in. Hi, Jessica. Thank you so much for being here today.

So great to be with you, Amanda. Thank you again so much for the invitation and always a pleasure talking with you. Yes, it's always a good day if I have an excuse to talk to you. It doesn't happen often enough, so I'm glad that it did today.

Me too. Me too. Well, I would really appreciate it if you could start by just giving everybody the background on who you are, your education, your professional background, and how you got into coaching. Yeah, so I'm an executive coach.

My company is called Coaching Coalition, and in that space, I do offer executive coaching and leadership coaching. I work one-on-one and in groups, and then also I help build coaching cultures and coaching skills within organizations. And so leading coaching skills training and workshops and really all things coaching. I've gotten to be so passionate about it.

And how I got into it was my corporate background. You and I share healthcare administration as a background. That's how we got to meet. And so my corporate background was 20 years working for a healthcare organization and the Mayo Clinic, building programs for a wide variety of different healthcare organizations, hospitals and clinics and health systems.

And my role, my official title was VP of Strategy and Marketing and Client Relations. I worked across operations, business development, business planning. That's where I've got an MBA in healthcare administration, so I used some of those business building skills. And how I got into coaching was part of that, my role was to lead and facilitate peer networks.

And so those were for directors, VPs, and C-levels. We had 17 different peer networks for HR, IT, laboratory, all sorts of different departments within and functions within healthcare organizations. And I was facilitating an HR peer network one day. And afterwards, as we're collecting all of our things, one of them pulled me aside and said, you know, you've got all these great facilitation skills and training.

Have you ever thought about adding coaching? because, you know, that might be something that suits your personality and it's another modality that. She just really encouraged that I look into it. And so, yeah, so a couple weeks later, I got into training through the Association of Talent Development, and that started me on where I am today.

I love it. Well, and having seen you as you were finishing up on the healthcare side and transitioning, you are a perfect person to be in that coaching role, and it seems like your education and your experience perfectly lined up for it. It's meant to be yeah it really yeah i'm glad that that's the way it comes across on the outside because that's the way it feels on the inside is this coaching is something that builds on you know experience and skills and training and then just a real love of of being with people and then before we get too far in i do want to mention to our listeners that you and kenzie judge did an amazing episode on what an executive coach is when you could need an executive coach and so if people are specifically interested in that, I definitely recommend listening to that episode.

And today, we're talking more about teaching leaders to coach, to be a coach themselves. So if someone has never seen coaching, they don't know what coaching is, can you share what it looks like when a leader uses coaching skills in conversations? Yeah. So maybe talk about what coaching is and what it isn't.

And it's perfect. Yeah. And yeah, when leaders can use some of these skills for themselves, because you don't have to be, you know, have coach in your job title to use coaching skills. It's something that everybody can bring as part of their leadership and their management.

So coaching is a structured conversation, and it is based on future goals and aspirations, where you really want to see yourself in the future. So we often use roadmap as kind of a metaphor and analogy. And so coaching is really determining your destination, where it is that you want to go, where do you want to be in the future? And then skills training and other modalities are really the road map and so like the step-by-step directions and mentoring is often is one of the step-by-step you know here's my experience and here's what I would do versus coaching is more a lot of questions you know the coach will ask a lot of questions what's what's important to you what are your values what are your strengths here what have you already considered we're going to be talking a little bit about I'll share some of those skills and what those questions look like.

But a coaching conversation is really where the coach is facilitating, eliciting different ideas and what the strengths and values are of the person being coached. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And then it's not necessarily giving the answer to that.

It's being quiet and just listening. Right, exactly. So like the difference between mentoring where mentoring might be, well, when I was in your situation, here's what I did. And they might be pointing towards a resource or, you know, here's what you should look at or, you know, here's how I would do that situation.

The coach isn't necessarily going to give any instructions and say that's going to be going to be more of what would be best for you and they're really the coach is seeing you as as whole and resourceful and being able to solve your own problems through uncovering things maybe you hadn't thought about and then in a practical sense um correct me if i'm wrong so i'm assuming as as a leader, I'll use myself as an example, that perhaps in my one-on-ones with my team members, I would want to insert some of this coaching.

So helping them dream about what's next, what resources they need. Is this something where like you take that hat on and off or? Yeah, absolutely. And you can even identify, you know, call it out loud, say, you know, let's enter into a conference, let's have a coaching conversation about this.

Okay because then that kind of prepares everyone and once it's ingrained in the culture everybody was like okay now i'm going to put on my thinking hat and and so it kind of just sets the foundation for what this conversation is going to be like it also can be something that when you notice somebody is struggling or maybe trying to you know having trouble coming up with ideas or seeing their own solutions it might be something that maybe you don't say specifically i'm coaching But you step into that role.

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. I would have never thought of actually calling it out.

And that just makes it so much more comfortable of, hey, let's flip into, let's just dream for a minute. I really like that. Yeah. Yeah.

It really can just, yeah, get everybody on the same page. Yeah. Okay. And then when you're teaching leaders these coaching skills, can you give us like an example of what that could look like maybe in a conversation?

Yeah, that's kind of, you know, a client that I worked with recently was very established in their career. They were kind of mid to late career. And so about maybe 50, 55-ish. And so had been really established in the organization, had been there for a long time, had worked up through the ranks, was really well respected and had been moved into a new leadership role.

And so this person was really wanting to stretch where it was that they saw their team go. And so it came for coaching because they were noticing that they were leading team meetings and they were doing what they always had done in their practice, in their clinical practice. This has been a physician. But they said, you know, here's the problem that I see.

Here's some solutions. And so and they started delegating. You know, you're going to take this. I'm going to take that part.

You know, it's reasonable. Yeah, very effective. But what he was noticing is that a couple weeks later, people were coming back, they were missing deadlines or they just weren't, you know, there wasn't a feedback loop that was coming back about what was going on with the project and where it was moving. Ouch.

Yeah. So what he really was noticing is like, you know, how can I make these team meetings more effective? And that's where we talked about coaching skills. And so they can start using, he started using coaching skills to be, you know, turning it more together with his group.

You know, what do you guys see for this? Here's our goal. What do you think we should consider? If you were in my shoes, what would that look like for you?

What would you try? What things have we already tried that maybe haven't been brought out onto the table before? And so it just really shifts the conversation from being a top-down to sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a way that you still retain credibility and authority. And necessary for that team dynamic to be effective.

But it just brings out more of the, you know, when we talk about psychological safety, being able to surface all sorts of different angles on the same goal. That is such a mind shift change for A, any natural-born leader, or B, a physician to, you know, almost put that muzzle on and I am not going to be the one that comes up with the ideas or the answers and but so empowering for a team it really is I mean just yeah because you are you know as a leader you feel like there's an expectation for you to have all the answers and so you still think don't want to have that authority and the credibility you know to be able to be effective but also have that shift where be like I don't have to have all the answers.

I can really lean on the team for having that scaffolding and bringing in some of those new ideas that wouldn't have come up otherwise. Yeah. And are there other times when coaching is that tool that a leader should reach for? Like that team meeting example is a great one.

Are there other ones like that? Yeah. And there's different coaches for different things. And so, yeah, we can talk a little bit about that.

But first, let me answer the question of different kind of situations that coaching is really effective for. Yeah. Yeah. So like when you're having, when you've moved into a new role and so you've been promoted, you've got all the technical skills, you've been really effective.

You've, you know, brought in results and outcomes for the organization. Now you've been trusted to lead a team. Executive coaches and leadership coaches can be really effective at that early stage, like when you're in that to help build on what you have already accomplished and. Help build on like those relationships.

Coaching is a really safe space to where you can role play and you can have some, you know, somebody to bounce ideas off of, you know, what if I tried this? What would it look like if I could do this? And they help work through some of those, you know, your scenarios. Executive level that can, yeah, executive level, like when you are, have got a new project or a major initiative that you're embarking on, executive and leadership coaches and project coaches can be really effective at that.

And so really around the ideation or helping you solidify how you want your vision to look and to come across. Again, coaches can be that sounding board of, you know, where am I coming from a place of strength? And is this really consistent with my values and how we're showing up in the organization? And then I probably asked the question wrong.

When as the leader internally that is coaching their team, when do I pull for those coaching skills? And then also the flip side. So now I'm going to add a second question to it. When do I not?

Like, when are those times that you're like, ooh, as a leader, this would be a great time to coach your team, but also, no, save your dreaming for another day. Today's a day to be tangible. Yeah. Those same scenarios that you might reach for a coach personally, for yourself individually, can also be some of the same scenarios that it's really effective to bring in some coaching skills yourself together with your team.

And so like those new initiatives, you know, after you've set the vision and the business outcomes that you expect and that are being expected, maybe if you're a publicly held company, you're going to have some stakeholders that are involved. So once you have those visions and those goals, then bringing in some coaching skills together with your team can help bring out some more of those ideas. And so coaching is not really good at when there's a problem. It's not when I want to open up dialogue that way.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. When you're seeing problems or cultural, you know, there's not a cultural fit that's going on.

Someone has been promoted and it turns out there's a skills gap that maybe they need. That would be more appropriate for training rather than coaching. Also, sometimes we see coaching being brought in when there's a performance improvement plan that's trying to be implemented. And they're trying to show somebody, you know, the door to new opportunities.

And coaching is kind of brought in to do some of that dirty work is kind of the ideas of it. And so that's not really the best use of coaching. Coaching is really more proactive and visionary than it is reactive and disciplinary. Yeah.

Okay. I really like that analogy. And you're right. Clearly, of course, you would be since you are a coach.

But the times that you would pull for an external executive or leadership coach really are the same as when internally you should put that coach hat on. That's really, really helpful. And that makes me almost think that we're doing it as leaders. We just don't realize that we're coaching.

That's exactly it. Yes. Yes. A lot of times, yeah, we're having questions-based conversations.

We're like, you know, what do you think about this? What have you already tried? Those are coaching questions. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. Okay. And then you said coaching works best when it's proactive, not reactive.

I could not agree more. What are leaders and organizations missing out on when coaching only shows up once there's problems? Yeah, that potential growth. And so, you know, if you're bringing it in when, let's say there's a safety issue or a compliance problem, that's really, coaching isn't really, it isn't really effective at that.

That is more of a, you know, you need to bring in somebody else for those kind of issues, you know, problems. And so when you're not bringing in a coach, when it's proactive, you're missing seeing all of the different potential solutions within your team. You also, it's something that really brings out the strengths of your team. And so somebody might have a superpower that you didn't even know that was there.

Also, if you're bringing in a new tool or an assessment, you know, like a lot of Hogan assessment or DISC or, you know, any of those other kind of Gallup strengths, any strengths finder, any of those kind of different modalities. Coaches can be really effective at helping translate those and really dig into each part of those kinds of assessments and really pull out a lot of the individual strengths. And what those assessments mean on the individual level as well as the organizational level.

I've had personal experience with that showing up in someone's Omnia results that we had no idea they had the aptitude for sales. We hired them for a completely different role and this showed up in their Omnia results. That's a great example. Yeah.

Definitely. Yeah. I also really like your comment about the superpowers. We may miss those.

One of my favorite questions for a one-on-one is not regularly, like maybe quarterly or once a year, but what skill set do you have that our company needs that I don't know you have? Then that's when you find out people are good at graphic design or they're great writers or they love process improvement. Yeah, they've got passions for things that you just, there may not be part of their day job and their job, you know, their official job description, but they've got these talents or experience in something that is completely different.

Yeah, or maybe they've been on the team for 10 years and you forgot that 15 years ago, they used to do this. Totally. That's how I got dumped with marketing at a hospital. My CEO walked in the door.

I was doing business development and contracts and managed care. And she walked in and goes, hey, don't you have a marketing degree? I'm like, well, yeah, but. And the rest was history.

That's exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So really, coaching can bring out those kind of things that we just, because it's a structured, again, it's a structured conversation.

And so it really can surface these things that just sit below. And like, this can be buried. Yeah, definitely. Okay, well, that is such a good tip.

What are what are other tools in that toolkit that leaders can use to bring out those coaching skills? Yeah, maybe now's a good time to kind of talk about a framework. And so your grow method. It is.

It is. Yeah. So coaches will use a lot of different frameworks. And this one is one of the very earliest frameworks that came from executive coaching.

And if I can kind of tell a little bit of a story about it. Yeah. Yeah. Coaching does come from sports.

It does have its origin. So there is that connection there. Even though they look much different now today. But in the 70s, there was a tennis coach and his name was Galloway.

And he was coaching elite tennis athletes. And he was noticing that when he was telling them how to improve, that they weren't doing it. Like they just, they were not getting results. And what he decided instead was kind of ask them, like where, when you're hitting the ball, where's your racket?

When you are making that serve, how does that feel? And he was noticing that when people were giving their own feelings and their own assessment of their performance, Then they started to improve. And he wrote a book about it. And an executive in England, Sir Whitmore, he actually noticed this.

And he reached out to the tennis coach and said, hey, can you teach me how to do that? And so they started in IBM. And that's how they started working with those executives, asking a lot of questions, giving that framework. And they had this perfect pilot program within IBM and they noticed all of these different ways that the organization grew, that the coaching culture really started at the top and led to a lot of different initiatives and business outcomes.

So from that, then that's the long story of how the Grow framework came. And so they wanted to teach all of their supervisors and managers how to coach. And so the GROW framework is goal, reality. Options, and way forward.

And so it is a way of having a structured conversation where you are talking about the goal together. And that just might, it's exactly what that, that is the most straightforward part of it is just, you know, what is it that we want to accomplish? What are the things that we're thinking about? How does that fit together with our mission and vision?

How does that fit together with some of the other goals within our organization? Really important to think about this can also be very holistic how did that fit together with other departments or other our other initiatives and other other things that we have going on within the organization or the culture the next is reality are and so that is really where you can get into some of the difficult questions some of those hard conversations yeah what is really happening right now what is actually going on for you what are what is really happening behind the underneath the surface.

And so those kind of questions can really identify, you know, any problems, sticky, sticky problems that might surface later. And so, you know, the example of a physician coach that I was working with, he had team members that weren't sharing what was actually happening because they had been intimidated. Oh, no. And so those reality questions can really set a safe foundation for, here's what is happening in my area.

And then somebody else might share what's going on in their area. And then they can identify like, oh, I didn't know that what I was doing here was affecting you over there. So that's the R and the reality part of it. Options is where you can surface, all of the different ideas.

It's really the ideation part of a coaching conversation. What are things that we've considered? What are things that have been tried in the past? How did that go?

It's where you can dream. You can ask that magic wand question. If I had unlimited resources, what would I do? What would that look like?

It's really that space to just really surface and get everything out on the table. What are all the things that we can consider? And this actually was really proven in Apple. So within their design labs, they used a lot of the options type coaching questions.

Then the fourth part and the last is the way forward. So that's really identifying what we're going to move forward and what will be the plan. And within that, you can ask a lot of questions of the delegation, who's going to accept responsibility? What is going to be the accountability plan that you have in effect?

When are you going to check in? What is that going to look like? And the really important question is how will we know when we're successful? Not just on the outcome or the business metric, but also, you know, what does that look like for us as a team?

Okay, and I had to use every bit of self-control not to take notes on every word you were just saying because then I can't actually listen to you and you're important enough to listen to. Is the grow method something that people need to just rewind and write all that down or is there somewhere they can go online and find details about it? Yeah, you can search for it and find question frameworks. You can also use your favorite AI tool to ask it to have a coaching conversation using the Grow framework.

Ah, okay. There's a couple of really great books that teach it also. The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay-Stanier is one of my favorite recommendations. He really brings coaching down to a personal level and how you can use it in both your personal and your professional life.

Oh, perfect. Okay. And thinking about HR leaders specifically, how would they use that in their day-to-day? And I know you're playing quite a bit and generously sharing what you're playing with with AI.

So maybe even if there's an AI prompt, maybe even share what you would use. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's a good part. This is a good way to, you know, talk about AI safety for coaching conversations.

Yes, please. So yeah, so AI is just such a wonderful tool to be able to role play and to learn these coaching frameworks on an individual level. The safety part is, of course, it's just like anything else. We don't want to enter in any personal confidential information into those tools.

And so it's tempting to kind of put in together a a project plan or something like that but it's just like google where we don't want to enter in our social security number our credit card number so yeah so with that caveat ai tools can be really helpful in in framing up the ideation and the coaching questions so a prompt might be if i this is the scenario as a situation without the putting in any personal information in there. But here's the scenario. What coaching questions could I ask of my team?

It's a great prompt. Also, can you role play with me? I'm going to be entering into this conversation. And here's the particular questions.

Like if you were going to be on the other side of that equation, what would be some things that you would want to hear from me? Any other questions you'd want to know? And a third one might be if you're leading a people strategies, particular for HR directors. You can enter in some of your expected outcomes.

And so whether that might be retention or recruitment or leading some of any of your other people initiatives, again, those are so common and they pretty much have an entire database within the AI tools of everything that has ever come out of SHRM. So the Society for Health human resources management. So you can kind of ask it to query some of those tools and it can help point you into some of those resources that SHRM might have that you can access as a member. Oh, that's great.

I have been cautiously optimistic and surprised at how well AI has done with helping me piece together like job descriptions and things like that. And honestly, mine are better than when I used to draft them because I think there's so much out there that's really good. It can pull from so many different resources that we hadn't thought of. And then you are able to customize it and bring it in so that it is personalized.

And so, yeah, it provides a great first draft. Yes. Well, oh, I hadn't even thought about using it that way. So I do the first draft and then I have it edit.

That's smart to actually start there. Both ways. Both ways. Certainly for writing, you want to have your own flavor.

So starting with your own first draft and then putting it in and having it help edit. for you. And so, yeah, same with coaching, you know, you can have it, you know, you want to put in the coaching questions that you might have, or, you know, you give it the grow, grow framework. Yeah.

And then ask it to help frame out the coaching questions for you. So. Nice. I have fairly set.

I mean, there's like 20 of them. So I varied them up with questions that I use in one-on-ones and I've been using for three decades. I'm going to plug it into AI this week and just freshen them up. Yeah.

Yeah, it can really, because it's pulling from so many different resources. Yeah, it does. It really can give you another perspective that maybe hadn't thought of or another resource. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I love it. Okay, we'll do a whole episode on AI, but I will move on since this is not an exclusively AI episode. Yeah, same, same. Using it.

Yeah. Well, it was on that note. There's a lot of conversation in the coaching industry about is AI going to replace coaches? And yeah, it's because it is such a human interaction.

And these conversations are, yeah, it is a human endeavor in coaching. It can help support coaching in a lot of different ways. So helping with those assessments or identifying which assessment might be appropriate, it can help on the business side of things. So helping automate emails or, you know, anything that you do on repetition.

And so like with the grow framework, again, it can help identify a set framework and piece like that. So it can help support some of those coaching functions, but I don't see that we're going to have, you know, the HER operating system coach on demand. No, I mean, humans lie to their coaches. They're going to lie to AI.

And I think a human is going to be better at going. I know Jessica, and she looks tired today. And she may have said this, but I think this is going on. And then, yeah, AI is not really good at reading emotions.

And so, yeah, you know, being able to see somebody and how it is that they're feeling. Also, a big part of coaching is listening. And so, you know, all the AI models are a little bit sycophant. And so they will just support whatever it is that you're saying, where a coach would give more pointed feedback and more pushback on something like, or challenge, you know, challenging an assumption.

And whereas those AI models are not doing that today. Fascinating. And you don't look tired. You look thriving.

Cerebral example. Well, yeah, like picking up on anger, you know, any of those kind of pieces. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Or just that's off for that person. That gut instinct, I would imagine, is huge in coaching and leading. Yeah.

Yeah. So someone is an HR leader and they're starting from scratch. What kind of path would you put them on to building these coaching skills into their their normal leadership? Yeah.

So part of my credentials in the introduction, we may mention I'm a professional certified coach. And so it's a PCC level. And that comes from the International Coaching Federation, ICF. And that is a credentialing body for coaches.

And so for anybody who's in HR, you know, the HR professional designation by the Society of Human Resources Management, ICF is our equivalent to that. Ah, okay. And so it is a curriculum that is developed, evidence-based, and includes a body of knowledge and a code of ethics. And so for anybody who's wanting to develop coaching skills, I think ICF training is a great place to start.

Nice. And you can get that as like an HR director. You don't have to be ready to go full force into coaching? No, you don't have to be wanting to be, you know, have coaching your job title or, you know, be a side hustle.

If you just want to learn some coaching skills, there are a lot of different ICF accredited coaching skills programs. Also, somebody who is a PCC can teach those skills. And so there's a third level, an MCC, a master certified coach. They also can provide supervision of coaching.

And so if you're having a coaching conversation, they can provide feedback on a recording. And so with permission, of course, from the person being coached. So anybody who has an ICF credential is going to have had that formal evidence-based training in those coaching modalities. And so, yeah, they can find that.

And there is a training program finder on the ICF website. And maybe we can link that in the show notes where they can find that. And like when I, you know, when that HR director pulled me aside and said, you should consider coach training. That was the first program I enrolled in was a weekend.

It was a 12-hour program, and it was the Association of Talent Development. And so they taught us coaching skills, how to problem solve within a coaching relationship, those ethics, and those pieces like confidentiality, creating psychological safety, active listening, all those different pieces of a coaching conversation. Yeah. Okay.

And then as an internal person within a company that is using some coaching skills, what is it really important that they get right? And you mentioned confidentiality. That's one that I think of, like your HR. So you've got to be able to keep things confidential already.

But you may learn things in your coaching that you need to use organizationally. So what are your thoughts there? Yeah. That was a long rambling question.

No, it's really, yeah, it's really, it's because it's a real situation that people will find themselves in is like they're entering into a coaching conversation and things come out. And so identifying what you do with that information and how you use that. And so for internal coaches, again, you know, referring back to that ICF code of ethics, you know, what you keep confidential and those standards and really having it can really help being prepared as a coach. When you're entering coaching clubs, there's a part of it called the agreement.

And that is identifying together with the person that you're coaching. Here's our guardrails. Here's what we're going to be able to talk about. And here's some things that are off the table.

And so really setting up that conversation at the start before you even get into it can help avoid some of those sticky widgets, you know, sticky situations. But sometimes if you do find yourself in that, you know, there is, if there's safety concerns or mandatory reporting, anything like of that nature, I mean, there's a clear set of actions that are going to be taken and that you follow. Some things are gray areas where you might learn about, maybe dysfunctions of a team. And so, you know, going to that Patrick Lencioni, five dysfunctions of a team, if you're seeing some of those kind of those behaviors or things that affect culture, then you identify as an HR leader, you know, how, what are our strategies and ways of addressing that?

And then you might enter into a coaching conversation together with one of your peers. So bringing that together within the team, you know here's you know confidentiality here's here's the situation that was surfaced and how can we address that together yeah that's a really good and i really appreciate the way you worded that how can we address that together neither party gave the answer yes we're coaches now we're coaches and not just leaders yes yes and i would have to say like so the book that i referenced earlier that Michael Bungay-Stanier, his other book is called The Advice Trap.

Yeah. Because it is such an instinct that we want to be helpful and we want to give answers. And it is definitely one of those skills that we learn of how to be in a question mindset and a curious mindset rather than just getting into going into advice giving. Yeah, absolutely.

I've actually learned that I need to say to the other human in front of me, Jessica, thank you for sharing that. Do you just want me to listen or do you want me to help you fix it? I'm happy to hold space with you either way because I can't tell. And so I just ask.

And nine times out of 10, just listen. Yep. It can save marriages and it can save our jobs. Yes.

Yes. Okay. Then if there's one thing that an HR leader could do this week to start making better use of coaching skills, what would it be? Yeah, having that curious mindset.

And so it really does come to mindset. And so really identifying when there's an opportunity to help somebody identify their strengths and their values and that destination. So instead of being someone who wants to, you know, it's different from being a teacher or instructing or, you know, giving directions. You know, sometimes there's points when you just really need to give somebody, like they're lost and they need to know how to get to the nearest gas station.

So really on that mindset of identifying when those are appropriate and when, you know, the mindset of having a coaching conversation of when should I help this person find their own way? When can I help identify opportunities that they may have not seen? Big part of coaching is having is that active listening and then paraphrasing and mirroring back to them what you hear and letting that other person hear what they sound like so really like this week is a kind of thinking about you know we're recording this on a monday so which is amazing you like it you know kind of thinking about the week ahead what are some you know meetings that i have where coaching identifying using that grow model might be appropriate might facilitate that conversation and.

Come out with a better outcome. Absolutely. I'm going to dive into the grow model as soon as we're done here. And I'm kind of annoyed that I'm 30 years into leading people before I ever heard about it.

So I'm glad to know today that it exists. I wish I was promoted into leadership when I was in my 30s, like young 30s. I wish I'd had this before because I just I felt really pressured to have all the answers. And had I had this, that would have been just it would have changed on so many conversations.

They just thought you were a guru or something. Right. Well, Jessica, thank you for your time. Thank you for just your transparency, your ability to make something very approachable and easy to listen to.

And just really appreciate you. I could talk with you all day long. I really, I really enjoyed having a conversation with you, Amanda. Yeah, thank you again so much for the invitation.

big thanks to jessica taylor for sharing practical ways leaders can use coaching skills to build stronger teams and improve performance this is the generous benefits podcast keeping leadership and benefits practical personal and people first.