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Muriel Wilkins

executive coach listening right now, I want to tell you about something I'm hosting this December. It's called Evolve and it's a four day immersion for coaches who work with executives and senior leaders. We're going to a beautiful place in Mexico, me, you and a small group of executive coaches doing the kind of inner and outer work that actually changes how you show up in your coaching practice. If that sounds like something you need to go to MurielWilkins.com evolve to learn more. That's MurielWilkins.com evolve.

Let's evolve together.

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. Today I'm coaching someone we'll call Claire to protect her confidentiality. She was recently promoted to the director level, which means she's now a manager of managers. She attributes much of her career advancement to her ability to be collaborative.

Claire

I think the reason that I've moved up so quickly within this company is that a I'm seen as someone who can build teams of really collaborative employees. I like to solve problems creatively and some of the creative solutions that I've been able to deliver with my team have gotten a lot of attention from leaders. I think the way that I've been successful in that space has been to really deeply get to know the people on my team to build a really almost loving relationship with them where there's a deep sense of trust and care. They follow me because they know I care. So that way I can really push on.

Muriel Wilkins

I want more.

Claire

I want something more creative. I want something that pushes the envelope even more. And I can say that without making them feel threatened professionally.

Muriel Wilkins

Along with all the regular growing pains of becoming a higher level leader, Claire is now dealing with one issue in

Claire

particular you know, I'm having a specific challenge on my team that I feel responsible for now as a director, that I know how I would handle it potentially as a manager. But now as a director, I'm seeing the problem a little differently.

Muriel Wilkins

Let's start there.

Claire

So there is an employee who reported to me when I was a manager. I was this person's direct manager. I'm now their skip level. But I have to then help this new manager with this issue. And here's the challenge. There's an employee on the team who is a senior level individual contributor. And she came into our company from a company that has a completely different corporate culture than our company. The culture within my company is very collaborative. It's very consensus driven. Some people might say that there isn't a strong accountability culture, that it's very feelings driven. And there are many, many people who work at this company who have been at the company for a long time. And the culture is very deeply ingrained in the people who work there. And so decisions are not made decisively. They're made really consensus driven. They can be kind of long, protracted decision making. And there's a real feel good culture. Just like, it's great to work here. What matters most is that we're working together collaboratively to solve problems. The culture that this employee comes from, she has a like, just a much different mindset of like, there must be very strongly documented processes and she's very rigid about adhering to those highly engineered processes. I have not seen very much ability to be agile, to like sort of truncate those processes. My team is being asked to do more than they've ever done before with fewer people. And so what makes this difficult is a couple of things. One is that I need every person on the team to be able to work on truncated timelines, to be able to take that long sort of ideal process and slim it down.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay?

Claire

And I need every person on my team managing multiple projects as a manager of this person, when I've gone to her and said, I need for you to, you know, work on two or three things at a time, her answer's been, I'm not going to do that. I can't do that. And so that's creating an issue for the rest of the team because they're going, well, we're all balancing two and three things. We know how to truncate. And so then I've tried to coach her with like, okay, great, technically she's right, like, we should be doing all of these things. But just in the constraints that we have around our business right now, we can't do everything. Ideally, she wants to work on siloed work that she has complete autonomy over so that she can work on these protracted processes and have, like, total control over her work. And then when I ask her to coach other people, like, could you talk about parts of the process that you're very good at with your colleagues, you know, to coach and develop them? She comes across to them as very condescending, like, you don't do it the right way. You should do this differently. There's not a great sense of coaching there.

Muriel Wilkins

Let me just make sure I get it. There's somebody who used to be one of your direct reports. No longer your direct report because you got this fabulous promotion to director. They now report to one of your managers.

Claire

Correct.

Muriel Wilkins

And there are certain things that are causing you some heartburn. They're not as agile as you would like them to. When you ask them to coach and develop others the way that they're doing it comes off as condescending to others.

Claire

Yes.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay. So with this employee, the one thing I know is that this employee is not in front of me for coaching.

Claire

Right.

Muriel Wilkins

You are.

Right. So why are you here for coaching?

Claire

I'm here because all of the circumstances that I've shared are creating a situation on the team that I lead, that is creating, to use your word, heartburn with the other folks that I lead. And so when I think about it from an engagement perspective, now that I'm the director, I'm thinking about it from, what is my responsibility as the director to help this individual fit into and thrive within the culture that she finds herself in our company? And what is my responsibility to the rest of the team in terms of their engagement? Said another way, how do I balance what I owe the rest of the team who are all juggling all of these projects and sort of looking at her and going, excuse me, what are you going to do about this person who's not taking on the same amount of work that we are? What are you doing as the leader? And then what do I owe them versus what do I owe this person who has the subject matter expertise and can do the job, but is quite rigid in terms of how much she will sort of fit into the rest of what's expected of her? What is my responsibility here? What is the responsibility of the new manager? Because, like, this person reported to me, and I didn't performance manager out. I didn't. I mean, I coached her very, very much, but it's still there because like, she's still a human who's different from other humans, right? So I didn't quote, unquote, fix her because, like, what does that even mean?

Muriel Wilkins

So let's talk about that a little bit, right? Because this is an interesting situation in that, you know, you were the manager, so what was your responsibility then?

Claire

I think my responsibility then was to be direct with her about the challenge, which I was. We have regularly cadenced performance conversations and I gave her the feedback of she aspires to move into management. And I said, you know, I'm not sure that your colleagues are seeing you as a leader because when you give them coaching or advice, it reads to them as condescending. And so you might want to just like consider that I also coached her on the expectation at this organization is that especially as a senior, you are able to manage multiple projects at once. And that's the expectation period. And so she did rise to that expectation, but she still continues to be sort of reluctant about taking on multiple projects. So, like, there has been some improvement through the very direct feedback and coaching that I've given her. But of course, like, she still is who she is and so she's still operating in a way that I think is not like ingratiating her in with the rest of the group. I made headway, but I didn't solve the problem. And now I have a new manager in the role who is coming to me during our one to ones and going, help me here. What am I supposed to do here? And I'm going, here's what I would do. But like, I certainly want to empower that new manager to do what they think is appropriate. But also they're a brand new people leader. So I feel this responsibility there as well.

Muriel Wilkins

So I'm just curious because you've used the word coaching in terms of how

you dealt with her. And I think I'd like to understand what you mean by that.

Like, what does it mean to coach someone as a manager?

Claire

What a great question. As a manager, I think coaching someone, the way that we would use that term within my organization means to. It basically means to give critical feedback and to help the person understand where they are straying from the expectation and make clear to them what the expectation is. And so maybe coaching isn't the best word for it. Maybe it's just giving direct feedback and trying to make a plan.

Muriel Wilkins

I mean, I don't really care what word we use. I just want to understand what you mean by it so that we're operating from the same page. And I heard you say that, right? Like, you feel like I was direct. I gave her the feedback, I. E. I coached her. And you do all that for the sake of what?

Claire

Because I want her to be successful for two reasons. Obviously, I want her to be successful because I need every single person on my team operating with as much excellence and productivity as possible. I feel a sense of responsibility to not treat her like she's a problem, but to understand what's motivating her behavior and like, her approach, I guess, and to help her see, like, how her approach is preventing her from being able to like, assimilate into the culture of the company. But then I also have this tension within me of like, does she have to assimilate into the culture of the company? She has a really diverse perspective from coming from a totally different industry that I think is super valuable. She's just sort of hitting everyone over the head with it in a way that's not very sophisticated. And it's creating tension on the team. So I feel responsible for all these things, Muriel. I'm like, I'm responsible for the engagement of the team and the success of the team. And she is a part of the team. And so to cut her off like a cancer because she doesn't have the same approach or the same mindset as everybody else feels like a cop out to me. In some way. It feels cowardly to just go, hey, you're not doing the exact things that I've told you to do in the exact way I told you to do them. So it's performance management time. You gotta go, you know?

Muriel Wilkins

Yeah. Let me just be very clear, right? Like, in terms of my role with you, what we're not going to get to in this conversation is in any way me ever telling you whether you should performance manage somebody out. That would be irresponsible for me as an external coach not knowing what the criteria is. And even, even if I knew what the criteria is. Those are the decisions that you make, right? With HR et cetera. I'm not evaluative in any way. And I think that you're sort of surfacing some tensions that you're holding, you know, you phrased attention as, you know, what do I owe her versus what do I owe the rest of the team? To what extent you just said, do I need her to assimilate into the culture?

Right?

Be like everybody else versus letting her be her. I think whenever we have these two opposing, when we're holding something as one, one versus the other, we ought to look at the third scenario is what would it look like if there was an and between the two? So let's just be a little imaginative here. In what way do you think she could be successful? Or you could manage her in a way that is effective without necessarily assimilating and I'm using quotes, right. Assimilating into the culture and yet still be part of the culture. What would that look like?

Claire

Well, I think first I would need to identify what are the non negotiables. Because a non negotiable is, I think the volume of the work that has to be produced. Managing her would need to stay focused on whatever those non negotiables are. Like if she really wanted to do the entire very engineered process and she was completely rigid to the idea of truncating it in any way, then that would require her to work more than her 40 hours a week and that would be her decision to do that. But at the end of the day, the end result is that we need this and this and this accomplished by this date. And that's non negotiable. And so it's up to her to kind of make a decision on how she accomplishes that and how she's able to make that work. I want to stay focused on like what is the actual desired outcome, which is that we get the work product we need at the quality we need. And it's less about maybe some of the other aspects of her personality or aspects of her approach that other people find condescending.

Muriel Wilkins

Look, I think that, you know, it's interesting that you use the word non negotiable. What I haven't heard you. I'm glad you brought it up now because what I haven't heard up until now is how much of what she is doing or not doing tied to the requirements of anyone who is in that role. And I don't know. Right. Like there's something around what are you measuring her effectiveness on? And I can't tell you what to measure those things on. I think that is your responsibility of manager. To be very clear around this is how we're defining the expectations. Right. The performance of this role. So my question would be, you know, does that include. Obviously it sounds like it includes being able to finish all the work deliverables within a certain amount of time.

Claire

Right.

Muriel Wilkins

So that's one check one. The other is, does the job requirement, is it a core competency of the job? You know, part of what she's measured on for performance, that she speaks to people in a way that they don't feel like it's condescending. I'm not saying that that should be or shouldn't be. I'm just asking whether it is.

Claire

Yeah, I think being a senior, if I actually went back to, like, the job description and the role and responsibility for the role, it would show that a part of being a senior is coaching others, is being an advisor to others, being someone who grows and develops others. And I don't see any of that at the moment. Not because she doesn't have the subject matter expertise to do it, but because when she approaches someone to give them advice, her approach leaves the other person across the board, no matter who it is, feeling like she thinks they're stupid.

Muriel Wilkins

Mm. Okay, so that's the impact she's having. From your perspective, is that happening because she doesn't want to be not condescending?

Right.

Or because she doesn't know how? So is it a competence issue or is it a commitment issue?

Claire

It's unclear to me.

Muriel Wilkins

It's unclear to you to me. And so in what way can you coach her if you don't know?

Claire

I don't know.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay, so let me offer something here. Okay. And we're gonna leave the new manager, the one who's now actually her people manager, out of it for a minute. So I think it's a good practice to just act like if you're her manager, which ultimately you still are, what does that look like? And then we can work later on. How do you level up from that?

What if we just put the word

coaching her to the side for a minute, and instead I say, claire, you are responsible for managing this person. What is the difference between when I go to. You are coaching her in the way that you define coaching, however it is you're defining it to. Yes, you wore the coach hat. Now I want you to put the coach hat down and I want you to put on the. You are managing her. What difference does that make, if any?

Claire

I think that the managing role is less input to her about her approach, and it's more checking in on are we getting the outcomes that we've agreed upon, need to be delivered by a certain date. So maybe it's less about the approach, it's less about her as a person and a professional, and it's more about the expectation is X. What progress are we making towards X? And how can I help you overcome obstacles to ensure that X happens on time and correctly and with quality, which is almost more like project managing her work rather than trying to coach her on her approach and how to modify her approach.

Muriel Wilkins

Although I also hear you saying in that, how can I help you? Right. It's interesting to me because I think you're saying all the right things around. Oh, I gave her the feedback and I was direct. And how I'm experiencing this conversation, I'm sort of like, and then what happened? And then what happened? I feel like you're giving me the, you know, once upon a time there was a little girl who did this, this and that. And I'm like, and then. And you're like, and then that's it. So, like, what is the management approach to all this? Because it feels like it's truncated at some point. Like, what happens when she says, I'm not aware of that or I don't know what to do? Is it like, yeah, what happens then? What happens when it's not being done?

Claire

Wow. Well, okay, so I might tell her a different way to give the feedback or why specifically about that. Feedback might make people feel the way that they feel and she reads us thoughtful about it. And then when she goes out to continue the work, there's people coming to me saying, listen, you know, this person is continuing to show these same behaviors. Then I would have another conversation where I would say, you know, I'm hearing this piece of feedback and this piece of feedback. These are problems that we're going to have to find a way around. There's no just like, Claire helps you ram through the problem and like make things happen that just aren't going to happen.

Muriel Wilkins

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So I'm curious, what did you do? Because you said you were in education before and you taught in the classroom,

what did you do in the classroom

when somebody wasn't like learning what they were supposed to learn?

Claire

Well, first I would have to assess what specifically the student didn't learn out of all of the things that are being expected, like sort of surgically, like what is the skill. And then I would want to pull that student out of the others into like a small group or even individually and work through that specific skill very surgically until they understood that skill. And then I would want to assess them again to make sure that they were sustaining their understanding of the skill over time.

Muriel Wilkins

And then what would happen? Would they always get the skill?

Claire

Not always.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay, so did you have an end in mind around they need to be able to have a skill by a particular time. And if not, then we go down this path. If so, then we go down this path. Was that the case?

Claire

Yes.

Muriel Wilkins

So if you were to take, and I don't know if it'll work, but if you were to take a similar approach with, let's not even just this employee, with any employee, what would that look like?

Claire

I think first it would be getting very clear about what the skill is and why it's important and how not fixing the skill or growing the skill is going to hamstring them. And then I would think about how to give that message to the employee in a way that didn't feel bad or felt as warm as possible or as like caring and collaborative as possible. Again, back to the culture. And then I would want to think through with them collaboratively, like, what can we do here? What are your ideas? Here's some ideas that I have. And then I would want to give them an opportunity very specifically to practice that skill. So I'm struggling with this one a little bit because I'm like, what is the very discrete skill?

Muriel Wilkins

Well, what is the very discrete skill? And then what, what if they can't deliver on the skill?

Claire

I mean, I don't think it would be a one and done. I think it would be. Then we follow up after the opportunity to practice the skill. We talk about how it went, I give continued feedback. Here's what went well, here's where I still see an opportunity. And then they would continue to have at bats at that skill over time. It wouldn't be like we try it one time and then it's done. It's like an ongoing development conversation.

Muriel Wilkins

So going back to the school metaphor, you allow retakes how many times?

Claire

I mean, I guess that's dependent on the person and how like crucial the skill is to the delivery of the work.

Okay.

Having been a teacher, not every kid's gonna get every skill.

Muriel Wilkins

Not every kid's gonna get every skill.

And it's situational. And you also need transparency and you need a system and a process. Why?

Claire

To make it fair and equitable across the board.

Muriel Wilkins

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so my question is, when you talk about your responsibility as a director, right, let's lift up from the employee. What is the system and the process that you've put in place to deal with when any employee is not meeting the expectation or requirements of a skill? Knowing that there's different levels, right order of magnitude. I hear you around taking the individual coaching approach and it's very sort of hands on and so heartwarming. And you're now leading at scale, right? And you're saying, well, what's my responsibility up here? And I now have a manager who's coming to me and saying, I don't

know how to do this.

Which tells me, oh, that manager doesn't know what the system and approach is either. There's a structure and a process and approach that's missing. That doesn't take this from beginning to end because you stated the beginning. The beginning is there's some dissonance between what they're doing and what we. What I want them to do, but I don't have a clear sense. I've been asking, like, five gazillion different ways. Like, but then what happens? Like, what's the end? How many retakes do they get? And what happens after the first, second, third retake? Right. My kids are in college and first year, my daughter was like, I can only miss class twice. Well, she knows that up front.

Claire

Right?

Muriel Wilkins

She knows that up front. What does that allow her to do?

Claire

To plan to not go over the two sessions of class, hopefully.

Muriel Wilkins

And if she does, at least she knows. But what does it allow the teacher to do?

Claire

Hold accountable across the board.

Muriel Wilkins

Across the board with fairness.

Claire

And that's really interesting because we're coming full circle to the fact that the original question I was asking is, like, what do I do when I feel like someone's not a culture fit? And I was telling you a little bit at the beginning about sort of a lack of accountability culture within the company. And I think that we have a documented accountability process as a company. Right. Like, once you've had a coaching conversation, I'm saying that with quotation marks. Right. With the person. Then after that, if the problem persists, there's a system. I don't know to what degree that process is used with fidelity across the company. Because, again, like, I feel like the culture within the company is very warm and collaborative and soft and like, oh, we. We have an accountability procedure, but we don't actually, like, want to use it unless it's like, a very severe case. And to me, like, this employee knows how to do the work. It's sort of the attitude, mindset, and approach around what she's willing to do, how she's willing to do it is so rigid that, like, going back to what you said earlier, like, well, what is it that she's actually responsible to do that I can.

Muriel Wilkins

I think that's the choice.

Because what I'm not hearing is I get it. Like, I get that she is rigid. Is it a deal breaker for her to be able to do this role? And I'm not saying one way or the other. You know, it's. Is it a deal breaker? Right. If you were hiring, would it be in the hiring document, if you were hiring for this position, that absolutely not. This person cannot show one level of rigidity, no matter how great they are at everything else?

Claire

No, it does not say that.

Muriel Wilkins

I can appreciate your discernment around, and that's the tension you're feeling like, oh, am I focusing on the person rather than the problem? Right. And I think, particularly in an organization, as you suggested, where the culture is deeply ingrained, I think the question this raises is, what does that actually mean? How do you hold a culture that's deeply ingrained in the way that you've described it, in a way that doesn't work against the very culture that it is, which is to be collaborative? The irony here is in what way does this person experience collaboration in this culture?

Claire

Yeah. And this person goes out of her way to be a part of the team in other ways. You can see that it's not that she doesn't want to be part of the group or that she doesn't want to be ingrained in the culture. It's like just her approach and the way that she shows up feels to the other people on the team feels a certain way. And I think that that's confusing for her.

Muriel Wilkins

Yeah. And so let's sort of play around with this a little bit. Again, going back to responsibility, because I think there's also a part of this around, what if the responsibility is not just in terms of her being able to assimilate to them, but you're also, as a manager, focused on how do they appreciate her? And I'm not saying that's what you should do. I'm just saying you started off by saying, you know, what you really lean into is collaboration as an individual, as your approach. That's how you ensured followership. It also tends to be the culture of the company. But I'm realizing that in talking about this, you. You haven't said this is a performance management issue. So I haven't really gone down that path until you say, nope. Like, actually, she's just not doing the job. She can't deliver. Right. So that's decision one. Can she deliver or can she not? She did. Then you have a performance management issue. But I'm not hearing that from you. I'm hearing, how do I deal with somebody who has a very different approach, personality wise, stylistically wise, than everyone else? So in what way do you hold that as the responsibility of just coaching that individual? And is there an opportunity for it to be in coaching the team? What would that look like if it was coaching the team rather than just the individual? And again, I'm not saying you shouldn't coach the individual, but what would that look like?

Claire

Well, I've done that a little bit, and I think that it is because, like, first and foremost, I have encouraged others to look past what they see as, like, a difference in personality style or an abrasiveness to look at the quality of her work product and go, there's something for you to learn and study about the quality of this person's work product and the way that she's partnered cross functionally, you know, with other business units to build out this product. And the response from them is like, to me feels performative. It feels like, oh, good job. Yeah, we like what you did. But they're not drawing her in or

Muriel Wilkins

like, yeah, because what's happening, Claire, is

underneath it is, you have one individual on one end, the employee who maybe feels like, I don't need to be like everyone else in order to do my job. And then you have everyone else saying, you need to be like everyone else to do your job. Those are principles, values. I can't tell you what you want the culture of your team to be. Forget the culture of the whole organization, the culture of your team, because you're responsible for the culture of your team. What is the principle that you're leading this team with? That is going to be the guiding principle, quite frankly, around how to deal with. With this particular issue, which I would say is not really about the particular issue because you're going to face it in some other way again, right, where there's a little bit of an outlier. What's the guiding principle that deals with outliers?

Claire

That's a great question. I can only sort of answer it from within me, which I don't know how fair that is, but I'm a disk eye and so, you know, I've done all the different personality tests. Like my personal strength is woo winning others over. So I always lead from a place or like, not even lead. I form relationships with other people quite easily and get to know them as people and establish care for one another first. And I like to laugh together and do those kinds of things from a principal's place. That's what I would expect from the culture of the team, or that's what I would want to see for the culture of the team is that we aren't just coming in and sitting at our desks and doing our work and sending emails, but like, there's a care and a relationship there among us that drives us together as one organism. Because the work is really hard and there's more and more of it every day. And I want there to feel like there's a sense of security and togetherness on the team. I think that that exists and this person wants to be a part of it. But I think, you know, what I haven't considered before is I've been so adamant about pulling her in with everyone else that I don't know. I didn't have a great answer when you asked me, like, what am I doing to ensure everyone else is doing the same thing in terms of, like, bringing her in?

Muriel Wilkins

It's also so interesting to me that you know. So you're using the DISC model, and you said you're an I. Well, there are other letters that equally share in that disc circle. I know enough about DISC to know that part of it is to understand that we all have shades of all the others. We just tend to use one more than the other because that's our learned preference behavior. But it's actually not who we are. It's a learned behavior that, in your case, has been highly rewarded through your profession. Your ability to be an EYE helped you be an amazing teacher. It's what helped you move quickly from being an individual contributor to a manager to a director. It's highly rewarded because you are in an organizational culture that rewards the I.

So let's play around with this.

I want you to imagine that you had moved to a sector where the dominant culture was the D in disc, and here you are as your I. What would you have held your manager responsible for vis a vis you? What would you have needed and wanted to help you be successful in a predominantly D culture?

Claire

Well, first I would have wanted my manager to tell me that this culture skews D. And so the way that I'm viewed here will be through the lens predominantly of D traits, like being able to execute, being able to sort of like, bang your fist on the table and get things accomplished, and strong leadership, direct leadership.

Muriel Wilkins

I love the way you're saying that

Claire

with a face like, I'm married to a D. Okay. So I'm allowed to, I think knowing that up front, what had worked for me previously, which is to come in as, you know, a storyteller and a. A vibes person, and to sort of, like, start thinking about how I would assimilate into that D culture, but also, like, while keeping what makes me special intact. But just in saying that I'm a person who feels a sense of responsibility, probably because I'm an I to assimilate into what's happening around me. I feel incentivized to do that because I want to be successful. And so I'm willing to win others over by behaving in the way that they would expect me to behave or having a certain approach. And it would really make me feel sad and isolated and silly. If I went into a culture that was largely D and I was being seen by others as the worst of the I traits, like, oh, this person isn't direct and a strong leader and serious. This person is a goofball. Like, that would make me feel like I don't belong here because I'm not like y'.

All.

And that would make me feel very sad.

Muriel Wilkins

Yeah, I mean, in a sense, right? Like, I think, going back to your question of what is my responsibility as a director? Okay. I think in a sense, you have a responsibility to lay the land of what the culture of your team is. Are you saying, hey, the only way to be effective here and successful on this team is to be an I. We want a culture of all I's, or is it we have a framework, we have some values that we need to express and we need to create a culture where regardless of whether you are a D, an I, an S and a C, you can express those values, you can do the work. But there are some guidelines. So rather than personality, it's guidelines, it's norms. What are the norms of the team? You know, I've worked on some teams where the norm is you can curse, everybody agrees it's okay.

So nobody's upset about it because it's a norm.

And then I've worked in other team cultures where it's like, you don't email after 5:00pm I'm like, oh, what?

Okay.

But I understand that's the norm. I understand. I can get with it. So what's unclear to me is you have been talking about personalities and I would encourage you to establish what are the norms, what are the principles of this team at an actionable level, so that this is not a manifesto on any Persona. It is what are the guidelines, principles and non negotiables, as you put it, that increases one's probability of being able to make their life a little easier on this team or for anyone. You do have a decision to make around something where you can walk the talk. A question that you need to sit with, which is, what is the culture that you are actually creating here? And I'm not sure there's clarity around that. There is, but you're feeling some tension with it.

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Claire

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Claire

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Muriel Wilkins

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Muriel Wilkins

At the beginning of our session, Claire was narrowly focused on one member of her team whom she believed wasn't a good cultural fit. And that might be true. But this conversation for me as a coach, isn't about deciding or evaluating whether this employee is or isn't the issue. Nor is it about deciding where that person should end up. The goal is to help Claire expand the way she was looking at the problem early in our Conversation, the question felt very binary. Do I keep coaching this person or do I manage them out? Leadership challenges are rarely that simple and it's worth asking some bigger questions. None of which eliminate the possibility that accountability may eventually lead to a difficult personnel decision. Instead, they do help ensure that whatever decision you make is grounded in clarity rather than frustration. Claire was struggling to articulate how this employee might be experiencing the situation. But once she imagined herself in that person's shoes, working in an environment where her own personality and working style didn't quite match the dominant culture, her thinking began to expand. Instead of focusing solely on changing one employee, Claire began to examine the expectations she was setting for the entire team. It's a much bigger leadership challenge and it's one we'll continue to unpack as we continue the conversation.

Claire

I think that I've told myself a story that I really care about this person's experience and that I'm trying to be fair in this situation by giving feedback and giving the opportunity for the approach to change. And I think that even just bringing it back to talking about me being an eye, eyes are notoriously not great at the details. Very vibes driven. And this employee that we've been talking about is a disc c very analytical, detail oriented. Right? Like process driven. And so like immediately there's attention there and secondarily I, because I am such an I because I am, I have that approach and that's what's worked for me. Maybe I'm subconsciously biasing towards that and expecting that from the other folks on the team. And we have lots of other Cs on the team, but they perform their cenis in a way that is aligned to the norms and principles of the team. And so when we talk about culture, I don't know that I've gotten, I've sort of tried to pass the buck. A little bit of this employee doesn't fit in with the culture of the company. But ultimately it's my responsibility to think about the culture of the team, which is like what really matters to a person on a day to day basis is like what's going on with their manager and their immediate peers. And like I don't have actionable norms and principles. Like when somebody new comes to the team, we have this document I send out called how to work with me where it's like some of it's tactical. Like when do you use outlook versus teams? When do you. Do you skew earlier or later in the day? Do you have childcare issues we need to think about? Like you know, what's your disc style? Like, sort of all of this gamut of information that I have about each person and we've done like, values, activities. Like, I could tell you what the top 10 values are for each of the people on the team, but altogether, I don't know that I have any sort of plan or have put any plan into place that makes clear to everyone, like, what are the norms and principles of this team. And instead I've just sort of tried to drive them from the top down based on what I want and what's important to me, you know?

Muriel Wilkins

Right. You're like the teacher standing in front of the classroom saying, if I clap, you're gonna be quiet.

Claire

Yeah, exactly. And like, part of it is like the sense of. The overwhelming sense of responsibility to have everyone rowing in the same direction because we're in a turnaround and it's like we have so much work to do that I've sort of thought of anybody who's not rowing in the same direction, AKA behaving exactly how I want them to behave as someone who's dragging their feet against the rest of the boat as a problem. As a problem.

Muriel Wilkins

And I think the responsibility of I need everyone rowing in the same direction as much as possible.

Absolutely.

That is your responsibility. And your responsibility is also what happens when one person starts dragging or one is rowing in a different direction. What do I do then? Right. That is part of the responsibility as well. What's interesting to me is even, and I'm just using this model because you brought it up right around disc is what you have honed in on when you're talking about the other. And I'm using that word purposefully because I think that's what's happening here is there's some othering. We're talking about the quote, unquote downsides of their style. C. But when we're talking about yours and the predominant one for everybody else, we're talking about the upside. Okay? And in actuality, there are upsides and downsides to everything. Your role, your responsibility, especially as you are scaling up. Right. The constant tension that you're managing because it's a tension every single day, is how do I maximize, how do I optimize the upside versus let me get all the upside and tolerate the downside of this one part of the organization. But then I'm only going to focus on the downside of another part of the organization or team. And so if we look at it from that perspective around how you approach your whole team, regardless of where they fall on the disc. If your responsibility is to optimize the upside of every individual or every part of your team as a starting place, how would you lead it a bit differently than you do now, if at all?

Claire

Well, I'm thinking about historically in that vein. I do have some other Cs on my team, like I said, who were like, very, very analytical. We've had tension between us because, like, you know, I just sort of want to vibe in one direction and they want to really get in the nitty gritty gritty of how are we going to execute this idea that you've come up with? And the way that I've motivated them towards it is by really giving public, open feedback about how critical the role of, like, analytical, detail oriented people are, how critical that is for our team. Because, like, an idea is just an idea until somebody comes through and like, refines it. Refines it, refines it and like, brings it to execution. And we cannot do that without that style and without that approach. And I'm thinking now about the people who have that approach, who have that very analytical and like a detail oriented, process oriented approach. I have praised them publicly because they've said yes to what I want them to do. Right. Like, when you talk about, like, maximizing, I think that's what I was trying to do is draw attention to, like, this person is very different from some of the rest of us who are maybe more creatives. We have our folks here who are going to help us bring these things to fruition through their diligence and their execution and like their organization. And I've tried to uplift and maximize that as a leader. So what is the difference with this employee then? Right. And it's because those other people were bringing my vision to life and saying yes to me and applying their skills, their complimentary skills to partner with me to bring something to life. And she's saying no to me.

Muriel Wilkins

Claire, I'm just gonna mirror what I'm hearing from you.

Claire

Okay?

Muriel Wilkins

Okay. And you tell me it might be off because I'm not, you know, I don't always hear things the way that one means. But what I'm hearing from you is unless somebody mirrors me, some aspect of me, my style, my vision, et cetera, I can't really get with them. Right. Like, meaning there's something that gets in the way, There's a connection that's lost. And if the connection is lost, then I have a hard time. You fill in the blank. I don't know what the hard time is. But I have a hard time.

Claire

I think that's legit.

Muriel Wilkins

So there is this. What you said before around, you know, which was really insightful of you to say. Oh, my gosh. Like, I see that I'm expecting of everyone what I expect of myself. Well, is that your responsibility as a leader now? I mean, you can try to lead at scale and have everybody be exactly like you. Good luck.

Claire

Yeah, I'm already not doing it. That's why I'm here.

Muriel Wilkins

Exactly.

Yeah.

So that's one thing, right? Is there some reframing there that can happen? And then secondly, I think what's happening also is because of this. If they don't reflect a part of me, then I have a hard time. Then impacts the approach.

And so what if the approach.

Like, let's go back to you coaching this individual. Okay. Because you said, I did it. Like, I tried. I. I now understand. Like, I'm imagine.

I'm like, you kind of went in with good vibes.

Like, you've tried to vibe your way out of this thing.

Advertisement Voice

I did.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay.

Oh, my gosh. You're like, if she likes me well

enough, she's gonna do it.

Claire

If she likes me, she's gonna do it.

Muriel Wilkins

Totally. So I want you to speak her language.

Claire

Okay.

Evergreen Virtual Academy Announcer

Okay.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay, okay. Okay. This is your responsibility.

You're the leader.

Your responsibility is to put your C hat on.

To not just stay in your eye. And I know. I can see it in your face. You're like, okay, you can do it.

If you were to put your C

hat on and coach her from a C perspective, from her language, what would be different in the way that you approached her and coached her? And by the way, I'm not saying it would work. I'm saying it's a different approach that you haven't yet taken. In what way would you do that

differently than you have in the past?

Claire

I've gone in in the past and sort of been like, you need to think about how to truncate the process to meet the demand of the volume. And what I haven't done is, like, actually sat down and talked with her about, like, what is acceptable within that process. How might she truncate? So in her mind, that is the right way to do it. And so to. To give her the general guidance in the coaching and the feedback that just. You need to figure out ways to truncate like you're a professional. Figure it out is a very, like, vibes based, not clear and not specific. Here is the desired outcome. I want to see from you and here's how we can work together. For me to give you some context and some detail specifically at each portion of the process for how you might do that within this ecosystem. And so I'm not being clear about if there's an answer. I don't know and you don't know here are specific people you could seek out to also have this conversation with. They might have ideas for how they deliver the work differently too. So that's one idea. What do you think?

Muriel Wilkins

I mean, I think there's a little

bit of a theme here. Right. Like I think you can be, you

know, collaborative and vibey and be clear and specific and that's your work. You're sort of sticking to a way, your approach, the Claire way, you know, the Claire vibe. And going back to your original question is like, what is my responsibility?

The onus is on you.

Like you try flexing before you expect anyone else to flex. And I'm not sure, at least in our conversation, you certainly taken an approach. It doesn't really sound like you've taken a flexed approach, meaning you sort of repeated your approach, you know, stayed in your I quadrant, you know, your I slice and try to get the message across from that standpoint. Perhaps is worth trying to go over to her quadrant and speak her language to try to get her to see the benefits of also exhibiting some of the I factors. So meaning if you want her to flex, to what extent will you need to flex in order to be able to coach her to flex? Uh huh.

Claire

Yeah.

Muriel Wilkins

And that means letting go of or at least putting to the side momentarily the if I can do it, so can you, or this is the way I am. Therefore, of course you can be this way too. Why not?

Claire

Yeah. I'm thinking across all of my employees now and I think about how frequently I say to them they have some issue or some challenge that they're looking for my advice or my thought partnership on. It's like they do want to know my perspective, but I frequently fail to ask questions to help them uncover maybe what they should do. I sometimes fail to get specific. Instead I just sort of hit them with like, here's what I would do, like here's how I'd vibe it out. And I don't know how helpful that is to people for whom that's not their strong suit. Yeah, and it's also like very self important, like my way is the right way, which I don't want to be.

Muriel Wilkins

I mean, it's what's gotten you to where you are. And maybe this Is just a call that, like, you can be that and flex, you know, not let go.

What?

It's not like we're not getting to the, like. No, you're never right, Claire. That's not what it is. It's. Oh, there are other approaches, too, other ways. Now, in no means is this a conversation of, does this person not need to be performance managed out. I don't know. You know, you don't know. And I think because you don't know, I think the question that you really have is, like, how much coaching can I do and to what end? Because I've tried and it's not really getting anywhere. And so there's a question around, what am I coaching towards? Meaning, what is the culture I'm trying to create here? What is my coaching approach? Do I need to be more specific, more concrete? And what is the accountability, which, as you said it, the culture doesn't really carry that. But is that the type of culture that you want to have?

Claire

And so you're saying I'm allowed to establish the culture on my team is that these are the expectations, and here's what you can expect in terms of accountability, even if that varies from the larger organizational or, like, enterprise.

Muriel Wilkins

Well, I mean, let me ask you, do you feel like that's a responsibility of yours as the director of the team?

Claire

Yes. For sure.

Muriel Wilkins

There you go.

Claire

Yeah.

Muriel Wilkins

Because who else is going to do it?

Claire

Yeah, I know. You're right. You're right, Muriel.

Muriel Wilkins

All right. I'm just asking, if you're not responsible for it, who is?

Claire

Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, I could have a whole separate coaching session, I'm sure, about, like, just like the imposter syndrome of I'm the new director. Uh. Oh. Like, do I have the right to establish? Do I have the right to lead? Do I have the right to make these accountability decisions? Do I have the right to establish the culture of the team and, like, hold people accountable to the culture of the team? Like, how collaborative is that process supposed to be? You know, there's all those questions that

Muriel Wilkins

I'm, you know, I mean, this is really real. Right.

Because before, you were being told what to do. And I want to go back to this word, like, what's my responsibility?

These are your responsibilities now. Yeah.

These are your response. You are off the family phone plan.

Claire

Okay, Got it.

Muriel Wilkins

You get to decide what the phone plan is now.

Claire

Okay.

Muriel Wilkins

Okay.

Claire

Yeah.

Muriel Wilkins

You can't just decide and sign up for it. Guess what else you have to do?

Claire

Pay for it.

Muriel Wilkins

Exactly. Yeah.

Claire

I do have to Pay for it.

Muriel Wilkins

Huh?

Claire

I'm paying for it.

Muriel Wilkins

That's the accountability part.

Claire

Yeah.

Muriel Wilkins

But the beautiful part of that is like, oh, I get to decide what the phone plan is.

Oh, it doesn't have to just be this one.

Right. Like it can be different. I can change it. I get to decide. That's the exciting part. But that is your responsibility.

Claire

Yeah. That's interesting to think about. I think, you know, part of this like at a, at a deeper level is I'm now the boss.

Muriel Wilkins

You are the boss.

Claire

And my peers are now my direct reports and you know, finding within myself the confidence and self assuredness and like centeredness to go. This is the culture of the team. It's also informed by what I know the team needs.

Muriel Wilkins

Yeah. I mean I know that there's still there is an issue with this person. Uh huh. But what I'm hearing you say is that the issue with the person is just highlighting something more.

Claire

It is, it is. But like for you to come through and like my original question is like, what is my responsibility? And just to sort of get clear on like, it's my responsibility to have actionable norms and principles as part of the culture of the team. And it's my responsibility to as the leader, like maximize the upside of people, find their strengths, use their strengths and flex my approach before I ask others to flex their approach. These are all things that to some degree I think I've been okay sort of letting the status quo kind of like whatever's left over from the director before me kind of just continue to roll. I am now realizing right in this moment that like no one's coming to save me. This is what they're paying me the additional salary to do. And that like a panel of people decided that like I was qualified to do that. And so like getting clear about like what worked for me as a manager and what worked for me as an IC isn't going to continue to carry me to bigger and bigger and bigger groups of employees to lead.

Muriel Wilkins

So what I'm going to offer you, Claire, is I don't think this is so much about you giving yourself permission. I think what I saw today is that it's recognition, you know, it's recognition of what your responsibilities are. You know, because you did see them,

you actually know what they are like,

oh, that's what my boss had to do.

Advertisement Voice

Oh yeah.

Muriel Wilkins

And then, oh, but I'm the boss, so now it's my responsibility. Okay, so tell me, cause I'm just curious, like what next steps are you going to Take relative to this employee, whether it's directly or through the agency.

Claire

I think there's sort of a twofold thing here. There's the individual that we've discussed here. I think that there's some insights there about, like, how should we be thinking about the approach to this person, their approach, their personality, their way of working, versus the accountability to what they're delivering? So I think there's sort of like that delineation, and are we getting really crisp about what the expectations are and measuring that person against those expectations? Not just the what they deliver, but the how they deliver it and how they partner with other people? And then I think the secondary piece is like, bringing all of the managers together who work with me and having a larger conversation about, like, what are our team norms and what are our team principles? Because I don't think it's just up to Claire to decide and say these are our team norms and principles. But, like, what do we believe are the most important things as a team, both what we do and how we do it, and are those things. How do we clearly communicate those things to the rest of the team so that they're aware of, like, where the goalpost is?

Muriel Wilkins

And I will offer one more thing is in that conversation is how do we support each other and hold each other accountable to those norms?

Claire

Yeah. Because I feel like, you know, I've been in situations before where we develop a set of norms and then we sort of set them aside and go, there they are, and then we don't actually go back to them when somebody's not acting in accordance.

Muriel Wilkins

They're like the New Year's resolution. Totally. Okay, so. So tell me how you feel now relative to the beginning of our conversation as we land this plane.

Claire

Well, I feel good that I have some next steps to think about, both as an individual to reflect on and think about, but also bringing my leadership team together, because I think that's sort of like, the most important thing that I can do first is to get clear as a leadership team, what do we, as the leaders agree, are the norms and principles that we adhere to, and how does our team sort of fit within there? And if there's an outlier, wink, wink, which, you know, we know that there is and that there probably will be in the future, how do we help communicate those norms and principles clearly to that outlier? Everything shouldn't just be institutional knowledge that everyone secretly knows, but. But we aren't talking about out loud about how you're successful. We should be very clear, especially going back to sort of the disc system. Yeah, you know, eyes are great at picking up on the vibe of the situation, but not all disc styles, not all personality, not all people are going to always just pick up on the vibe of the situation. Like some people need a very clear this is the expectation and here's how to be successful and get there.

Muriel Wilkins

Beautiful.

Claire

Thank you, Muriel.

Muriel Wilkins

All right, thank you.

Claire

Thank you so much.

Muriel Wilkins

Often the leadership challenge we're wrestling with isn't actually the one we think we're solving. Claire came in wanting to figure out what to do about one employee who didn't seem to fit the culture of her team. But as we unpacked the situation together, it became clear that this wasn't simply a question of managing one personality. It was also about Claire stepping into a new level of leadership. Her responsibility isn't just to coach individuals. It's to create the environment in which they can succeed. But effective leaders learn to address things like communication, style and personality while not losing sight of the bigger picture. In this context, leadership means defining clear expectations, establishing team norms, and building management systems that are fair, consistent and scalable. Leadership at this level also requires more flexibility. Sometimes that means adapting your own style, too. It means being willing to communicate differently with different people while still holding everyone to the same clear standards.

Advertisement Voice

Foreign.

Muriel Wilkins

That's it for today. Come back in two weeks for a new Coaching Real Leaders Ask Muriel Anything episode.

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to me if you would go to

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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.

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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