Thank you everyone for being here today. Uh Julie and I are quite excited to have you in introduction to coaching, for leaders um embracing the power of your presence. So welcome everyone. Ok, Julie, would you like to do an introduction? Sure.

Um Really what I wanna talk about is why I put myself in the room. And um the reason I'm here today and wanting to share this is um I know the power of coaching because I've received great coaching. Um I also know what it's like to work with leaders who don't bring a coaching presence and I've seen it transform the workplace. So as someone who worked in a Fortune 500 tech company for close to 20 years, um I really think this is a gear that could be utilized more and bring so much power to the workplace and fulfillment. So I wanted to come and share some things about coaching that I love and how it informs your leadership presence.

Awesome. Thank you Julie. I'm Julia. Uh So you have Julie and Julia today. Um And uh I am the co-founder and head coach at uh a company that my husband and I founded together called the M JJ M Group. Um I am also a former um former big tech um uh person as well. I'm a former marketing leader who really focused on helping brands find their voices. And uh I found that I really, what I really enjoyed was helping the people around me, find their voices. And, you know, I've put myself in the room today because I have personally experienced the impact that coaching leadership can have both on my personal presence on growing and developing my teams. Um and on really shifting organizational culture in um certainly in a large environment, but even in smaller, smaller companies as well. So I am excited for us to be able to share with you all a taste of uh what coaching presents um might be able to, to bring for each of you. So awesome. So today, I'm actually gonna reverse our objectives because our number one objective today is that this group of people has fun together. We're gonna be as interactive as we can be.

We're going to throughout the presentation, you'll see that we'll ask some questions or inquiries and we will invite you to put your answers in the chat, we'll um discuss them and um we're pretty excited about that as part of that. Uh We'll have you taking a look at what your default leadership presence is. How do you default uh in, in different situations? We'll have you explore your own personal presence. And as Julie mentioned, um some of the gears that you might be able to call upon for leading, we're hoping that you'll walk away with at least one or two coaching skills that you can start to practice immediately. And of course, that leads into the next one, which is we want every single one of you to identify one thing that you can commit to an experiment with at the end of our now 37 minutes together

and we'll stay on

time and we will stay on time.

So we're curious and when we say your default, what, how do you usually show up? And so here's a scenario, a colleague walks into your office, they're frustrated, they were passed over for a promotion. Where do you start that conversation? What's your default? What do you normally say when that something like that happens? So take a moment and think about that and then maybe put in the chat what you think your default might be. I might share personally too. Mine used to be, let me solve this for you. I'll tell you what to do. I've been there.

Mhm Yeah. Mine. Um I would say my default certainly. Um even still today if I'm not in my most balanced place um is definitely to be like, oh I know. Gosh, can you believe that, you know, and just to commiserate to empathize, uh that is definitely where uh I can start on a not so great day. Would anyone like to share in the chat window?

Mm.

Empathy and support without helping? Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you. Kiss or you feel like they need help?

Yeah, that diagnosing you need help.

Yeah. Anyone else like to share.

Mm Trish. Thank you. Ask about the process and how they felt, connecting them to themselves.

That's great. Anyone else like to share before we show the understanding but also keep the person's spirits up. Oh, ok. Good. So I'm, I'm sensing a little bit of a, um, not necessarily a cheerleader but maybe someone who wants to keep the positive energy a little bit of inspiration. Good. Awesome, good. Well, that, that kind of leads us into what we call the Coaching Leaders Arena. And I'm gonna pause here for a moment because I know there's a lot on the slide, I'm gonna orient you a little bit and a lot of times starting with a metaphor works, you know how, um race car drivers seem to and, and they're driving their really fast, really expensive race cars.

They always seem to know exactly when to shift gears. At what point is the right point, the right place, the right timing. They shift gears, they know when to, um, shift up, they know when to shift uh down. Um, that is essentially the essence of a coaching Leaders Arena. There's no one way or right way of, uh, showing up as a leader because different situations call on different ways of, of handling things. And part of what we want to talk about today is how you can bring your coaching presence to help you shift gears between directing. I'm gonna tell you, these are the five things you need to go and do to informing. Well, here's some things that you could potentially try um to mentoring. Here's what I've done in the past um to coaching, which is where you are co creating with the person. Um On the other side, whether it's a person or a team, um you are creating together or they are the primary creators in some cases, and you can see their brain like light up. Um Whereas on the left hand side, if you are the primary creator, if you are the primary engage and speaker, your brain is lighting up, you're getting excited about the thing that they could go do. Um Then you're kind of showing up on the left side.

Um that purple circle around the, the quadrants is your personal presence because you bring your personal presence no matter what the situation is. And that dark blue dotted line around the outside, that's your organization's culture because at the end of the day, we all recognize large or small, your company has its own presence and it has its own ways of working. And so those are factors that you take into consideration as you are shifting gears between different situations.

So we've got a couple videos. Um, and we ask in your observation, there's a couple different coaching presence styles to observe. So, um, they're each just a couple minutes long. So we'll start with the first ski jump.

That's right. And feel free to, as you're observing things, feel free to just put those in the chat window. What are you observing about the, the style and the presence? I'll be fine.

I'll do it. Yeah, here goes something, I guess. Ok, you can do this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump. Well, my ski slipped them off. No snowplows. Ok. Straight. Do you go faster on the end? Run a little bit, a little bit. Is it any steeper, do you think? Not much longer? Just longer? Just longer? Just a bigger 20? That's all bigger 20. Go ahead. I got it. Oh, it's fine. It was just like, ok, here a long you weight might be more scary and cool. Ok. Yeah. Yeah. Just the suspense at the top of the first time freaks you out. That's the only thing. It's so fun. 60 seems like nothing now.

Oh, all right. What did you, what did you all notice about? There were, uh, there was the gentleman who showed up as a coach, there were a few other voices in there. What did you guys notice? Right.

Very scared. Yeah, there's, there's definitely, uh, who had a visceral reaction watching this and sometimes we'll talk about what would have happened if the coach said, just get up there and go right now. What if they were telling and giving direction in a firm way? What would have happened? Do you think it would have been fun?

Yeah. Every time I watch that video I always can feel the, um, the excitement and the fear both building up inside of me because I'm thinking about the girl and what she's going through and I'm also thinking about the coach in the background, the, the ski coach um and how easy it would have been for him to either champion or cheerlead.

Come on, you got this, you got this. Go. Come on, girl, you got this. You, you can do it, you can do it. Um Or how easy it would have been as Julie said, for him to say you just put one ski in front of the other. Come on, it's not that big of a deal. All of your other, you know, friends have done it. Um And what did he do? He was calm, he was quiet.

He brought a non anxious presence.

Do you think she felt safe?

Mm Yeah. A good, a little bit of gentle instruction. No, snow plowing where it might have been easy to say if you snowplow, this is what will happen. Yeah. Shall we transition to coach? Number two? Let's

do it. Ok, same as you guys are watching. Just let us know what you're observing in. Uh both the coach and the coach, it's just,

there's all this pressure, you know, and sometimes it feels like it's right up on me and I can just feel it, like, literally feel it in my head and it's relentless and I don't know if it's gonna stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most is that, I don't know if it's ever gonna stop.

Yeah. But you do have a nail in your head.

It is not about the nail. Are you

sure? Because I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing you always do this.

You always try

to fix things

when what I really need is for you to just listen.

See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail. Not listening. Ok. Fine. I will listen. Fine.

It's just

sometimes it's like

there's this achy, I don't know what it is and I'm not sleeping very well at all and all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them.

Yeah. Ok.

That sounds really hard.

It is. Thank you. Oh, come

on, if

you would just don't. Yeah.

Huh.

Ok. Has anyone heard this? Yeah. Has anyone been in that situation before?

Yeah. What does it feel like when you're being told what to do or what your problem is? Or maybe my question would be, do you want more of that? Um Sometimes, yeah.

How do you know, how do you know when, um when, how do you handle sometimes being direct and sometimes letting it play out and listening if you don't mind, I don't want to put you on the spot.

Were you asking me or the group, the group? Yeah. Yep. Listening the first time. So first round is just to listen. Mhm And then what after you listen, then what do you try

gently leading toward a solution? Trish says, Linga says, you don't want solution, you just, you just wanna be heard. Yeah.

What did you notice this happened when he looked at her and said that must be really hard. What did she do? What shifted?

She felt validated. Yeah. Her, what did her body language say? She kind of, you know, she showed, yeah, she was relieved. She showed that she felt validated in addition to saying that she felt validated and what what shifted in his presence. I I noticed that initially he was leaning forward because he knew what the problem was. And he was just waiting for a moment of pause to tell her that the nail was in her head and then he leaned back and he got a little quieter and then he acknowledged how she felt

like he was really listening at that point versus waiting to tell her what he thought. Yeah, making progress for

Sure.

Yeah, great. Ok, good. I'm going to move us forward. Julie. Sounds great. Sorry. So today we're gonna focus in really on two key things because we only have 40 minutes total. So we wanna focus on your presence and we wanna focus on one of the most critical coaching skills, which is uh called level three listening, level 33, curiosity level three questioning. So we're gonna spend our time there today. Oops, let's advance, shall we? Ok. Why does your presence matter? Well, this quote, I think kind of sums it up, right? How we show up every day uh is making an impression and, and when we make an impression, it's not always a choice, it's an inevitability, someone is going to get, they're gonna experience you. Um and you may be having a bad day, you may be having a great day, but your presence will make an impression.

And so when we think about presence, um there's kind of core four areas that in coaching, we focus on its respect, you know, you're expressing respect for others, their goals, their agendas opinions, um energy, right? That the person's energy, your energy, how you core energy.

Um and that it there's a lot under the water line there, right? What informs your energy? What do you do? How do you bring someone up or how do you bring them down and then acknowledgement? How do you, you as a leader, acknowledge the admirable and say what you see in someone and Julia mentioned it earlier, that kind of cheerleading versus champion someone cheerleading is you can do it. You're awesome. But is that really specific? Do you believe that when someone says that versus, hey, I really wanna acknowledge how hard you worked on that project and how you made the team look good by your quality. Thank you. And then today where we'll focus really dive a little deeper is on that listening piece, listening with focus, listening, just to listen without waiting to speak. Um listening beyond someone's words, like, how do you listen to someone's body language? How do you listen to their energy that they bring in the room, read it or listen to what they're not saying, you know what someone is saying and what they're not saying can have just as much importance. So when a lot of a leader listens really well, uh it helps evoke awareness with their team and in the organization that they serve. So we're curious when someone is actively listening to you, what does it feel like for you? Go ahead and share in the chat.

I know for me it, it inspires the confidence that my ideas matter that I'm important. I'm trusted. Yes, Trish. Like they care. Mhm

Yeah,

I notice I relax a little bit like I, I don't have to worry about performance as much and it, we can just focus on the content.

Yeah, I feel a sense of belonging, like they're actively listening and accepting me for who I am and not just what I'm saying,

I also notice I stay engaged more. I'm not being listened to. I can. All right. What's the point? I checked it out.

Yeah, which actually leads me to. I feel um if I feel like we are either leaning in together or making eye contact, then I know they're actively listening. I had a manager at one point through in my career at Microsoft and she was the queen of multitasking and every meeting we were in together, large group or one on one, she always was checking her email or responding to email or working on something else. And so I'd be sitting here and she, she'd have her work here and she'd be doing this and she, she, it's ok, it's ok. Keep, keep going. Um I didn't, I didn't feel listened to, I don't know if anyone else has ever been in that um situation. I found it was fairly prevalent at the, at the large tech company that I was in. Um, and I didn't feel heard or listened to and I got to the point after a few of those one on ones where I would stop talking and I would wait until she realized that I had stopped talking and sometimes it would be 30 seconds and sometimes I would sit there for five minutes before she ever even realized I was still in the room

just hearing that story. I feel unease.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm curious, why, why don't we move on and, um, kind of share the, we're gonna share three levels of listening today. So level one, it's kind of listening to respond. It's more about the listener than it is about the speaker. Level two is listening to understand. So the filter is on the speaker. Um, but you're listening for what you're experiencing, Um You come a little more curious and you, you ask questions versus offering opinions or advice. And then level three is kind of that in the core four where we talked about, you're listening to words, beyond words to words that aren't said to the body. Um You're paying attention to your hunches that are coming up and you're following the speaker's pace. So, um we thought we'd role play. Yeah, let's do a little like. So Julia has a story and I'll be the listener.

Yeah. So we just got back from a week in Hawaii. Um We went to Maui. It was amazing. My husband, my two kids, it was amazing and who I am so ready to have a vacation for my vacation

wasn't Maui amazing. How, what was the weather like there?

Well, it was, uh it was sunny, sunny every day, hot. Uh, the kids complained every single day.

How was it amazing if people were complaining?

Well, I love the sun.

Hm. What was it like to travel? Post pandemic. Mm.

You know, it was a little scary. It was a little scary. We have been hesitant, um, especially since, uh, my youngest is not vaccinated. Um, but it was needed. Hm. And we did everything we could to be safe.

What's important about being with your family on vacation? Oh.

You know, this, in this case, we've spent a lot of time together in the house over the last 18 months because of the pandemic. But there's something about spending time together outside of the day to day. Really? You know, on vacation, you don't have laundry, you don't have the conference calls. You don't have meetings, the kids don't have homework. It really is just about being together.

Did you learn anything about what you need? Post vacation?

I learned that I need to decompress a little bit too because I have a pretty strong introverted side and, you know, you're always on when you're with your family and your kids. And I think I learned that coming back from vacation, I need to figure out what I'm gonna do to take care of myself so that I'm ready to re enter work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, while we didn't stop and call them out as we went, you could tell they went from weather data level one to more of a level three when Julia stopped and said, oh, right. That pause. You kind of think about it. Um, what landed? What would you say Julia or we welcome in the chat. What you heard or observed and what you think was level 12 or three.

Yeah, I think as the, as the coach, I guess in that, in that case, uh, what I'm, what I'm used to with work dialogue in particular is the first thing. How was Maui? What was it like? What was the weather? Very superficial, sort of, you know, right on the surface stuff. People sort of making it. Oh, I went to, I just went to Maui last year. It was so great or two years ago. I can't wait to go back or I've got, you know, I've got a trip coming up and so, um, it was normal banter. Um, I think when, when you moved into level two and you were asking sort of, what was it like to travel post pandemic? Um, that was starting to get me to think a little bit differently. It was, uh, still, it was focused on me versus kind of redirecting it to you. But gosh, when you asked what, what I appreciated about, I forget the exact wording. But what, what I appreciated about and what, what, what was I learning? Those really made me stop and think it wasn't the autopilot responses of warm 95 degrees. Kids argued, blah, blah, blah, the stuff that you tell every single person when they ask went

to Monkey pod.

Yeah. So, um, and it really felt like you cared. It wasn't about how quickly could you turn the conversation to you

and you slowed down a bit at that point too because earlier and for the people attending, we did not practice. You know, that's the first time I heard that story. So I got a little nervous. I hope I asked a good question. But, um, you slowed down a little bit in your response like you were really going to that chosen response versus an automatic, like you said, oh, the weather was great. We went to this beach. So, um, yeah, your energy shifted a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the biggest thing was I personally, as the recipient of the listening got to shift from autopilot to, I don't know what the right word is. Reflect then maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty great. I wonder if any of you have asked someone, a colleague, a family member, um, a spouse, a neighbor, if any of you have asked a question to them today. How are you, how are you feeling? Um, I wonder if you've asked anyone a question today? And I'm, I'm wondering if you could just think about which one did you answer with? And what might it have looked like if you had answered with level three or asked with level three?

Uh, I'll offer a little, um, a tidbit that kind of layers in here. There's um, some studies that have been done where when we're speaking with someone, there's two kinds of responses, a shift response where I shift the focus to me or a support response or I support what the speaker is saying and give them kind of the air time for a while and then after they've had their time, then you can shift.

So, um you know, maybe ask yourself, am I shifting or supporting? And by the way, online shifting goes up to 95%. So we have to be even more chosen about it when we're in a virtual space. Yes, and like that, thank you for your comment. Yeah, the pause, I did pause to think what would be the right question for her. And that's OK to give yourself a moment to think. Yeah, doesn't have to be an interrogation.

That's right. I I will also offer um you know, we, we used a cordial sort of example. Um uh you can use this in meetings. Uh You can use it in so many different situations. You can also use it with complete strangers. Uh We have a colleague who uh told a story once about how she um made the decision to move to Seattle and she was working at a large company on the east Coast and she was traveling for work and she was in the Starbucks or something of the um of the airport. And uh the woman behind her complete stranger was asking her some questions and uh she was in the airport in Seattle. Uh, and the stranger said, oh, where are you from? She said, oh, I live in New York or I forget where she was at the time. Um, and they talked for a little bit and the stranger said, well, why don't you, why don't you move to Seattle if you love it so much? She wasn't really expecting an answer. It's not like our colleague had an answer right away. You know, she was like, oh, well, you know, I couldn't, I've got this great job and my husband has a great job and my kids are in school and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That question stuck with her the whole rest of her trip. She got home, she thought about it and within a year she had accepted a job on the west coast and was moving her family out so powerful questions um can really come from anywhere in any situation.

They could be like seeds that are planted too. Something that someone continues to revisit and think about.

Yeah, I'd love to address uh Lia followed up to uh her statement. I liked how you pause to ask the right question with usually people don't like silence and ask questions very quickly to avoid that. You wanna talk a little bit about that Julie.

Yeah. You know, I think you know what I might say, but I'll give you, it's a very technical coaching term in where I was trained, called shut up, shut up, shut up. You ask your question and you let it land or you pause before you ask the question. Um, and usually what I'm doing is I've got this conversation with the person, but I'm, I'm having a conversation with myself too and noticing, paying attention to maybe my default or my impulse. Right. You know, with Julia, like there's this restaurant I love in Maui. II, I wanna ask her if she went there, but that's about me. So um so being OK with the pause and, and kind of being non anxious in the pause, right? That that takes practice to be able to sit and wait. Yeah. Um And it's an ever growing skill but you know, maybe pay attention to how long are you comfortable with silence before you say something?

Yeah. And such a nice segue. We wanted to leave you with a few kind of really specific things, tools that you could maybe pick one and decide you wanna go and try. Um or maybe it's something else that we've said. But you know, if you're staying in deep curiosity, it's amazing how easily you can sit in silence. So stay in deep curiosity versus fixing or telling or offering your perspective, use the person's language, listen for any metaphors they may use. Ask the person to expand. You probably noticed Julie reflected back some of the things that she heard me say. What was it like spending time with your family on vacation because I had used those words, she summarized and, and paraphrased a little bit about what I was saying. Um when you summarize, you know, listening, uh the the nail example is such a great example of she just wanted someone to listen. And as soon as he acknowledged, he could have also uh summarized what he heard. He could have said, I heard you say that the pain is getting in the way, right? He could summarize it. He could either use her exact words or he could use his words to as an opportunity to bring clarity to maybe uh a lot of words that she used.

Um

Can I, can I add something there? Yes, please. It's um, it's not summarizing in a reading a laundry list back, right? It's a succinct like a little bit of air time for you and then right back to the speaker kind of summary.

Absolutely. Yeah. Um, integrate and build on the person's ideas and suggestions, uh notice and bring awareness to the other person's energy and tone. Julie noticed that I slowed down. That was something I didn't notice as the the person on the other end, I didn't notice I was talking fast and responding quickly and then transitioning to, to slow when you notice I noticed your eyes lit up when you said that or you just leaned back and crossed your arms. What what just happened? Those little things, those are subtleties in meetings, in particular? Wow, those, those can have tremendous impact.

Well, so, um, we know we've only scratched the surface today, but as you continue to think about a coaching gear or listening actively, um, we'd invite you to think about maybe a 1% commitment. What's something you wanna change? What are some ways you can make that change? What do you think the impact would be, what would be possible for you if you made this change and who will know? Who can you be accountable to?

Yeah. Maybe just take a moment to pick one thing. I know we, we covered a pretty, pretty good amount of, of stuff today and there's so much more, but just take a moment. What's one thing you might wanna work on? Ok. And since we are at time, one thing we typically love to do when we end a session is ask everyone for their one word keepers. What are you taking away? What is one word you're taking away from this session for me? Uh, listen, listen, great. Pause. Ah, yes. Link as well. Pause.

Wait. Yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

With another. Listen. Yeah.

Well, I'm inspired that each of you made the time on a Thursday, probably afternoon or evening. Um, depending on your time zone. Um, and I know it's been a long week for everyone. If you would like to continue learning, you can email us to request a personalized workshop for your team or if you want to just ha have a conversation about one on one coaching and what that might be like, um feel free to reach out. A lot of the concepts that you saw today are from the book, The Essential Coaching Leader by Patricia Bergen, who is uh uh who we work very closely with on coaching for leaders. And of course, we'd welcome any of you connecting with us on linkedin. We are always loving, expanding our network of uh inspiring women and allies. So uh please feel free to reach out, just let us know that you met us here uh When you reach out.

Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful rest of your day and week.

C bye.