Coaching Real Leaders

There are infinite ways for you to “show up” at work. So, how can you use that as an opportunity for you, your team, and your organization?

On this special bonus episode, host Muriel Wilkins and Think Fast, Talk Smart host Matt Abrahams discuss strategies for creating a strong physical  . By understanding and controlling your presence, you can communicate more effectively, lead more authentically, and have a greater impact on your organization.

You can follow the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast on your favorite podcast app. And stay tuned for a new season of Coaching Real Leaders this fall!

Candor and compassion at work are more important (and more difficult to cultivate) than ever.

On this special bonus episode, host Muriel Wilkins joins the Radical Candor podcast to help answer a listener question: should a manager try to change an employee’s interpersonal behavior? She and Radical Candor’s Amy Sandler and Kim Scott also discuss how to meet the demands of leading in a hybrid environment.

You can find more of Radical Candor at radicalcandor.com or you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

He experienced early success and a fast promotion at his organization, but then things started to shift. Now, there have been leadership changes, and his scope of responsibilities has changed, making him feel like his career is backsliding. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through how he can reframe the situation and prioritize what he wants from his career going forward.

Further reading:

What Great Managers Do

How to Handle a Demotion at Work

15 Warning Signs Your Job Isn’t The Right Fit For You

How to Figure Out What You Want Next in Your Career

She loves the work she does and has effectively managed her career to gain increased responsibility over time. She’s recently started managing managers for the first time and is struggling to find the right pace to help her organization reach long-term strategic goals, amid some short-term uncertainty. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through setting goals and timelines for the long term.

Further reading:

• How to Manage Managers
• Get Your Team to Do What It Says It’s Going to Do
• How to Make Progress on Your Long-Term Career Goals

He’s a mission driven leader who has always found roles where he can help others. He was brought in at a high level at a new organization, but he’s feeling tension and conflict with the organization’s founder. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through how to manage himself in this negative work dynamic.

Further reading:

• Founder’s Syndrome Can Take Down a Nonprofit. Here’s How To Avoid It
• Make Sure Your Work Is Aligned with Your Boss’s Expectations
• Managing Up

She’s found a career path she truly enjoys, in part because of her ability to take risks and try new things. Now, as her team is reorganized, she has the opportunity to design her next leadership position, but she’s not sure what she needs to ask for in order to be successful. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through reframing what may be holding her back and identifying the priorities she wants to focus on going forward.

Further reading:

• Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want
• Using Design Thinking To Become The CEO Of Your Own Career And Drive Career Success
• How to Create a New Job at Your Current Company
• How To Ask For What You Need At Work
• Having the Here’s-What-I-Want Conversation With Your Boss

He leads a team at a large global organization and gets positive feedback on their work. But he’s having trouble leading his team amid conflicting priorities and without direction from his senior leaders. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through how he can help his team have organizational impact, with or without more clarity from above.

Further reading:

• When Managing Through Ambiguity, Develop a Clear Vision
• How To Lead Through Ambiguity
• 5 Reasons Your Employees Don’t Understand Your Company’s Vision
• How to Teach Leaders to Navigate Complexity

She’s finally found a leadership role that feels aligned with her personal mission. But in the wake of unexpected company-wide layoffs, she’s struggling with how to plan for her team’s future amid the organizational uncertainty. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how she can motivate and lead her team when so much feels out of their control.

Further reading:

• How to Deal with Layoff Anxiety
• How to Support Your Remaining Employees After a Layoff
• After Layoffs, Help Survivors Be More Effective
• Layoffs Are Harming The Mental Health Of Workers, Making Them Feel Vulnerable And Disposable

Executive coach Muriel Wilkins returns April 10 with an all new season of tough leadership challenges and thoughtful conversations.

Each episode takes you behind the closed doors of real leadership coaching sessions with executives, entrepreneurs, and managers, as they work through their hardest career challenges. Muriel helps them discover unexpected insights about themselves and actionable steps they can take to move forward.

This season, episodes explore dilemmas like:

• How do I stay motivated after a round of layoffs when resources are tight?
• How do I rebound after my scope of responsibility has been reduced?
• How do I make sure my team and I reach our goals?

Listen in for new career challenges and new leadership lessons.

She’s carved out a unique role for herself, which she loves, but worries that the pace of work is unsustainable. As she thinks about the next step in her career, she realizes that it will require her to lean on the help of others — something she’s not used to doing. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how to get the support she needs to move forward in her career.

Further reading:

• To Take Charge of Your Career, Start by Building Your Tribe
• How to Ask for Help at Work
• The Best Leaders Aren’t Afraid to Ask for Help

He sees himself as a servant leader and enjoys building and supporting his teams. But over time, he’s seen behavior from more senior leaders that he doesn’t always agree with, and it’s making him feel disengaged at work. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through how he can respond when executives don’t model the company’s values.

Further reading:

• Employees Are Sick of Being Asked to Make Moral Compromises
• 6 Ways to Disagree with Senior Management
• When You Have to Carry Out a Decision You Disagree With
• Check Yourself Before You Disagree with Senior Management
• Dealing with Disappointment

He’s had fast success in a sales-driven industry and enjoys leading his expanding team. But as his responsibilities grow, he needs to learn how to delegate to his team more and empower his direct reports. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through how to adapt his leadership style as his team grows.

Further reading:

• Adapt Your Leadership Style to Your Situation
• How to Develop Your Leadership Style
• As Your Team Gets Bigger, Your Leadership Style Has to Adapt
• What Makes a Great Leader?

He’s had a long, successful career as an attorney, in spite of the challenges he’s faced as a neurodivergent leader. Now he wants to parlay his legal experience and interest in advocacy into a different career in diversity, equity, and inclusion, but he’s having a hard time landing the role he wants. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through how to move forward with his career plans even when it feels like the odds are stacked against him.

Further reading:

• 4 Steps to Making a Successful Career Change
• Neurodiversity: The Benefits of Recruiting Employees with Cognitive Disabilities
• The Right Way to Make a Big Career Transition
• Job Seeking When You’re Over 50
• Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage

She’s had a successful career leading in the corporate world and now she’s decided to venture out on her own to build a consulting business from scratch. But she’s struggling with her move into entrepreneurship and wonders if she made the right decision. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how to make the most out of her entrepreneurial journey.

Further reading:

• So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur?
• Starting a New Job as a Mid-Career Professional
• Making the Leap to Entrepreneurship

He’s a self-professed “natural finance guy” and has shown himself to be invaluable to his company. His long-term goal is to become a CFO, but he’s gotten little feedback on what to do  to get to the executive level. Now he’s starting to feel stuck in middle management. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through managing his career, even when the plan isn’t always clear.

Further reading:

• 6 Ways to Take Control of Your Career Development If Your Company Doesn’t Care About It
• How to Make Progress on Your Long-Term Career Goals
• Setting Career Priorities When Everything Is Uncertain

Coaching Real Leaders returns October 3 for another season of real-life coaching sessions, where host and longtime executive coach Muriel Wilkins takes you behind closed doors as she helps executives, managers, and entrepreneurs work through the challenges they face.

This season, Muriel coaches real leaders from around the globe who are struggling with questions like:

• How do I make a career change later in life?
• How do I transition from a corporate job to an entrepreneurial one – and make the most of it?
• How do I manage my career when I don’t have a clear path ahead of me?

Listen in for new coaching sessions, new career challenges, and new leadership lessons.

Every workplace has “difficult” people. No matter how hard we try, getting along with these colleagues is tough. But if we had better tools and approaches, could we not just improve our interactions with them but maybe even turn them into allies?

This episode is an exclusive introduction to a new special podcast series from HBR’s Women at Work. It’s called “Getting Along” and is in Women at Work’s feed this September.

Each of the four episodes is hosted by Women at Work’s Amy Gallo. In this one, Amy speaks with a leader who is struggling in her new role because her boss (the company’s founder and CEO) keeps rejecting any changes she recommends. Amy helps her figure out how to communicate her proposals in a way that will get the approval she needs. It’s a useful conversation for anyone who needs to manage up more effectively and wants to feel less stress dealing with a challenging boss.

Amy is a sought-after expert in workplace dynamics, conflict, and communication and has helped thousands of leaders learn how to handle conflict at work. The series offers targeted tactics for dealing with tough coworkers, based on Amy’s book Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People), through one-on-one coaching sessions with guests who are dealing with difficult colleagues.

Listen to all four episodes of the “Getting Along” series at https://hbr.org/2018/01/podcast-women-at-work or wherever you get your podcasts.

He’s had a successful career in the military and is deeply invested in his professional growth. As his transition out of the military approaches, he wants to figure out what’s next for him professionally. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches him through how to best prepare for the next phase of his career.

Further reading:

• 4 Steps to Making a Successful Career Change
• The Right Way to Make a Big Career Transition
• Navigating the Emotional Side of a Career Transition

She took on a leadership role as a scrum master because she wanted a new challenge. But after a few months on the job, she worries that she lacks the technical knowledge and years of experience to truly lead her team. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how to build credibility with her older, more experienced colleagues.

Further reading:

• When You’re Younger than the People You Manage
• When Your Boss Is Younger Than You
• The Challenges (and Triumphs) of a Young Manager
• Can You Be a Great Leader Without Technical Expertise?

He’s developed a stellar reputation at his organization as the go-to person to solve some very specific, complicated problems. But he worries that the organization has pigeon-holed him as a subject matter expert, limiting his ability to lead more broadly.

He speaks with host Muriel Wilkins about how he can break out of the specialist role to reach his goal of becoming a more general business leader.

Further reading:

• All Hail the Generalist
• Generalists Get Better Job Offers Than Specialists
• Generalists Versus Specialists: The Winner Doesn’t Take It All
• When Generalists Are Better Than Specialists, and Vice Versa

She has risen very quickly in her career, often being the youngest in the room. She’s ambitious and wants to make it to the C-suite eventually, but she doesn’t know the right moves to make in the short term to fast-track her way to the top.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how to align her career path with her goals.

Further reading:

• How Ambitious Should You Be? (HBR.org)
• Do You Want the Corner Office Someday? (Dear HBR)

She’s heading toward the apex of her career and wants to play a more strategic role in her company because she feels that’s where her strengths lie. While she’s great at creating the vision, she’s struggling to set direction and then follow through with her team.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how to lead with more accountability.

Further reading:

More About the Myers-Briggs Personality Test
The Right Way to Hold People Accountable
Does Your Team Have an Accountability Problem?
Managers: Compassion and Accountability Aren’t Mutually Exclusive

He’s part of a real estate organization and loves his work but wonders what his future looks like at the company and how his role could grow in the coming decades.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through how he might use some of his entrepreneurial muscles to shift his career track toward a business leadership role within his current organization.

Further reading:

Why You Should Become an Intrapreneur
Recognize Intrapreneurs Before They Leave
The Strategic Side Gig

Coaching Real Leaders returns May 2 with new coaching sessions, new career challenges, and new leadership lessons. This season, host and longtime executive coach Muriel Wilkins will tackle questions like:

• How do I move from subject matter expert to business leader?
• How do I hold myself and my team more accountable?
• How do I navigate my entrepreneurial interests within a large established company?

Listen in on coaching sessions with real leaders from around the globe, as they work out the challenges they face at work.

No matter how driven and capable you are, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by a promotion and a new seat at the table. Host Muriel Wilkins speaks with a newly promoted leader who wants to make sure she’s as effective at this new level as she has been in past roles.

Further reading:

The Next Level, 3rd Edition: What Insiders Know About Executive Success

Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence

He’s a senior-level executive with a goal to make it to the C-suite. While he’s come close, he’s been turned down and is not sure why. Host Muriel Wilkins helps this leader plan his next moves.

Further reading:

What to Do After a Final-Round Job Interview

Cracking the Code That Stalls People of Color

What Do Black Executives Really Want?

As we head into the holidays after a very stressful year, many of us are struggling with burnout. This week, we revisit a conversation from earlier in the year with a leader on the brink of burnout.

She’s ambitious and has always leaned into opportunities to lead. But in her leadership role, her responsibilities just keep growing, making her feel like she can’t keep up. Now she’s questioning whether she even wants to lead anymore.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through her burnout toward strategies she can take to focus her energy and scale up her leadership.

Further reading:

●      “6 Causes of Burnout, and How to Avoid Them”

●      “If You’re Overworked, Learn Which Tasks to Hand Off”

●      “Stop Doing Low-Value Work”

He’s been at his company for many years and has worked his way up from an entry-level position to a director role. Now, he wants to get to the next level in his career, but he feels stuck and unsure of himself.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader on how to regain his confidence so that he can move forward.

Further reading:

• To Strengthen Your Confidence, Look to Your Past
• Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It
• Don’t Let Self-Doubt Hold You Back

No matter how hard you work and how good you are at executing tasks, there are always less tangible reasons people get tapped for more senior roles. Executive presence matters, as does finding the right sponsors.

Host Muriel Wilkins speaks with a rising leader who understands the importance of sponsorship but doesn’t know how to get there – starting with learning to tell her own story.

Further reading:

The Relationship You Need to Get Right

The Key to Landing Your Next Job? Storytelling.

Sponsorship: Defining the Relationship

There are all different kinds of leadership styles, but it’s hard to know what is authentic to you, or how much you should try to adapt to your environment. In this episode, host Muriel Wilkins speaks with a senior leader who is having trouble drawing a line between what is expected of her, and what feels true to her core.

We check in with three guests from Season 1 to see what they took with them from their coaching meetings and where they are now.

First, we hear from a leader who had been struggling to communicate effectively, especially in high-level management meetings. Then we get an update from a leader who had been on the brink of burnout. Finally, we catch up with a leader who had been managing racial tensions between her team and her boss.

Season 1 episodes referenced in this episode:

Finding My Leadership Voice

On the Brink of Burnout

Caught in the Middle

She’s recently been promoted to a senior role, after working her way up in the industry from an entry level position. But she’s become a leader at a time when there’s also a lot of change. Now she’s the legacy person on her new team, and she feels constantly questioned and defensive about the way things work and the culture she helped build.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader on how to figure out what to keep from the past and what to let go of, so she can be effective.

Further reading:

The Right Way to Respond to Negative Feedback

Don’t Let Your Brain’s Defense Mechanisms Thwart Effective Feedback

Defend Your Idea Without Being Defensive

In his most recent role, he excelled as a hands-on manager, jumping in to solve the hardest problems. But now he’s moving up a level to take on a new leadership position. He’s managing other managers for the first time and realizing that it’s a big leap to go from managing individual contributors to managing other managers.

Host Muriel Wilkins helps this leader understand how to approach his new role and what new skills he must develop in order to succeed.

For further reading:

• How to Manage Managers

• What Great Managers Do

• Managers Can’t Be Great Coaches All by Themselves

She made it to a coveted senior role, but she isn’t feeling excited about her future career path. And now she’s wondering how to balance all the competing commitments in her life – children, spouse, elderly parents, and work – while still pursuing what she really cares about.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through discovering what’s important to her, so that she can figure out what’s next.

For further reading:

• Facing Your Mid-Career Crisis
• You Don’t Find Your Purpose — You Build It
• How to Beat Mid-Career Malaise

He’s a senior leader in a hospital, who has long seen himself as an advocate for equality for his female colleagues. But in the past few years, he’s faced a few instances where women he works with have been offended by exchanges with him.

While there is much talk about gender equity at the organizational level, there’s still a lot of discomfort around how it actually plays out interpersonally at work. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader toward a stronger understanding of his own assumptions and how he can manage across differences.

For further reading:

• 4 Conversations Leaders in the #MeToo Era Should Be Ready For
• That’s What She Said
• How Those With Power and Privilege Can Help Others Advance
• Work with Me: How gender intelligence can help you succeed at work and in life

She’s a C-suite-level executive with 20 years of experience working in corporate finance. Earlier in her career, she stayed at companies for long periods of time. But in her last few roles, she’s been jumping ship as soon as the going gets tough. Is she leaving too quickly, or has she not yet found the right role?

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through her discomfort and toward strategies that can help her see her role through to a successful conclusion.

Further Reading:

• “Are You Really Ready to Quit?”
• “Don’t Quit Your Job Before Asking Yourself These Questions”

Coaching Real Leaders returns October 6 to tackle new leadership challenges – from when to quit your job to communicating across differences, navigating imposter syndrome, and more.

Listen in on coaching sessions with real leaders from all walks of life, as they work out the challenges they face at work, with host and longtime executive coach Muriel Wilkins.

She’s worked her way up from an administrative assistant to a leadership position. But she still struggles to come across as confident, especially in high-level management meetings.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader on how to communicate more effectively.

Further Reading:

• “To Strengthen Your Confidence, Look to Your Past”
• “Will You Ever Be Taken Seriously?”
• “Make Yourself Heard”
• “Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence”

She’s relatively new to the organization and more junior than most of her stakeholders. But her success hinges on her ability to lead initiatives cross-functionally.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this emerging leader through how to cultivate strategic relationships and increase her influence without the formal power of a senior title or position.

Further Reading: 

• “How to Increase Your Influence at Work“
• “Learn to Love Networking”
• “How to Figure Out How Much Influence You Have at Work”

He’s spent much of his career successfully solving complex problems. Now, as he works his way up, he’s realizing that always trying to fix everything won’t let him focus on leading – or help his team succeed.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through adapting his approach to lead more effectively.

For more on this topic:

• “Leading by Letting Go”
• “How Leaders Can Let Go Without Losing Control”
• “Why Your Team Should Practice Collective Mindfulness”

As a leader, she has always tried to find a balance between being directive and collaborative. But she has also struggled to bridge the gap between how she sees herself – and how her team experienced her as a leader. Now she’s building her own start-up and wants to make sure she is seen as a strong, effective leader in that new venture.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through how to understand and manage perceptions so she can be seen as a leader.

Further Reading:

• “Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence”
• “Listening Is an Overlooked Leadership Tool”
• “How to Change People’s Perception of You”
• “How to Ask for Feedback That Will Actually Help You”

He’s been successful in his industry but feels like he’s been typecast in his role. Now he’s hoping for a change and wants to make sure his next position helps him redirect his career. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through figuring out what he really wants before he commits to a new company.

Further Reading:

• “You Don’t Have to Be CEO to Be a Visionary Leader”
• “Finding Direction When You’re Feeling Lost”
• “Negotiating Your Next Job”

She’s demonstrated her leadership ability throughout her career, advancing to some of the most senior leadership roles. But her C-suite peers haven’t always valued what she brings to the table.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through how to demonstrate her value as an executive as she joins a new organization.

For more on this topic:

• “Stepping into a Leadership Role? Be Ready to Tell Your Story.”
• “How to Get Yourself Invited to Important Meetings”
• “Seeing Ourselves As Leaders”

She’s ambitious and has always leaned into opportunities to lead. But in her current leadership role, her responsibilities just keep growing, which makes her feel like she can’t keep up. If this is what leadership is all about, she questions whether she even wants to lead anymore.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through her burnout toward strategies she can take to focus her energy and scale up her leadership.

Further Reading:

• “6 Causes of Burnout, and How to Avoid Them“
• “If You’re Overworked, Learn Which Tasks to Hand Off“
• “Stop Doing Low-Value Work“

He’s a senior executive leading a division made up of professionals who are much younger than him and come from different racial backgrounds. He’s committed to helping his team members grow professionally, while generating positive results for the company. But he’s struggling with how to engage and motivate them.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through bridging those generational and racial differences to learn how to better support them.

Further Reading:

• “Generational Differences At Work Are Small. Thinking They’re Big Affects Our Behavior”
• “How Companies Can Meet the Needs of a Changing Workforce”
• “A Survey of 19 Countries Shows How Generations X, Y, and Z Are — and Aren’t — Different”

Her boss is white. Her staff are people of color. She’s been walking a tightrope between addressing her boss’s microaggressions and making her team feel safe. But so far, it’s not working.

Host Muriel Wilkins coaches this leader through this tension and toward the actions she can take to improve the situation and build a healthier culture at her organization.

Further Reading:

• “When and How to Respond to Microaggressions”
• “What an Anti-Racist Business Strategy Looks Like”
• “Race at Work podcast”

Her out-of-the-box approach to solving business problems has made her successful in her current role – and she surpassed all her performance goals, despite the challenges of leading during a pandemic. But she’s been passed over for a promotion that would put her on track to the C-suite.

Host Muriel Wilkins talks this leader through how she can reposition herself for a top leadership role at her company and what steps she can take to get there.

Further Reading:

• “Why You Didn’t Get That Promotion“
• “How to Ask for a Promotion“
• “How to Get on the Short List for the C-Suite“

New from the HBR Presents podcast network: a show that takes you inside real-life coaching sessions with leaders working to overcome professional challenges.

We all want to get to the next level of our career, but so many of us get stuck. Host and longtime executive coach Muriel Wilkins has helped successful professionals – from team leaders to CEOs – get unstuck and grow as leaders. That work is often done behind closed doors, but this show opens that door to everyone. Listen in on coaching sessions with real leaders from all walks of life, as they work out the challenges they face at work.

Join us this season, and gain new insights and practical guidance to take your own career to the next level.

Are you a manager or senior leader facing a professional challenge? Apply to be on Coaching Real Leaders!