Coaching for Leaders

Become a Coaching for Leaders Plus member and listen to Dave’s Journal ongoing

And I have a special invitation for you right now:

Join Coaching for Leaders Plus by Friday, November 20th, and you’re invited to a special live event with me in early December.

I’ll take you behind the scenes of Coaching for Leaders: how I find guests, prepare for interviews, and produce the podcast. You’ll also have a chance to ask questions.

An executive leader recently asked one of our Academy cohorts for advice on shifting the culture of a team.

A longstanding problem with one of her teams has recently been identified by both her and other stakeholders. Since the team is in her portfolio, she wants to do everything possible to help them shift to a better way of working.

A new reality has emerged:

A few people are all in on the new way of work.

A few people are completely opposed to the new way of work.

A bunch of people are somewhere in between.

This is completely normal. Regardless of the kind of change, three groups always emerge:

First, there will be the champions. These are the people who either immediately love the new direction or very quickly see the benefit of it.

Second, there will be the naysayers. These are the people that will never like the new direction, regardless of how much evidence you show them about the new way being better.

And then there’s the fence-sitters, somewhere in between. They could go either way on the change, depending on how things shake out. This is almost always the biggest group.

How do you handle these three groups?

Be a politician.

However you feel about politicians, the ones that get elected and stay in power are good at one thing:

Winning.

Smart politicians spend a TON of time and energy with their champions. They invite them to events. They give them photo ops. They ensure they show up on election day.

They also make asks of champions – and a lot of them respond, because they believe in the mission.

The other group politicians spend lots of time with? Undecided voters.

Those people could break either way. Politicians know that every undecided voter that comes their way makes it more likely they win.

So they show up at town halls and forums and debates where undecided votes often get featured – to make their case.

How do they address their naysayers?

They don’t. They ignore them.

This is where being a politician and being a leader in an organization diverge. You don’t get to entirely ignore the naysayers.

But you certainly don’t start with them.

Leaders often give way too much time and mental space to the 1 or 2 people who aren’t excited about the change and, as a result, end up missing the larger opportunity with everyone else.

Start with the champions. Socialize their work inside the organization. Highlight the wins they’ve had in public ways. Get them visibility with senior leadership.

Then, invite champions to engage the fence-sitters who show interest. Spend time listening to the concerns you hear about from them. Involve them in the change.

Addressing the naysayers comes last.

(A lot of leaders run the playbook the other way.)

Reverse the typical playbook. If you do, you will win on the change and you’ll make it so much easier for more naysayers to gracefully come on board or opt out.

Become a Coaching for Leaders Plus member and listen to Dave’s Journal ongoing

For 15 years, I’ve been interviewing the world’s best leadership experts on the Coaching for Leaders podcast.

But there’s something I haven’t shared much of over those years.

My own perspective.

Until now.

Every week, I come away from guest interviews with more insights than we have time to explore on the podcast.

And through our Academy, I’m learning practical approaches from leaders who are navigating real challenges every day.

That’s why I just launched Dave’s Journal, a new podcast exclusively for Coaching for Leaders Plus members. 🙌

Each week, I spend about 10 minutes sharing practical leadership insights, lessons I’m learning, and ideas you can put to work immediately.

No interviews. No guests. Just me, speaking directly to you.

Recent episodes include:

Three practices that lead to better hiring decisions

Why shared vision is harder than it looks

Knowing when to step in — and when to stay out

What makes the difference when leading change

I’d love for you to join me.

Become a Plus member and listen to Dave’s Journal

And I have a special invitation for you right now:

Join Coaching for Leaders Plus by Friday, November 20th, and you’re invited to a special live event with me in early December.

I’ll take you behind the scenes of Coaching for Leaders: how I find guests, prepare for interviews, and produce the podcast. You’ll also have a chance to ask questions.

A special invitation for teams

Many leaders already share Coaching for Leaders episodes with their teams. Now, there’s a way to share Dave’s Journal, too.

We’re introducing team memberships for Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Start a team membership by November 20, and I’ll personally join one of your upcoming team meetings for 30 minutes, live online, to answer your team’s leadership questions.

Join Coaching for Leaders Plus by November 20th

Dave’s Journal is just one of the benefits of Coaching for Leaders Plus. There’s much more waiting for you inside.

I’d love to welcome you as one of our newest members.

Warmly,

Dave

P.S. Coaching for Leaders is almost entirely supported by our members. That’s why you don’t hear sponsors or advertisers on the podcast. When you become a member, you’re not just getting access to Dave’s Journal — you’re also helping keep Coaching for Leaders independent and available to everyone. Thank you. 🙏

Christoff Poppe: Succession Planning

Christoff Poppe is an executive coach, Vistage chair, and former airline executive. He believes the most successful outcomes happen when both leaders and their teams feel they matter and when people are the drivers, not just the resources. He is one of our Coaching for Leaders fellows and recently published an article titled Succession Planning: A Key to Outperforming Your Competition.

Every leader in almost every role ultimately grapples with this question: who is going to replace me? In this conversation, Christoff and I detail three critical questions that will help you begin answering that sooner rather than later.

Key Points

DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast reports that organizations with strong benches vastly outperform the competition and fill more roles internally.

The natural desire for job security can limit your growth. Often, our success limits our tendency to develop others.

The mini-me mindset limits us in two ways: (1) we fail to consider leaders who bring different skills, and (2) we fail to consider different needs in the season ahead.

Talent development is abstract. Succession planning is personal. It is a leader’s tool for untrapping, one person, one role, one timeline at a time.

People will leave if they are not getting regular development, especially high-potential employees.

Three critical questions to ask when finding the person to replace you:

What are the future needs of the business, the organization, the industry, and your team?

What knowledge do you have that’s critical and needs to live beyond you?

Who?

Resources Mentioned

Succession Planning: A Key to Outperforming Your Competition

Half of Eight (Christoff’s firm)

Christoff Poppe and Dave Stachowiak on LinkedIn

Related Episodes

How to Help Team Members Find the Right Work, with Patrick Lencioni (episode 610)

The Way to Notice People Better, with Zach Mercurio (episode 733)

A Simple Start for Succession Planning (Dave’s Journal – plus access required)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. Go beyond the podcast to find the right ideas and apply them with confidence inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Will Guidara: Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide

Will Guidara is the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, which under his leadership received four stars from the New York Times, three Michelin stars, and in 2017 was named #1 on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect and now his newest book, Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide (Amazon, Bookshop).

Every leader is called to serve people. How we serve people matters. And the way people feel when we are serving matters a lot. In this conversation, Will Guidara shows us how to lead with unreasonable hospitality.

Key Points

Sometimes magic is just being willing to invest more energy into an idea than anyone else would deem reasonable.

Service is what you do for people. Hospitality is how you make them feel.

First impressions matter. Leaders have a key role in setting the standard for this.

Find a meaningful way to make magical the part of an experience that is normally neglected.

Identify persistent pain points and address them generously instead of reductively.

People remember both the peak and final moments of an experience. Stick the landing.

Resources Mentioned

Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide by Will Guidara (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Related Episodes

The Power of Leadership Through Hospitality, with Will Guidara (episode 688)

How to Bring Out the Best in People, with Donna Hicks (episode 724)

The Way to Notice People Better, with Zach Mercurio (episode 733)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. Go beyond the podcast to find the right ideas and apply them with confidence inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Bill Flynn: The Hero Trap

Bill is CEO of Catalyst Growth Advisors and a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches Agency, a global community of the world’s top executive coaches. His writing appears in Harvard Business Review, Training Magazine, and ATD. He is the author of The Hero Trap: The Leader’s Shift from Doing to Designing (Amazon, Bookshop).

As their teams get larger and their titles get bigger, a lot of leaders work longer and harder. If you think about that for a moment, that’s obviously not sustainable. In this conversation, Bill and I explore how leaders recognize – and get out of – the hero trap.

Key Points

If you keep working harder as your team grows, you may be a victim of the hero trap.

Leaders fall into the hero trap because they care too much to let things break.

A key inflection point every leader hits: scale yourself or scale your systems.

Getting out of the hero trap is about shifting your identity.

Controllers solve problems. Builders show others how to solve problems. Architects design systems that solve problems.

Controllers thrive on recognition, urgency, and control. Builders find satisfaction in teaching. Architects find fulfillment in creating systems that outlast them.

Get out of the hero trap through:

The 10-minute prevention reflex. For new issues, ask, “What’s your first step?” and explain as you solve. For recurring issues, ask, “What would prevent this from happening again?”

The Netflix test. Test what happens when you take off an hour, a day, or an entire week. Notice what breaks and address the systems to prevent future problems.

The thinking partnership. Instead of a command and control mindset, invite others to think through problems with you.

Resources Mentioned

The Hero Trap: The Leader’s Shift from Doing to Designing by Bill Flynn (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454)

The Habits That Hold Leaders Back, with Marshall Goldsmith (episode 696)

Stop Solving Your Team’s Problems, with Elizabeth Lotardo (episode 764)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.