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Coaching for Leaders
The Power of Starting Small, with Erann Lincoln
00:16:15
Dave speaks with Erann Lincoln, an alum of the Coaching for Leaders Academy, on how she started small to build stronger relationships with her team. - Applications to the Coaching for Leaders Academy will open the first week of September.
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- [00:07]
Dave Stahoviak
Hi, Dave Stahoviak here, host of the Coaching for Leaders podcast. Today, I'm bringing you a quick chat about the power of starting small. I sat down recently with one of our academy graduates, Aaron Lincoln, to talk about how to be more coach, like as a leader. Here's our conversation. I am here today talking with Aaron Lincoln. Aaron is one of our recent graduates from the academy and has joined with me for a few minutes to look back on some of the work she did in the academy and one of her commitments specifically. Erin, welcome to the show.
- [00:42]
Aaron Lincoln
Thank you.
- [00:43]
Dave Stahoviak
Dave, would you mind taking a moment just to share a bit about your background and what you're doing professionally?
- [00:51]
Aaron Lincoln
Sure, yeah. I'm an engineering leader in the aviation industry. I have 21 years of experience. I've worked at a few different companies and in a few different sectors of the aviation industry, both in defense and in commercial aviation.
- [01:07]
Dave Stahoviak
You came across the podcast a while back. Do you recall how you came across the podcast?
- [01:13]
Aaron Lincoln
Yes, it is seared. It is seared in a part of me now. So, yeah, I had been seeking to advance my career. I had gotten some really great feedback about some areas that I could hone in to make sure I would be successful as I advanced forward. And that feedback was around some of my leadership skills. And so as I tried to process that feedback and find different resources to support me, I did did a search in Spotify in podcasts, and I found coaching for leaders. And the rest was history.
- [01:57]
Dave Stahoviak
The rest is history. Here we are. You decided at some point to apply for the academy, and that was linked to some of the feedback that you had received on leadership. What did you hope to get out of the academy?
- [02:12]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah, I really wanted to get one, you know, coaching and guidance with focus on that help that I needed in leadership. And I also was really excited about having a community and an outside perspective, a perspective outside of the company that I'm in. All companies have a bit of a group think mentality, and so I was very much looking forward to having that outside perspective and being supported by a leader like yourself.
- [02:47]
Dave Stahoviak
Oh, great. And as folks may know, you know, certainly, Aaron, that a big part of our academy is bringing together leaders who are from all different organizations and industries and discipline for profit, nonprofit government. And our hope is to create a community where we can really support each other. But we're not all. None of us are competing with each other. We're there to really help each other to get better and to do it a little bit more objectively, because as you mentioned, every organization has its politics, its way people think. Our goal is to get outside of that so we can provide a little bit more objective perspective. When you thought about getting that, what specifically did you hear from the feedback that led to you thinking about your commitments in the academy? Because we do set several and you set some along the way. Where did you decide to zero in?
- [03:39]
Aaron Lincoln
I zeroed in in different places along the way in empowering my employees, coaching and being a culture shaper. But the one that I started with and the one that had the biggest impact on me was being a coach. That was the thing that I felt if I started doing that right away, kind of lay the foundation for everything else.
- [04:03]
Dave Stahoviak
And by being a coach, we're not talking about being a professional coach or having a coaching practice, but being more coach. Like in your role as a leader and how you're interacting with your team, your peers, colleagues, all of that. And that was part of the. That was part of the feedback you had gotten too, right around coaching.
- [04:23]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah, that's right. So making sure I was bringing my peers alongside me, being intentional about that and to some extent with the team too. Just making sure that I had everyone alongside me and working on that. Coaching versus directing.
- [04:41]
Dave Stahoviak
When we start working in the academy, we spend time right up front, as you know, Erin, setting a vision, everyone deciding where am I heading over the next two to three years? And getting really intentional through conversation and a assessment and reflection of specifically where am I going? And then we select three focus areas to come out of that. And one of yours was coaching, being more coach. Like what did you decide to do around that as far as what action you decided to take and how you put that into practice.
- [05:12]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah. What I love about the academy is, you know, you mentioned it's leaders from all over. There's not a leader that's not busy. So the academy and the commitment makes everything manageable and feel like I'm going to be able to fit this into my day for sure. So my one action that I was doing was asking one coaching question per day. And the way that I did that is I decided I would tie it to my one on one meetings. We have one on one meetings. It's very much part of our corporate culture. I have one every single day. Just the way that they're laid out, at least one opportunity to be a coach and to ask these questions. So I gathered and printed out my favorite coaching questions. I would review them daily and in my one on ones, I would simply hold myself accountable to ask one coaching question per day and I chose to tie that to my one on ones.
- [06:17]
Dave Stahoviak
One of the things that we try to do in the academy is to make things really simple. And sometimes that feels a little awkward for everyone in that it feels like it should be bigger. And you really took my invitation to keep it small of just once a day asking one question in One of those 101s, as you mentioned, and starting very small. And that's really key to behavior change. I mean, you said one of the things that I think is a real struggle for a lot of us is that we're all busy, we all have roles where we've got a lot of demands on our time. So trying to spend hours doing something differently each day is a nice thing to aim for, but practically not doable for almost all of us. But five minutes or less one thing doable. And so you started doing that in practice and bringing that into your meetings. What happened as you did?
- [07:14]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah. And you know, I'll say, Dave, that while logically maybe spending hours sounds like the right thing to do, I had spent hours trying to be a better coach. I had taken classes and courses and I wasn't getting the results I needed because I wasn't building these habits. So that's really what this does, is build this as a habit and it becomes a part of your identity. So. So what I thought would happen is that people would bring me solutions more often. And to some extent that did happen. But what else happened is I was hearing more context and information from my direct reports over time. And I found that my direct reports were coming to me more often to share information, share their wins. And the bottom line is I ended up building a lot of trust with my team. And that was amazing. But it's not what I expected. But it was really better than I expected.
- [08:12]
Dave Stahoviak
How was it better than you expected?
- [08:15]
Aaron Lincoln
Because I went beyond just helping them maybe with a day to day problem, which is important, it's really important, especially in the work that we do, but that I improved our relationships. Not just me and my direct reports, but it seems like also their relationships with each other and people look at their role models and there was some emulation of behavior. So I think just showing them how to be more coach like had a bit of a ripple effect.
- [08:46]
Dave Stahoviak
As you know, one of the things we do when we start a commitment and forming a new habit is writing down in advance, like how will I know I'm on the right track? And you wrote down some of that and identified it. And I think a lot of times when we talk about people skills, like being more coach like, or holding people accountable or giving feedback. Our first inclination for a lot of us is to think, well, I can't measure that. It's not like I can look at a spreadsheet like I would for a budget and say, hey, I'm 21% better than I was 90 days ago. Right. But often we can measure it in a different way. And one of the ways we measure that is we write down in advance, when I'm doing this better, what am I likely to notice? And we get that down on paper. So we see that. And you did that. And like you said, you noticed the things that you expected, but you also noticed some things happening that you didn't expect that actually were better than that.
- [09:46]
Aaron Lincoln
Yep, that's right. And they were really important things. Things that kind of seem intangible, but they were there.
- [09:54]
Dave Stahoviak
Yeah. Yeah. One thing you shared with me is that accountability in this process was really helpful to you. Just in how we thought about accountability within the academy and working with a partner, how was that helpful?
- [10:10]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah, just like anybody, there's days that are going to get away from you and you don't do what you were supposed to do, especially if you're having a tough time with them. Like one of my. Some of your commitments will be easy and some will be more challenging, but when you know that you're going to check in with your partner, you just do you just think, I'm hoping that they're doing well and I want to show them that I'm doing well. I think it's just part of human nature. Right. Knowing that we're going to have that check in made me think about my commitment and ensure that I was like, on there. It gave me an extra check in with myself when I would think about checking in with my partner.
- [10:50]
Dave Stahoviak
Hmm, nice. It is. So it gets back to what you said earlier about community, because there's something powerful about doing something together that is harder when you're just trying to do something by yourself. It's certainly doable to do it by yourself. But one of the reasons I myself have gotten into Community with lots of other leaders, and you have two as part of this process, Aaron, and you do internally as well, is when you're working with others, it's just so much more likely you'll come along, you'll help each other stay accountable. And it's so much a. It's so much a foundation of the work we do of bringing that into community, because it does. It does make it just so Much. It's not easy, but it makes it easier.
- [11:33]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah. And if you get stuck, you've got ideas of a bunch of other people that are on the same page as you trying things, and they might get you unstuck. But if you tried to do that at your office place with other people who are not on that same journey with you, you're alone. So. Yeah, you're not alone in the Academy.
- [11:53]
Dave Stahoviak
You and I have known each other now almost a year.
- [11:56]
Aaron Lincoln
Almost a year. I'm counting. It's exciting for me.
- [12:00]
Dave Stahoviak
I'm glad. Well, you've listened to a lot of episodes in the past. We've, of course, worked together really closely in the Academy and gone through the process of helping you to move toward your vision. As we've done all that over the last year. I'm curious, what, have you changed your mind?
- [12:16]
Aaron Lincoln
Yeah. During my time at the Academy, I think one big mindset shift I had is after I got the feedback on trying out coaching more often. And once the commitment was so incredibly successful and helpful and I got pretty good at doing some coaching, I then got stuck a little bit in certain meetings feeling like I needed to coach all the time. And so, as you say often, Dave, we have a lot of tools in our toolbox as leaders, and this was just one of my tools. And not every situation as a leader calls for a coach. Some definitely do and you will go farther using that. But there's still time for providing guidance and direction and a host of other different things providing some pace setting. So that was a big revelation I had specific to my time in the academy.
- [13:16]
Dave Stahoviak
Thanks for sharing that and the analogy of the toolbox. It is just so true for how we show up in, yes, leadership, but also every other aspect. You and I are both parents and spouses and like all the aspects of relationships in our life, if we show up only with one tool when the situation changes, it's a tool that often doesn't work for a different context. And I love you thinking about coaching as one of many tools. There are times we should be more coach. Like, there's also times we do need to be direct and times we do need to put on our manager hat and times we need to articulate a vision as leaders. Just one of the many reasons we hit on so many aspects during our time in the academy. Thank you so much for sharing that and illuminating that. And thanks, Aaron, for sharing your time. I so appreciate it.
- [14:03]
Aaron Lincoln
Thank you, Dave. Thank you for having me.
- [14:06]
Dave Stahoviak
One of the challenges I've run into over the years, both myself and in supporting others is the tendency for learning to interrupt a lot of work but then not getting the benefit of that interruption. So what do I mean by that? Well, taking two to three days to attend a program or an off site and to do a really intense deep dive into theory and practice. I used to do a lot of that when I was in the training industry. And I tell you, there's something really valuable and important about getting people together in the same place for a few days, discovering new practices together, building relationships. The challenge is that we tend not to do the other part. That's also really essential, the integration of putting those discoveries into practice. When we get back to our quote unquote normal work, right, there's catch up, there's the full inbox, there's meetings, there's all that stuff. And, and a lot of times it's days or weeks before we even stop to integrate anything we've learned, if we do it at all. That's exactly why what Aaron hit on in this conversation is so critical. Our aim in the academy is to integrate with work rather than interrupt it. That's why we're taking actions like she did in small steps. Five minutes a day or less. Because everyone's busy, but also because that's the best way to shift behavior consistency over intensity. And it's also why we're doing it in community with other leaders. It's hard to change our habits and to do new things, but it's so much easier when we're doing it with others who are pulling for each other. If you're at an inflection point right now and ready to elevate your leadership, go over to coaching4leaders.com academy. You'll see a lot more on that page about the academy and an opportunity to request an early invitation. We're going to be opening up applications the first week of September, so head over to coachingforleaders. Com Academy to make sure you receive one of those first invitations to apply. As always, thanks for listening in and watch for the next regular episode this coming Monday.