How Do I Help My Boss Without Doing Their Job For Them?

Summary

Coaching Real Leaders:

"How Do I Help My Boss Without Doing Their Job For Them?"

Host: Muriel Wilkins (Harvard Business Review)
Guest (anonymized): Kate
Date: April 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode follows a real coaching session between executive coach Muriel Wilkins and “Kate,” a senior leader struggling to define her role and relationship with her new boss. Kate, after moving from a large company where she built significant structures and had high-level exposure, now faces a disappointing lack of ownership and growing frustration: her manager is deeply involved in all aspects of her work, leaving Kate unsure how to contribute at her level without overstepping—or simply doing her boss’s job. The session dives into expectations, communication, and finding clarity between supporting a leader and taking over responsibilities, with practical frameworks and self-reflection for navigating these common corporate dilemmas.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: Transition and Expectations

• Kate’s Career Path:
  • Rose through the ranks at a previous large company, culminating in rebuilding a major organizational function.
  • Joined a purpose-driven, smaller company expecting to similarly shape and structure processes.
  • Saw the new role as a chance to leverage her experience at a higher level.
  • Quote:

    “I got the amazing opportunity to rebuild part of the organization…to assign a purpose, like an added value to the company.” — Kate (00:50)

2. Initial Frustrations: Lack of Ownership and Feedback

• Manager’s Pattern:
  • Receives Kate’s proposals and ideas but gives little feedback or follow-through.
  • Prefers to be deeply involved in all actions, requiring updates and her presence at every stage, limiting Kate’s autonomy.
  • Quote:

    “I realized she wanted to be really super involved everywhere in what I was doing. I needed to bring her on board of everything I did. And that is super disempowering for me.” — Kate (07:36)

3. A Mismatch of Role Understanding

• Ownership vs. Support:
  • Kate perceives herself as having the capability—and perhaps the mandate—to operate at her boss’s level.
  • Her boss, however, treats Kate’s role as one of support, expecting all actions to be channeled through her.
  • Key Realization:

    “Those are two different roles. One is about ownership and the other is about support.” — Muriel Wilkins (13:25)

  • The conversation highlights how a misalignment in role expectations leads to frustration and inertia.

4. How vs. What: Need to Clarify Working Relationship

• Agreement on "What", Not on "How":
  • Both agree on organizational objectives (the what), but become stuck on how to collaborate to achieve these goals.
  • Quote:

    “It's so crystal clear when you say there is alignment on the what, but now we need to tackle the how and how do we make that how effective? We need a frank conversation.” — Kate (20:40)

  • Muriel insists the real work is clarifying process—decision-making, communication, and levels of autonomy.

5. Understanding What’s Actually Helpful

• Re-framing Help:
  • Drawing on an analogy, Muriel reframes “help” as contextual (“offering water to someone who’s not thirsty isn’t help”).
  • To help her boss, Kate must understand what the boss actually values, not what she herself finds helpful.
  • Quote:

    “Being helpful to someone is based on what's helpful to them, not what's helpful to you.” — Muriel Wilkins (27:43)

6. Tactics: How to Clarify Expectations

• Practical Steps:
  • Observe how the boss interacts with others; look for patterns in what she praises or finds helpful.
  • Propose detailed “how” frameworks for executing tasks and solicit explicit feedback.
  • Where possible, talk directly about preferences for communication, updates, and ownership.
  • Quote:

    “I would recommend that you…make the implicit explicit, which is: my sense, my experience as Kate, we’re very aligned on the goals…where I’m feeling some dissonance is I’m not necessarily sure if I’m being helpful to you, in the way that I approach this work.” — Muriel Wilkins (48:47)

7. The Why vs. The Why Not: Personal Reflection and Tradeoffs

• Critical Questioning:
  • Muriel prompts Kate to ask herself not just why she’s resistant, but also why she might choose to comply.
  • As in many leadership roles, it’s about understanding tradeoffs: personal fulfillment (the “fun” of the challenge) vs. cost (the frustration of aligning to a non-ideal management style).
  • Quote:

    “The blocker is that you haven’t found a why. You haven’t found a why to do it. That’s the blocker.” — Muriel Wilkins (46:43)

  • Kate realizes she’s focused only on negatives (“why not”) and needs to articulate positive reasons (“why”) to guide her decision.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I am the most senior in the team, so we cannot make progress…and so I thought, well, let me go ahead and maybe just by showing some examples within my own scope…we could deploy it across.” — Kate (07:14)

• “I have basically done her job. The scope that I had in the previous company is even larger than the scope that she has.” — Kate (08:35)

• “I think she made it very clear…that there was a structure to be built…but there is no single time that we have been discussing ideas.” — Kate (18:21)

• “It’s easy to stay focused on that rather than say, oh my gosh, even more reason to become crystal clear and create the intersection and the commonalities. The alignment.” — Muriel Wilkins (21:56)

• “To help her means…I am just driving this and do the work…in the back of my mind, I think all the time, this is actually your work. I’m supposed to help you. I’m not supposed to do your work.” — Kate (25:39)

• “You can’t determine whether you want to engage with certain rules of engagement if you don’t understand what the rules are.” — Muriel Wilkins (49:56)

• “When I came into the call, I was literally stuck in a very, very narrow place in my mind. So now I can think of options. I really don’t feel as stuck as I was in the beginning of the conversation.” — Kate (51:28)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Kate’s Backstory & Current Situation: 00:50–09:30
• Discussion of Role Confusion & Manager Dynamics: 09:30–14:34
• Exploring Expectations & Mismatch: 14:34–19:55
• Digging Into the “How” and Defining Help: 19:55–27:43
• Strategies for Clarification and Communication: 27:43–36:53
• Reframing Personal Motivation (Why vs. Why Not): 43:25–48:26
• Commitment to Next Steps & Takeaways: 51:19–52:56

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Key Takeaways for Listeners

• Leaders must actively clarify not just their deliverables (“what”) but also their working relationship and execution process (“how”) with managers—especially in new or evolving roles.
• “Helping” a boss requires understanding and adapting to their definition of help, not just offering what you’d want for yourself.
• Tradeoffs are inevitable; fulfillment in a role isn’t just about autonomy or doing things “your way”—sometimes it’s about choosing which tradeoffs you’ll accept, based on your own reasons for being in the role (your “why”).
• Having open, detailed conversations about preferred working styles—even if initially uncomfortable—is key to reducing friction and unlocking progress.
• Reflecting on both the positive reasons to stay/comply and the negatives that hold you back can break analysis paralysis and help you make career decisions with eyes wide open.

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Actionable Steps Inspired by the Conversation

• Clarify the “How”: Propose (and get feedback on) specific approaches for project execution, updates, and communications, not just the end goals.
• Ask About Preferences: “What’s most helpful to you when I’m running a project? What keeps you feeling in the loop/on track?”
• Observe Patterns: Watch how your boss interacts with others; triangulate useful behaviors from peers who work effectively with her.
• Articulate Your Why: List both positive motivations and reasons for resistance before making a major decision about your role.
• Make the Implicit Explicit: Have candid, but structured, conversations to confirm assumptions and align on expectations.

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Final Reflection

This coaching session illustrates that, at senior levels, leadership challenges rely less on technical expertise and more on negotiating ambiguous interpersonal dynamics. Success lies in clarifying expectations, aligning (or at least understanding) different working styles, and being honest both about what you want and what you’re willing to trade for it. It’s not always about getting your way—it’s about knowing which pain points you’re willing to accept for the sake of the bigger reward.

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Transcript

[Kate]

Foreign.

[Muriel Wilkins]

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.

[Narrator]

Today I'm coaching someone we'll call Kate to protect her confidentiality. She previously worked for a large company for many years, steadily moving up the ranks and even getting some unexpected exciting opportunities.

[Kate]

I got the amazing opportunity to rebuild part of the organization, to essentially re scope, rebuild it, give it a purpose and working really with the executive leaders of the company to assign a purpose like an added value to the company.

[Narrator]

But even with that growth and the interesting challenges, she felt like it wasn't enough.

[Kate]

I was really haunted by the desire to grow even more, but I wasn't able to find a place to grow in the company. And then after a while I came across this really amazing opportunity to join another company. At least from the outside it looked really amazing. And I thought, well, let's give it a try. Because not that I was desperate to find something else, but it came along and it gave me the perspective to essentially leverage the experience that I had from the previous company and rebuild it into a different company.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Since she started in that new role,

[Narrator]

though, things haven't existed exactly panned out as she might have hoped, largely because of a strained relationship. That's where we'll start today.

[Kate]

So when I first joined, I realized it's just an amazing company and that is actually still what I think today. I love the culture. It's a purpose driven culture, caring type of culture. So I found it incredible in terms of purpose, in terms of place in the industry, possibilities, even, you know, for the employees, talent development. So on so many level it is really an amazing company. And I knew that I was joining a rather small team. I knew that there was a lot to build. As a matter of fact, I was actually brought in to do exactly that.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And when you say build, can you share a little bit what that means? What are you building?

[Kate]

So structure the way we operationalize a certain function in the company, but really structure the whole work. So you know, it starts from okay, what, what is the vision, what is our strategy? And then it drives from, you know, strategic objectives, basically everything. It also includes thinking about then roles, responsibilities, just track things in a more systematic way. They Wanted to do it, but it wasn't there at the time. So I started, you know, injecting my ideas, proposing my ideas, and there was no follow up on what I was proposing in a way. And it was like, okay, that's great. And can you put it in a.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Who were you proposing to?

[Kate]

To my manager at the time, yes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Okay. And then you weren't getting any follow through or feedback on the ideas?

[Kate]

No, no. She was saying, okay, just, you know, send it over and then we, we can discuss. And I remember that time that was like, I didn't hear about it and I thought maybe it's just bad. I started doubting. I didn't actually dare to ask her any feedback. And at some point I thought, well, let me just ask and see what happened to that. And then she was saying, oh yeah, that was really good. It's just that now we have something else to look at or yeah, it was good and we will take it up again maybe in the future. There was no follow through. And I kind of questioned, okay, what is really happening here? We weren't really making much progress, at least in my view. And I tried to have that conversation and say, I'm not sure how we should go ahead. And I don't know what you think about. I don't know if I should give my feedback or if I should propose things to you. How do we work together? How can I contribute more? So when I joined, I was like, okay, I can start doing things. And I was doing a stakeholder map. And she said, a stakeholder map, that's fantastic because I can give you advice on how, you know, how you could build your network in the company and that is super important. So I started doing that and we were having our one on one and said, yeah, I mean, this is, you know, the, the, the executive leader where we roll up into, basically this is our organization. Right. So I, I would start from there. And she said, but you, you'll never talk to her. I was shocked because in my previous company I had exposure to executive leaders of that caliber. I had much more exposure. And as a matter of fact, the type of the organization and the function of that organization in the company is very, very similar. I mean, between the two.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Sure.

[Kate]

And in the previous organization I had much more exposure to executives, which I think gives more power to the organization itself, to the function. But also it gave me a fantastic opportunity to grow, to talk about the big picture, expand my vision in so many ways. When she said, but you'll never talk to her, right, okay, well, that's a reality check.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, that is a reality check. Okay, let me pause here, because I want to make sure I understand the full context. So you've been in the role, brought in in your mind to do what you've had success doing at a previous organization. You love the culture of the new organization that you're in. But in terms of being able to execute on the role according to what you think needs to be executed on, you're facing some obstacles. What are the obstacles?

[Kate]

I think it might be just working with her. Okay. Because she is responsible for our team and I am supposed to help her. I am the most senior in the team, so we cannot make progress. And at some point I thought, well, if I cannot make progress on building the organization within her scope, I can at least build things for my own scope, which is, of course, more limited compared to because she has a larger team. And so I thought, well, let me go ahead and maybe just by showing some examples within my own scope, we can deploy, if that's okay, and if that's something that works, we could deploy it across. And I started doing that. But then I realized she wanted to be really super involved everywhere in what I was doing. I needed to bring her on board of everything I did. And that is super disempowering for me. It's just demotivating. And I'm kind of asking my question, okay, help me understand what is really going on. Do I have some kind of, you know, hidden blocker here? And I cannot really work with her. I feel like a child. You know that. And I'm so senior. I. I'm just. I have basically done her job. The scope that I had in the previous company is even larger than the scope that she has. So that's probably also a problem because I am thinking basically all the time, you know, I can do your job, actually.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah. And what do you think she's thinking?

[Kate]

I think she thinks the same.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Which is different than, I'm here to help you do your job, which is what you said you were brought in to do.

[Kate]

That's right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And so if you approach it from a place of. And we'll get into some of these. But when you're sort of in the back of your mind thinking, I can do your job, how do you think that informs the way that you have approached the role so far?

[Kate]

Yeah, I have been thinking about it. I mean, it could be that the way I communicate is maybe I'm coming across as arrogant. Maybe I am, you know, just laying down the Law and say, look, I have done this many times. This is how it works. I have been watching myself a lot just trying to really refrain myself from doing that and from having any kind of behavior. And I can share what I think I have done previously. But of course, it's a different company. It's a different context. So you have to tailor it. I'm fully aware that you can't just replicate. You just come in and replicate. It doesn't work like that. This is why I'm also very careful, say, even maybe afraid of asking feedback, because I would say, well, maybe I'm coming across as too arrogant. Or I even actually tried to have an open conversation with her at some point. I said, you know, sometimes I'm just leaning back and letting others speak first because I don't want to be always the first to say, hey, here's how it would work. And actually, at that time, she said, well, no, no, no, no. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't hold anything back. Please do help us. Everything that you have done is so useful. And please do speak. And yeah, be always the first to speak. That's fantastic. Just go ahead. In reality, though, things do not work out because I feel like she. With some very key stakeholders, she wants to be in charge. She wants to just show she is the one that actually has done it.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Okay, so I want to come back to this. You could do the operating thought that you had, which is, I could do this job. Right? I could do her job. And what it seems like you said you were brought in for, which is, I'm here to help her do her job. And so when you think about the difference between the two. And by the way, I don't see you in a room. I'm not sure if you come off as arrogant or anything. Like, we don't know. Okay. But I think that there is something here around the expectations of the role and what you might be expecting from it versus what she might be expecting from it. Let's assume that her expectation is Kate is here to help me do my job right? What difference does that make in what you think she expects from you? And I'm not saying it's right or not right. I'm just saying if that were the case, what difference do you think it makes in terms of what she expects from you?

[Kate]

Yeah, I think it's a good way to frame it because I think it makes sense then that she would ask me to channel everything I'm doing to her and just, you know, bring her up to date. And really inform her on everything, everything that I do. And maybe through this, she's thinking, okay, I can then absorb and essentially make it and I can help then the rest of the team to make it more structural. And so I would say within that frame, I think it makes sense how she behaves.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And I don't know if that is the case, but from what you're describing and even the words that you used, right, in terms of, I was brought in, my role is to help her, and yet I have this thought of, I could do it. Those are two different roles. One is about ownership and the other is about support. And I'm not here to say again that one is better than the other or right or wrong, or that even what she's doing in terms of, you know, I want to see every email and I'm the one who needs to talk to these people. I'm not going to sit here and say that's right or wrong. What I know is that if she believes that you are here as support and you believe that you are here to own something, there's a mismatch.

[Kate]

I could see that.

[Muriel Wilkins]

I can't say, here's the narrative around the mismatch. What I can say is there's a mismatch. And so when there's a mismatch, right, she's not the one sitting in front of me. You are, you can sort of say, okay, so what do I do with that? What do I want to do with that?

We'll be right back after this.

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[Narrator]

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[Narrator]

At the core of many frustrations at work is misaligned or unmet expectations. That can be a misalignment between your goals and the current opportunities, a misalignment between the company's strategy and where you think it should go, or as in the case of Kate, a misalignment between what you think your role should be and how your boss use it. As I listen to to Kate lay out the problem, I quickly noticed a disconnect, a small but possibly important distinction between whether she was there to help her boss or there to do her boss's job. Kate initially framed her frustration at work as her boss holding her back, saying one thing and doing another, essentially being protective over her own domain at the organization. So the first thing to do was help Kate explore other possibilities and especially begin to think more about her boss's perspective.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Let me ask you, do you think that there's a way that you could or have you tried to confirm or better understand what she thinks she needs from this role?

[Kate]

Yeah, I think she made it very clear that this there was a structure to be built, a way for everyone in the team to operationalize. She was very articulated about we need to build these strategic objectives, think how we add value to the company and from there, you know, select the programs we need, the activities we need to work on, and from there figuring out the KPIs, how to track progress, communication strategy, all of that. And she was telling me I need help. I see you as the senior even that has done that in the past and I see you as the one that really is going to help me. But there is no single time that we have been discussing ideas. So I was thinking at that time, I was thinking that we would work on this together. I was thinking she would co build, she would have ideas, she would bring, you know, her vision. Her vision is, well, the politics that basically plays, you know, in her environment and maybe at higher levels. That's what she lives on, relationships. So she's really a relationship person. I know the value of relationships, but I'm also really focused on the content. That's one major difference between us.

[Muriel Wilkins]

What I hear is there is alignment on the what, meaning what it is that you were brought in to work on creating the structure. So there's alignment around the what. What I'm also hearing is that potentially where there is misalignment is in the how. How do I help you? Right. You've used this word a lot. It sounds like she's even said I need you to help me.

[Kate]

Yes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

So what conversations, if any, have happened around what effective help to her in building this thing is?

[Kate]

That's a good question. Actually, I think we never had a conversation around this topic that you're pinpointing right now. I mean, it's so crystal clear when you say there is alignment on the what, but now we need to tackle the how and how do we make that how effective? We need a frank conversation. Because in all these months I realized we have so many differences. I mean, we have a completely different personality, we have a completely different view of what it means to work in the company, our function in the corporate. And we never really had a frank conversation about okay, how do we make the how now? Right?

[Muriel Wilkins]

And look, and when we see the differences, it's easy to stay focused on that rather than say, oh my gosh, even more reason to become crystal clear and create the intersection and the commonalities. The alignment. Right. Because in reality, Kate, it's okay for the two of you to be different.

[Narrator]

It doesn't matter.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Let's focus on what matters. What matters is that getting from the current state of where the organization is to the future state requires alignment on a few things. And as long as there's alignment or intersection on those things, the rest of the difference is it's fine. Doesn't matter. What matters is their intersection around this one very important through line. Okay? Usually where there's a breakdown, it's usually around the what, where are we going? Or the how or both. And in your case, I think it may be the how. So this is sort of, you know, I don't know if you ever saw the movie Jerry Maguire. I'm dating myself, but it was a Tom Cruise movie. And he says to the person, he's like, help me help you. I think this is a help me help you moment relative from you to your manager. And so let me pause there. How does that land with you?

[Kate]

I think it's spot on, actually. It makes me think that I have been trying a couple of times to have a conversation with her on the fact that there was no progress. I didn't put it that way, but I wanted to have her view on how things were progressing in general within the team, you know, with the organization that she has responsibility for. There's always a lot of talking, but at the end, I don't think we really came to, okay, how do we tackle it then? What do we do then? But it's just so difficult to have a friend conversation with her.

[Muriel Wilkins]

What makes it difficult?

[Kate]

Because she doesn't really want to hear anything that is slightly negative. I actually stopped already a long time ago to try to have, you know, a very candid conversation.

[Muriel Wilkins]

So let me ask you a question. What do you think? We're guessing here, but what do you think makes her not want sort of resist hearing things that are negative? If I were to offer you, right, let's say I offered you some water right now and you said, no, I don't want it. Why would you not want the water?

[Kate]

Because I'm not thirsty.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Because you're not thirsty and you're not thirsty, which means water is not going to be very, what, helpful to you right now. But maybe you're hungry and maybe in the back of your mind you're wishing, I wish Muriel would offer me a cookie or something, or something to eat. Because what I really need is something to eat, not something to drink. That would be helpful to me. And so I think we have to be careful of making assumptions as to why somebody receives something or not. What I'm hearing is potentially right. Keep going back to this word help. This would be a question in what way, and I don't know in what way, is framing the conversation from a here's everything that we're doing wrong helpful to her? And I'm not saying that we should never say, here's what's going wrong. I'm just saying in this situation, what you're trying to do is be helpful to her, is that framing, supporting the Kate is here to be hopeful to this person or is it working against it?

[Kate]

Yeah, I think the latter.

[Muriel Wilkins]

What's unclear to me, and I'm not sure if it's clear to you, so this is a question, is what would be helpful to her from her perspective?

[Kate]

I think it will be helpful to just come with a solution and say, I'm going to drive this very consistently across the team. In the back of my mind, I think all the time, this is actually your work. I'm supposed to help you. I'm not supposed to do your work.

[Muriel Wilkins]

So her definition of help might be, just do it.

[Kate]

Just do it.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And your definition of help might be, I'm going to give you all the capabilities so that you can run. And maybe her definition is like, no, no, I don't want to run. I need you to run. That's what would be helpful. But when you get to the end, let me be the one on the podium perhaps. And I don't know, maybe. But I think it's worth exploring more.

[Kate]

But how do I find out?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Let's play around with that. How do you think you could find out, given what you've experienced so far, or if you had a different boss, how would you find out?

[Kate]

Many times she actually told me, you know, this other leader always tells his reports, don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions. I just want to see solutions. And she told me that quite often, which actually could hint at the fact that you might be right in this scenario, that she wants me to help her in these terms, to her means I am just driving this and do the work.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah. And look, I don't know if I'm right. It doesn't really matter if I'm right. I think the point here is you're trying to be helpful to someone you haven't even really committed to, Whether it's what you want to do or not. We're going to get there without fully understanding what it is that you're signing up for, what it is that's helpful to them. Because being helpful to someone is based on what's helpful to them, not what's helpful to you. You've got to understand it from their perspective, what is helpful to them.

[Kate]

That's such a deep insight. Yes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And I don't know what that is. Again, she's not sitting here with us.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But what I sense is, if you continue to look at it from the perspective of what would be helpful to you, Kate, or what was helpful, maybe in other contexts with other bosses, you're going to sort of continue to be throwing things up at the wall with it potentially not sticking. So the question really is, what would be helpful to her from her perspective? And once you know that, is that what you want to do? That's a whole separate thing.

[Kate]

That's right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But we got to figure out first, what is it before you decide that. Because if you decide that, you're doing it without really knowing.

[Kate]

So one way to figure it out is, of course, to talk to her, to really find out how she thinks I should or could help her.

[Muriel Wilkins]

I mean, I think we could pull back a little bit, right, Based on the conversations you said you've had in the past. My sense is when you narrow it in to the actual work, you know, the deliverables that you have, then it kind of gets mucked up in the deliverables. I'll be honest with you, like, if anybody asks me, muriel, what's helpful to you? It doesn't matter if we're talking about, you know, planning the weekend versus working on a presentation for work or going on vacation. What is helpful to me is pretty consistent.

[Kate]

Okay.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Most people have themes around what they consider helpful to them. What they see as, like, the. This is always what's helpful to me. This is always what makes me feel more confident or more secure in what's happening. So I want to sort of imagine if you zoomed out a little bit away from the specific deliverables. Okay. There's a couple ways you can find that information. One is have a conversation with her, which we could talk about how to do that. The other is, you've been around her for a year, so what have you picked up without narrative, just like, huh, When I have done this, I find that she's accepting of it. What did I do? Is there a pattern there? How do other people deal with her? And where is that effective? What can I learn from that? What are some of the things that she has said or not said that indicate to me that that's something that she really values in anyone who is being supportive of her or who is helping her? So there's a bit of zooming out of what are those operating principles in support of being helpful to her? And then from there, how do I apply that to this work? So I think we need to sort of pull it back a couple of layers and operate with what we do know rather than what we don't know. And so what is it that you do know? Because again, I'm not saying that the way she's going about doing things is best practices or like, ideal manager. I'm not. I'm just saying you've got to see the reality for what it is. What would it take from you to adapt to that so that you're aligned with the role of being helpful to her? So my question is, you've approached the conversation, it sounds like, with her, from a place of. This is what happened. Here's what doesn't work. Okay. What you have heard from her, it sounds like, is bring solutions to me, don't bring me problems. Correct. So if you were to approach the help me help you conversation from a here's the solution, not the problem, what could that sound like?

[Kate]

That's a good question. Because the only thing that comes to my mind right now is I just want to tell her that, you know, in my world, helping her doesn't mean that I do the entire.

[Muriel Wilkins]

That.

[Kate]

That I do her work. That that's what comes to my mind.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But I know.

[Kate]

I assume I. I can't really tell her that.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But you're. You're resisting what you're assuming she's gonna say, you know what I mean? Like, your resistance has already gone up because you're assuming that's what she actually thinks. We don't know. That's the problem right now.

[Kate]

But I can't ask her that. I can't ask her that directly.

[Muriel Wilkins]

You can't ask her that. That directly. So how could you go about it to try to confirm whether that's the case or not?

[Kate]

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I have to find out indirectly. The best thing will be to hear from others that she talked to. But maybe that could be one way.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Are there others in your organization that you see who work effectively with her?

[Kate]

Perhaps, but I'm the senior one. Most senior one. There are others in the team that might actually be working effectively with her, but it's not the same type of partnership.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Right. So this is the thing.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

You're the first person at this level of seniority that she has on the team.

[Kate]

Yes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Okay. So in a sense, she is managing you the way she has managed everyone else.

[Kate]

Oh, yes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Okay. That informs us. So you can look at that. And I think you have a sense of like, okay, I see what that dynamic looks like. It's not necessarily personal. It's more around the role. She's not used to working with somebody this senior. So the question becomes somebody who is at this. This level, how can they be helpful to her? And what you're sensing is I could do what the more junior people are doing, but I don't want to do that, nor do I think that that's what this role should be doing. Right. And you're hearing from her, I just want solutions. Right. I don't want problems. So in what way have you presented, here's how I'm going to execute. Here's the 10 things, the how I'm going to support. Here's exactly what it looks like. And then get a reaction from her as to whether that works or not.

[Kate]

So we talked about goals. We articulated my goals for the year. And you know, on that list we also negotiated or agreed on. Okay. Some things that could help her at the entire team to really build that organization. So some of these things are. Are already really spelled out in the goals.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But remember, the goals are the what.

[Kate]

Yes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And we're talking about the how. The how are things. Like, how are decisions made?

[Kate]

That's brilliant.

[Muriel Wilkins]

How are we keeping each other informed?

[Kate]

Yeah, that's brilliant.

[Muriel Wilkins]

How engaged is she when she says, copy me on every email? You're interpreting it as, oh, she's in my business because she doesn't trust me or whatnot. She's not empowering. She doesn't want to empower me. She might be like, no, it helps me. It helps me keep on track of everything. I don't know, it could be one or the other. But it's best to put that on the table to understand it so that you know what you're dealing with. You know, if I said to you, hey, Kate, like, copy me on every email, not because there's anything wrong with you, but more because it's the way that I can stay on track with things or else I'm gonna forget. And if I'm not on that email, I'm gonna wake up in the middle of the night wondering did I forget something or whatnot. So could you do that? Because that would be helpful to me.

[Kate]

Yeah, that would be different.

[Muriel Wilkins]

That would be different. The issue is she doesn't have, you know, it doesn't sound like she has the capacity or has been able to or has not thought about articulating it in that way? So she's not here. I can't coach her around that. But in what way could you find out from her the specifics of the how. How she likes to work, which I actually think this is about, or a piece of it, how she likes to work, regardless of whether that's the way you like to work or whether it's, again, best Practice or not. In what way could you find out what her preferences are?

[Kate]

I could observe how she does things with others in the team, how she works with, maybe her peers, even that. So we are at the more senior level. I could come with a proposal and say, hey, we have this, what we have agreed on me doing this. How about I work on that and then we agree on the how? So I come with a proposal and I describe to her how we work on that. And then I would, you know, wait for her feedback and see whether that is what she likes or whether she. She prefers a different way.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, I mean, look, I think that is certainly one approach. What it sounds like is you're gonna have to drive this if you wanna try to get some level of alignment here.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And so being able to point out, hey, I feel like we are aligned on where we're going and the goals and you can own it, where I'm feeling some dissonance or I'm feeling like I'm not necessarily sure to use her words, I'm not necessarily sure if I'm being helpful to you, being helpful in the way that I approach this work, the execution of it vis a vis you. And so here's what I think will be helpful to you based on what I've seen and what I've heard. But could you tell me yes or no? You know, and you can be detailed, right? I know you want me to come with solutions, but not so much when I'm still processing or pointing out the problems. Is that your preference? And if so, what makes that your preference? You know, and you can think about it in terms of categories, how she likes to be communicated to, what does she want to stay informed on? How are decisions made from her perspective? What's her preference around how she handles conflict? What about relationships outside of the media? How does she like those managed and understand those now, does that mean that you have to then say, okay, I can do it? We have to get to that question.

[Kate]

That's really, really helpful because while you're talking, I say, yes, that's right, but that will cost me a lot of time. I'm probably now thinking I'm probably the one that just runs with things and just focuses on the what and, you know, just getting results. I'm thinking, yeah, if I need to bring her along, you know, it might be that the way she works, it's very detailed.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But, Kate, this is also why it's important to understand what's behind the ask.

[Kate]

But even assuming that she says, because that helps Me and you know, I'm just genuinely want to be up to date and say, this helps me, this really helps me. That's okay. But then I'm thinking, look, that will cost me a lot of time and so forget about, you know, all the results.

[Muriel Wilkins]

But until you understand what it is that's actually helpful to her and why, right, some context. So let's say she comes back and says, yeah, ccing me is very helpful. And then you say, I'm happy to do it. Help me understand what it is that's helpful about that to you. Oh, well, it keeps me from forgetting things. That's how it's helpful for me. That then enables you to say, oh, okay, well, here's another way that I can make sure that you don't forget about things. Why don't I give you a daily digest or a weekly update. But until you understand what the underlying need is that she's trying to solve for in terms of you helping her, you're not going to be able to address it in other ways that are helpful to you.

[Kate]

Yep, I understand.

[Muriel Wilkins]

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by this point in the conversation,

[Narrator]

Kate has been able to clarify for herself a bit more why she feels Frustrated by the relationship she has with her boss. Offering someone a glass of water who isn't thirsty is a helpful analogy. The definition of what is helpful truly comes down to the individual. So without better understanding their needs, it could be her hard to deliver on these expectations. Once Kate has reached clarity on what her boss really wants from her, only then can she begin the next round of reflection around whether that is a good fit for her. Only then can she really start thinking through what she is and isn't willing to do. It can be a bit of a process to understand what the non negotiables might be on either side of the table, but it's a process worth going through. So we move the conversation next to looking ahead. If Kate gets more clarity on what is helpful to her boss, how would she then go about making choices for herself?

[Kate]

It just makes me think about myself and how I operate.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Kate]

So I'm not sure I'm the best then set up to actually help her. You know, I'm somebody that again runs and brings results and really builds things. Being in charge but not, you know, catering to somebody else's needs. I need to reflect on that. And you know, what comes to my mind is I'm actually pretty sure that she wants me to do all the work. This is her work. I'm not going to do her work because I'm not in that position. But this thought really kind of gets me stuck. That tells me that there must be some hidden blocker. Why would I not do that?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Why would you not do what?

[Kate]

To do all the work for her. It's just my perspective. Of course.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Let me reframe the question for you a little bit. Why would you. I'm agnostic one way or the other. So I would ask you, like in a world, let's say, you know, two weeks from now, we were to talk and you're like, muriel, you know what, I'm gonna do it. I understand what she needs. I still think it's a hypothesis that has to be validated or misvalidated around whether what she needs is for you to do all the work. So that's step number one. And we're not gonna get. We would need a follow up for you to go prove out that hypothesis. Okay, so that's hypothesis number one. But let's say it bears out to be true and it is that to be helpful to my manager, I have to pretty much do everything. Okay. And let's say upon reflection, you come back to our coaching and you say this is what it Is. And I have decided I am going to do that. And here's why. Enthusiastically. Here is my why. What would be your why? What would be a reason why you would do it?

[Kate]

Because the what would be fun. It would be fun. But I cannot do it in splendid isolation. I mean, I need to do it together with others and I need to do it with, you know, together with the team, with my peers.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And before we move into the buts. Right. Let's stick with the why. You would follow that path. I hear you. You. It's crystal clear. The why nots, why you wouldn't. I want to hear about the whys and if there are any.

[Narrator]

Right.

[Kate]

I think it would be fun.

[Muriel Wilkins]

It would be fun. The goal excites you and motivates you. Okay. Yes. Why else would you do it her way? Which means you could be in this role. I'm gonna throw one out there. You said, hey, I really love the culture of this organization. So it would fulfill me to still be here.

[Kate]

Right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

I love it here. I might have to deal with this hurricane, but I love the warm weather of the island and the beach and the water. So I'm gonna deal with the hurricanes so that I can still have the warm weather and the Right. We could go through the list, but I think it's worth going through. What would be your why? Because I do think it's not whether you should or not. I think the only reason that would drive you to do this, because you brought it up, you said, what is my blocker of why I wouldn't do this? The blocker is that you haven't found a why. You haven't found a why to do it. That's the blocker. You're focused just on the why nots. Is one better than the other? No, you just have to choose which one you want to hold. Which trade off is of highest priority to you. And I can't tell you that. You're the one who has to live with that. So as long as your why is bigger than your why not, that's what will move you in one direction. But if your why you shouldn't do it is bigger than the why you should, then you're going to move in that direction.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Muriel Wilkins]

So I think you need to just have clear on what the direction is. That's hypothesis number one. And then move on to the second hypothesis, which is around what are my whys, why I should and why I shouldn't. It's a trade off. Right. Which ones are going to lead me.

[Kate]

I never thought of the why. I always thought of the why not. You're right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And maybe in your past you haven't had to because they so cleanly aligned. There was no reason to think about it. What this is bringing up maybe the situation now is like, oh, my gosh, no, there's divergence here. Oh, okay. I have to be in, you know, I have to be sort of clear about it. It's magical when you don't even have to think about it. Because it doesn't mean that the why's not there. It's just that your whys and your why nots, like, align very well. You know, that's great. But there's a lot of times in life, in leadership where they're not aligned. And so then we have to, as you said, be reflective. But I want you to be reflective. Eyes wide open.

[Kate]

Yep.

[Muriel Wilkins]

How does that make you feel around your assessment of I must be blocked.

[Kate]

Yeah. I just realized that I never really thought of why and I always thought of the why not. And so. And that will be interesting by itself just to understand, okay, what is it? Why was I, you know, drawn to the why not? You know, without thinking about the why ever, Ever. And yet when you ask the question why, it was just like so immediate for me to think. Well, because it will be fun. I didn't have even to think too long about it.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah.

[Kate]

And that opens perspectives. Now the question is how to bring it to her, how to operationalize this and verify the assumptions that, as you say, this is still an hypothesis. Right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah.

[Kate]

And so it's really like how then to find out and how to bring it to her.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah. I mean, I think you came up with some ideas earlier that are tactical. Right. And I would suggest that you follow through. I think one is I would recommend that you, without expectation around how she might respond, that you make the implicit explicit, which is my sense, my experience as Kate. We're very aligned on the goals. Right. Where we're going. I want to make sure that the next year is as hopeful as possible to you. Right. So it's continuing in this theme of hopeful as possible. I want to make sure that I'm doing that. So here's what I've observed around what's helpful to you. But just tell me whether that is yes or no or something different. And then as you go through it, it allows the follow up question. Help me understand what is it about that that's helpful to you? We don't know where it's going to go right now because you haven't taken that approach, I can't guarantee you it's going to work, but it's different than the approach that you've taken. So there's a bit of, you know, what are the rules of engagement here? Around how to manage her, you know, how to manage up to her, given how she leads and manages, which I understand is not your preference, nor what you're used to. But once you can understand what those rules of, you can't determine whether you want to engage with certain rules of engagement. If you don't understand what the rules are, you're not making a choice, then.

[Kate]

That's right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And then you can make a choice. If it's like, oh, my God, this is like my worst nightmare of rules of engagement, you can then decide, oh, is the fun of the deliverable? Does that outweigh the lack of fun in these rules of engagement? I don't know. Could be. But it's not always going to perfectly line up. You know, I do a lot of things that, like, you know, I'm training for a hyrox right now.

[Kate]

Wow.

[Muriel Wilkins]

It's going to be a lot of fun when I'm done. But the trade off of the pain that I am dealing with in the training, but, you know, if I want that fun feeling of accomplishment at the end, and then I have some people I know who are like, I'm good. I don't need that fun. Like the pain outweighs it. I'd rather not do it. And that's fine. That's choice and that's what I want you to have here.

[Kate]

Yeah, that's really a powerful way to rethink about this whole situation.

[Muriel Wilkins]

So tell me where you are now versus where you were at the beginning of our conversation. Wow.

[Kate]

Yeah, I feel lifted. You just expanded my way of looking at this. And when I came into the call, I was literally stuck in a very, very narrow place in my mind. So now I can think of options. I really don't feel as stuck as I was in the beginning of the conversation.

[Muriel Wilkins]

What is the one thing that you're committing to as a next step that you think will keep you moving forward? From this more expanded perspective of looking at the situation, what do you commit to as a next step?

[Kate]

I think the first question is really to verify the hypothesis of what does help mean to her and really trying to find out, you know, what, what does it mean? And is it really like what I'm thinking, that, yeah, you, you just do my work and that's, that's what it means to me and let's find out. That will be the first thing to tackle. And once I found out, then, then the next thing would be, well, if that is the case, why would I do that or why would I not do it?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yep. Okay. So guess what, Kate, I don't think you're stuck anymore because you have a step forward. So whenever we can take a step forward, we're not stuck. We're moving. We're moving. Okay.

[Kate]

Yeah.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Do your little experiment to prove or misprove the hypothesis and then let us know how it goes. Okay. Let me know how it goes.

[Kate]

Thank you so much.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Narrator]

When charting a path for success in any role, it can be just as much about understanding the personalities and goals around you as it is about understanding the quote, unquote, work to be done. The higher you go, the more the work is about understanding, guiding, motivating and adapting to people. Not just finishing projects or hidden KPIs. That involves work work around communication, understanding what others want and need, and also being more specific about what you want and need. Differences will bubble to the surface, but the good news is those differences can be a source of stress.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Strength.

[Narrator]

When leveraged correctly, a clearly defined shared goal is a good starting place. It won't always be easy and there will always be trade offs. So it's important to remember, sometimes we have to deal with the hurricanes to get to those truly magical beach days. That's it for today. Come back in two weeks for a new coach and Real Leaders Ask Muriel Anything episode.

[Muriel Wilkins]

If you want me to coach you through an issue or have a question

[Narrator]

you want answered, head on over to

[Muriel Wilkins]

coachingrealeaders.com and let me know. And if you want to unpack the episodes from Coaching Real Leaders, you can join me at coachingrealeaderscommunity.com where I host live discussions about each coaching session you

hear on this show. You can also follow me on LinkedIn

and Muriel Wilkins and on Instagram Oach. Muriel Wilkins, A reminder that if you love these coaching conversations, it would mean the world to me if you would go to Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to. 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. My 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.