Introducing: Ask Muriel Anything

Summary

Podcast: Coaching Real Leaders
Host: Muriel Wilkins (Harvard Business Review)
Episode: Introducing: Ask Muriel Anything
Date: March 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

This special episode introduces a new, interactive format called "Ask Muriel Anything." For the first time, host and executive coach Muriel Wilkins is joined by her longtime producer, Mary Dew, to answer real leadership questions submitted by listeners and community members. The episode offers practical coaching guidance on common yet challenging professional dilemmas, touching on topics such as sponsorship, co-founder dynamics, bouncing back from mistakes, and understanding team perceptions.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Building Relationships with Sponsors

(03:11 – 08:11)

• What is a Sponsor?
  Muriel stresses the importance of clearly distinguishing between mentors and sponsors. "A sponsor is somebody who will advocate for you both in terms of opportunity and visibility for the purposes of advancement. Right. So it's very specific." (03:59)
• Choosing the Right Sponsor:
  • Look for those with real influence and the "juice" to move your career forward, not just someone senior you like socially.
  • “If they're not the person who has juice in the organization, meaning they don’t have influence over your advancement… they’re probably not the Right Sponsor.” (05:06)
• How to Become 'Sponsorable':
  • Deliver results and make your work visible and relevant to potential sponsors.
  • “Not everybody is sponsorable. Unfortunately, it’s not equal opportunity. I always say everyone deserves a mentor… But getting a sponsor… you have to earn the sponsorship.” (05:35)
• Making an Explicit Ask:
  • Move from mentorship to sponsorship by explicitly requesting advocacy.
  • “I really appreciate the guidance you’ve given me. It would be really helpful if you would consider being a voice for me when I’m not in the room…” (06:37)
• Proactive Approach:
  • Don’t wait for opportunities—plant the seeds for sponsorship from the very start at a new organization.

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2. Addressing Co-founder Relationship Strain

(08:11 – 13:16)

• Issue:
  A co-founder feels excluded from key meetings and worries about being boxed out.
• Start with Curiosity, Not Assumptions:
  • Muriel highlights the risk of letting unconfirmed narratives take over: "The minute we start kind of running our own story or narrative around why we're not in the meeting… it starts kind of fogging us." (09:17)
• Approaching the Conversation:
  • Frame observations factually and discuss impacts without blame.
  • Sample framing: “In the past, this is the way that we used to do things… Here’s what I’m observing now… I’m just curious, what is the difference between before and now?” (10:27)
• Directness with Empathy:
  • Refrain from assuming motives and let your counterpart explain; creating space for their perspective increases the chances of a problem-solving conversation.

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3. Bouncing Back from a Major Mistake

(17:25 – 26:25)

• Issue:
  A leader made a costly, public error and fears loss of credibility for themselves and their team.
• Muriel’s “Three A’s” Framework:
  1. Acknowledge – Own the mistake specifically and confidently.
     "Acknowledge what happened. You know, own it...with confidence. That's the part around coming back from it." (19:09)
  2. Apologize – Address the impact, especially on the team, not just the action.
     “What really causes a lot of strife is not necessarily the action you took. It's the impact of the action that you took.” (20:19)
  3. Action – Outline what will be done differently to prevent recurrence.
     “Here's what I'm gonna do differently next time so that this doesn't happen again.” (22:34)
• Be Explicit and Intentional:
  • The greater the impact, the more deliberate the communication should be (potentially in a team meeting).
• Addressing with the Team & the Boss:
  • With the team, focus on repair and transparency.
  • With the boss, consider what concerns them most: “You’ve got to own it as well, you know, and you can’t own it from the place of like, I’m so worried about what’s going to happen to me… You want to talk about it from the… impact on the company, on the organization. How do we course correct.” (24:10)
• Memorable quote: “Leading through the mistake, rather than letting the mistake lead you.” (23:41)

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4. Understanding How You're Perceived as a Leader

(26:25 – 32:47)

• Issue:
  A leader senses their team is holding back, but is unsure how to get candid feedback on their own leadership and team perceptions.
• Start with Data, Not Vibes:
  • Muriel suggests checking if the issue is team-wide or limited to certain individuals.
  • "If it's specific individuals, then I would seek out...a few other people...and raise it with them." (27:35)
• Frame it as a Check-in, Not a Confrontation:
  • Be specific about observed behaviors that prompted the concern.
  • “The feeling is your interpretation of the actions. We don’t know if that’s what’s actually happening or not.”
• When Engaging Directly:
  • State the importance of open communication and describe the changes you’ve observed.
  • Ask for their perspective in a curious, non-judgmental way: “When I ask for your feedback or I ask for your input, I'm not getting it as readily as I used to, and I just want to understand what might be behind that.” (30:30)
• Let Them Lead the Response:
  • Avoid being defensive or pressing for reassurance.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Sponsors:
  • “You have to earn the sponsorship. How do you do that? Typically, you have to do it by getting results.” – Muriel (05:36)
• On Co-founders:
  • “Nobody likes to be told why they do what they do… Let them own that and you can ask the questions to try to pull that out to really understand what their frame of reference is.” – Muriel (12:13)
• On Leadership Mistakes:
  • “People will remember what happens...where people are most impacted is the response to what happened.” – Muriel (25:05)
  • “Leading through the mistake, rather than letting the mistake lead you.” (23:41)
• On Feedback:
  • “What you don't want to do is like, particularly in this situation, push so much because you're like, I know something's there, I know something's there. You know, tell me I'm a good leader. Exactly. Because I think that'll be counterproductive.” – Muriel (31:45)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 03:11 – How to find and engage sponsors, and the mentor/sponsor distinction
• 08:11 – Managing co-founder relationship changes and approaching uncomfortable conversations
• 17:25 – Bouncing back from big mistakes as a leader: the “Three A’s”
• 26:25 – Surfacing how you’re perceived as a leader and nurturing open feedback

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Episode Tone

Conversational, empathetic, and practical—Muriel and Mary provide clear, actionable guidance while maintaining warmth and candor, often infusing the discussion with good humor and encouragement.

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Summary

In this "Ask Muriel Anything" launch episode, Muriel Wilkins and producer Mary Dew field real-world leadership queries with thoughtful, practical coaching wisdom. Key takeaways include distinguishing sponsorship from mentorship, approaching strained partnerships with curiosity and honesty, the “Three A’s” for recovering from mistakes, and concrete steps to uncover how your leadership is perceived. The advice is actionable for any leader eager to move past feeling stuck and into the next phase of growth.

Transcript

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[Muriel Wilkins]

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[Muriel Wilkins]

Hey, everyone. I'm Muriel Wilkins, an executive coach and host of Coaching Real Leaders. And today we have a new kind of episode for you. It is called Ask Neriel Anything. Each month, we'll take a handful of questions that come up from my Coaching Real Leaders community that come up from listeners like you that land in my LinkedIn box. Some of them are from folks who have been on the show as my coaching guests, and some of them are from individuals who applied to be on the show, but unfortunately, we were not able to have them on because we get so many applications. And what we're going to do is we're going to hit on leadership challenges facing these individuals, some of which are challenges that you may have faced yourself. And we'll try to give them some guidance so that they can move forward and you can use that information as well. And joining me today, yes, it's not just me anymore. For the first time ever in front of the mic is my longtime producer, Mary Dew. It took me 11 seasons to finally get her on the mic. Say hello, Mary.

[Mary Dew]

Hello, Mary. You did it. You finally got me here.

[Muriel Wilkins]

So all of you probably have heard me say Mary's name at the end of every coaching episode where I thank the fabulous team that helps put this together. Mary has been with me from the beginning and is the magic behind the show. And so it's so great to have her in the room to help me move through some of these questions that have come up. So, Mary, why don't you take it away and kick it off with some questions?

[Mary Dew]

Yeah, these are some hard ones. You know, I'm not going to go easy on you just because it's our

[Muriel Wilkins]

first episode like this, as you never do.

[Mary Dew]

So the first question is about sponsors, one of our favorite topics. So this is from a leader who's really interested in building more relationships, getting more sponsors. They're doing well at the organization. They feel like they have good kind of formal relationships with the higher ups of the organization. But they know, you know, really getting to the C suite, getting to these higher levels is about more than just having that good resume and the good performance reviews. There's someone who feels like they don't want to be asking too much. They don't want to feel like they're always asking favors. And so it just feels a little bit tricky to figure out how to get more of these sponsors in their life. And so what would you say? Where should they start?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, I mean, I think the first place to start, you know, if this individual were in front of me, is I'd really be interested in understanding how they're defining what a sponsor is. There's a ton of information out there on this, but you really have to make the distinction and the differentiation between what a sponsor does for you versus what anybody else does for you. So the first is, I think I would need to understand what their working definition is. But assuming they know what a sponsor is, which is somebody who will advocate for you both in terms of opportunity and visibility for the purposes of advancement. Right. So it's very specific. If they understand that, then they need to use that definition in kind of strategizing with what they should be asking their sponsor or how they position themselves with their sponsors. So, number one, are they choosing their sponsors carefully? You want to make sure that you choose somebody who does have influence and impact on your career. So somebody might be great, you might like them, you might love to kick it with them over coffee. Or they're the person that you know at the holiday party who's more senior union than you, that you don't mind talking to. But if they're not the person who has juice in the organization, meaning they don't have influence over your advantage, advancement, or have some weight, some social capital, some resource capital to be able to use from them, they're probably not the Right, Sponsor. So you want to make sure you do pick somebody who is influence. Then secondly, you've got to position yourself in a way that they would want to sponsor you. Not everybody is sponsorable. Unfortunately, it's not equal opportunity. I always say everyone deserves a mentor. Everyone should have a mentor. But getting a sponsor, just like in the athletic world, not all athletes get sponsors. And so you have to earn the sponsorship. How do you do that? Typically, you have to do it by getting results. You have to demonstrate to the potential sponsor or the people sponsoring you that you are a good bet. Right. Like again, they're going to expend capital on you, so you want to make sure that they are looking at you as an investment and saying, yes, this is where I want to put all my capital or the capital that I do have. So you have to put yourself in a position where you are making visible to them and give them line of sight into the work that you're doing, the results that you have in a way that is relevant to them. Okay. Not just your to do list, but make it relevant to them. And then I think once you build rapport, build relationships, if this is outside of a formal sponsorship program, because there are those, then at some point, you know, it might start off as mentoring, but at some point you will want to probably explicitly ask, you know, so and so, you know, I really appreciate the guidance you've given me. It would be really helpful if you would consider being a voice for me when I'm not in the room and really asking explicitly, you know, would you be willing to be my sponsor through my career in my next position? And I know it sounds uncomfortable and kind of hokey. I have seen it being done. I've coached clients around how to do this. And I think when it is made explicit, you can see the results way more than if you just assume that it's organically going to happen or assume that the person thinks that they're your sponsor.

[Mary Dew]

Yeah, I think that distinction between mentor and sponsor is really helpful, especially for someone who's just sort of hearing a sponsor is what they need. But, you know, I think even having someone that you can go to for advice is very different than, you know, having an ask. That's like, how can you, you know, really tangibly sort of elevate my career?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Right, that's right. That's right. And so again, I think the piece that's really important is you've gotta position yourself. You've gotta be, you know, they need something to sponsor, they're not gonna Sponsor you just cause they like you. Okay. They're gonna sponsor you because they think they actually believe that you have the potential to be at that next level or be in that role that you're vying for. And you don't wanna wait till like, right when the role comes up. Like, you wanna be thinking about this in advance, like, planting the seeds. So I say the minute you join an organization, you may not get the sponsor right away, and you probably won't, but you should be starting to do the work of planting the seeds that eventually you wanna be sponsorable and who those individuals might be within the company or division or unit that you're in. So you want to start doing that from day one, quite frankly.

[Mary Dew]

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, this next question, a little bit less sort of, you know, corporate hierarchy, ladder type of a question. This person's at a little bit of a smaller firm. They're already pretty high up in the organization. They're a co founder, so almost as high as you can get. Right. The issue that they're facing is they're a co founder. So they have this longtime business partner that they've built the company with. You know, they might not have even started this company without this person. There are a lot of decisions that, you know, have to get made. There's a lot of meetings happening. They seem to be happening without this person who's asking the question. And so he's sort of worried, am I being boxed out? What's going on? You know, we've traditionally had kind of a good relationship, but something just kind of feels off. So how should he start trying to convince his business partner to include him more or bring up that this is an issue for him even.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Mm. Wow. That feels like drama in the company. So first of all, what I appreciate about this question, and maybe they didn't have time to kind of write it, write a bunch of stuff in, is that I don't hear a bunch of narratives around why this is happening. Okay? They're not making any attribution or any assumptions around why they may not be included in the meetings. And that's really important. The minute we start kind of running our own story or narrative around why we're not in the meeting. Notice I'm not even using the word not being included because I don't quite know if it is an inclusion story or situation. But the minute we start running that narrative, it starts kind of, you know, fogging us or getting in the way of being able to deal with the situation as is. So the fact that I'm not hearing that. And if I were talking to this person, I'd want to understand that a little bit more clearly is a good sign. Right. He is actually starting from a place of curiosity, which is always the place to start. So if you are dealing with a colleague, a peer, in this case a co founder, co leader, which can also be very tricky, you've noticed a change in behavior. In this case, you're not in the same meetings as you used to be. I'm assuming there was a track record there, and now something has changed, Something feels off. The place to start is with curiosity. Right. What is happening? And so what I would recommend or encourage this individual to do is go to the other co founder and say, hey, in the past, this is the way that we used to do things. And I really appreciated it. Here was the impact of that. I don't know what the impact was, but maybe it was like we could make decisions together. We were all both informed around what was going on. So it's. Here's what happened in the past. Here was this impact. And here's what I'm observing now. You know, what I'm observing now is we're not in the same meetings anymore, or I am not in the meetings that you've been having. And the impact of that is I'm not as informed or I can't make decisions. Again, whatever the impact is. So observation and impact. Notice, again, there's no like. And here's why I think you're doing it. Okay, observation and impact. And then say, you know, so I'm just curious, what is the difference between before and now? I'm curious around why we're doing it this way. And if there's a change that we need in the way that we do have meetings that would still allow us to both be informed, both get to that impact. Let's figure out what that is. But right now it might not be working as well. But please, co founder, let me know. Help me understand what is happening in the moment. And that's the place to start and to open up the conversation.

[Mary Dew]

Yeah, I like that. I mean, I think, you know, we can't read too much into it. My guess is that if someone's asking a question like this, their mind has at least wandered a little bit trying to figure out what the reasons are.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah.

[Mary Dew]

So, you know, you can't help that. If you're, you know, an intellectual person who cares about their career, you're gonna think about these things. But what you're saying is curiosity. But Also, kind of a direct conversation is what I'm hearing, right?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, sure, you can have the story. Just put it to the side. Why? Because if you come in with the like, here's why. I mean, nobody likes to be told why they do what they do, you know, and yet we are always so willing to tell people why we think what they do, why we think they do what they do. It is not our job. We are not in their, you know, their minds or their hearts or their bodies. Okay. Let them own that and you can ask the questions to try to pull that out to really understand what their frame of reference is. And if you understand what their frame of reference is, that might then open up the conversation more. I think the minute you start with the like, here's why I think this is happening without giving the other person an opportunity to do so. The higher the likelihood, not always, but the higher the likelihood the other individual will even then come in from a defensive stance rather than a problem solving or, you know, open stance, which I think is what you want in this situation.

[Mary Dew]

We will be back with more questions right after the break.

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[Muriel Wilkins]

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[Muriel Wilkins]

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[Mary Dew]

All right, Muriel, next question. Kind of a juicy one if you can't tell. I like the drama. So this person recently made a really big mistake at work. And how are we defining big mistake? A costly mistake. They lost the company a Lot of money. So obviously, they're kind of worried about their own neck, their own career, what it means for them. They want their boss to not be really mad, but they're specifically worried about kind of the impact on their team, what this looks like. You know, if your leader sort of messes up, they're worried, do they not look competent anymore? So the question is, how do you start to bounce back? How do you try to bounce back as a leader when you've made a big and, like, really public mistake?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah. Oh, my God. I, like, feel for this person. That can be tough, right? Because so many times you hear, oh, it's okay. Like, everybody makes mistakes, and there are mistakes with the little M's, and then there are the big, you know, cost millions. Right, exactly. With the. The multiple capital M's. And this sounds like this is what this is, you know? So I think the place is to always acknowledge. You've got to start with owning it. You know, a lot of times, and people might come for me at this one, like, we think that the apology is what needs to be done. And I'm not negating apologies. I think apologies are really powerful. And I think an apology without two other things that I'm gonna mention are a little diluted and lose their affect. So what are the other two things? The other two A's. One is acknowledgement.

[Mary Dew]

Hold on. I'm taking notes.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Wait, just slip.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Slip.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Mary, you have never made a capital M mistake on my time. Acknowledgement. Acknowledgement. Like, acknowledge what happened. You know, own it. Own it? Yes. This happened with confidence. Like, own it with confidence. That's the part around coming back from it. I can acknowledge this happened. It's a. My bad. This was on me. I'm taking responsibility for it. That's the acknowledgement. When I say acknowledge. Acknowledge what happened means say what happened. It's not okay to just say or not helpful to just say, you know, I don't know the specifics of the situation. That's why I'm saying this happened. But I think you have to go a little further than, like, you know, I just want to acknowledge the situation. No, no, no, no. I acknowledge that given how I handled. I'm making this up. Right. Given how I handled this analysis, we ended up losing a substantial amount of funds. Right. Or we lost the client. With specificity. Why? Because when you can acknowledge it with specificity, everybody on the other side now knows that you understand what happened. It's. There's not this, like, you know, emperor with no clothes on, like, did they really get it. What are they really acknowledging? Are we on the same page? People want to know that you understand what happened. So acknowledge with specificity. Then you can, you know, depending on the situation. Sure. You can apologize, right? Like say, I want to apologize for the impact this has had on the team. It might not even necessarily be. It could be, depending on what the action is, right? It could be. I want to apologize for the action that I took. But what really causes a lot of strife is not necessarily the action you took. It's the impact of the action that you took. You know, what has the team had to deal with as a result? Right? Did it trickle down? Did it have an impact on them? Did they end up having to do more work? But what happened? You know, did they lose a huge project that they had been banking on? So I want to apologize for the impact that this has had on you, on the team, or whatnot. And then the third A. So we have acknowledge, apologize. The third A is action, right? What are you going to do? What will you do differently next time so that we don't come back to this? Or we increase the chances that we don't come back to this? Right? What does that show? It shows that you've learned, okay? You have learned something. It's like I tell my kids all the time, they're like, sorry, mommy, sorry. I said, I'm like, listen, I need you to just acknowledge what you did. I love the apology. Thank you. But really, what I need you to do, I need you to learn from this. Right? I do not want to have Groundhog Day. I don't want to come back here. I don't want to come back here.

[Mary Dew]

We want spring.

[Muriel Wilkins]

We want progress, right? We want spring. We know winter is going to come again, but we want it to look a little different. We want it to look a little different. And so this action, being able to say, you know, we have this term feed forward, which is we ask people what suggestions you have of me. This is. You're offering your own feed forward. You're saying, here's what I'm gonna do differently next time so that this doesn't happen again. Right. Or increases the chances that it doesn't happen. Those are the three main things that I would recommend that this individual do with the team very explicitly. The more significant, the more intentional you want to be. Right? So some people are like, I'll have clients who ask me, okay, so should I do this just like in my one on ones? Is it in passing? You know, as I'm Walking by their office or do I hold a meeting with the whole team? I think the more significant, meaning the higher the level of risk this situation had to deal with, the more intentional you want to be. And I do think that that's when it is. You have everybody around the table and you might want to talk to them so that they're all hearing the same things and then you can follow up, you know, potentially one on one again, depending on what it is to check in with folks, see how they're feeling, ask them, you know, do you have any questions for me? What's your reaction? Some people feel like, oh my God, I'm going to make it worse by doing that. I'm going to tell you something, it's always getting worse. If you don't address it, it's getting worse. You're just not hearing about it until you hear it again. So making it explicit gets it out of people's minds. It gets it out of the water cooler talk. If people do that anymore, I don't know, maybe the Slack channel. I'm dating myself. The private Slack Channel. You're dealing with it as a leader.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And leading through the situation, leading through the mistake, rather than letting the mistake lead you.

[Mary Dew]

Quite frankly, I think what I like about this question too is when something like that happens, you can feel a little bit like you're imploding. And I liked that this leader was really concerned about the impact on the team and not just. I could see a default where, you know, you're owning up to it with your boss or your peer, but sort of want to sweep it under the rug maybe with your team. And so I feel like it sort of, you know, is a sign of a good leader that they're concerned about that impact too.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, I mean, clearly they're conscious about it, you know. And let's talk about a little bit like with the boss. Right. Cause I don't want to sweep that under the rug. Like, how do you do that? You've got to own it as well, you know, and you can't own it from the place of like, I'm so worried about what's going to happen to me like that that will like upset the boss. Okay. You want the boss to be more

[Mary Dew]

mad at you going to work.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Bring it from the, like, say, do I still have a job?

[Mary Dew]

We're cool, right?

[Muriel Wilkins]

You know, we're good. You want to talk about it from the. Again from the place that the boss. What is the boss concerned about? You know, what is the impact on the Boss, what is the impact on the company, on. On the organization? How do we course correct. And you then try to put yourself in a position where. Where you can contribute to remediating. Wherever this went off track, you know, what can you do to bring it back on track? How do you make good? There's two things that are really important. What happens. Okay, people will remember what happens. But where people are most impacted is the response to what happened. And we tend to not pay attention to that. And the same goes for us. Again, you don't have to do this across the board for every little, you know, mistake or whatnot. But for the.

[Mary Dew]

I'm really sorry for the typo in my email and that impact that it's caused.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Exactly. Although I will say, if you have, like a boss who is kind of a perfectionist, I'm not talking about myself here. You know, just in the email saying, if they're like, hey, I noticed there's a typo, being able to say, oh, yeah, you know, I own it. My bad does wonders. Because what does it do for the boss? It makes them feel like, oh, like they get it.

[Mary Dew]

Yeah. They're not putting it on their list to remember later.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Exactly. Versus when they just gloss over it, the boss or anybody else appear, a team member is left wondering, did they get it? Like, are they owning? I just need to make sure it's not a question about you as an individual and your competency. But again, fundamentally, we all want to feel understood. Right. And a lot of times the frustration is when we feel like this person didn't really understand me. So I always say, go out of your way to let the person know, I got you. I got it, I got it. Right. We're right there. Because then that will help moving forward. It'll make it a little easier for you.

[Mary Dew]

Well, this next question, it's sort of less of a pressing challenge. It's a little more thoughtful, not quite philosophical, but someone who's clearly sort of thinking about how they present themselves. They really want to get a better read on how their team and their peers are perceiving them and, you know, what kind of leader they are. So they sort of have a sense of, you know, I'm a really good listener and I'm really open to feedback, but there's been sort of like a Spidey sense thing happening lately where they feel like maybe people are kind of reserved or they're holding back around them. They kind of want a better sense of what people are thinking. But it seems kind of hard because if People are already seeming a little bit reluctant or fearful, sort of directly saying what's, you know, what do you think of me? Is a little tough. So, like, what can they do maybe to start getting a little better sense of if there's something wrong or if the perspective that other people have of them, you know, is not meshing with how they view themselves?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah. Okay. So that's. It feels like there's a. How do we call it, double disconnect or. Yeah, there's something compounded here. Right. Like, I'm feeling like people are withholding from me, but now as a result of that, I don't want to go to them because I'm getting a sense

[Mary Dew]

that they're holding back.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, exactly. Right. So I would first suggest that they look to see, are they feeling like that across the board with everyone, or is it specific individuals? Okay. If it's specific individuals, then I would seek out, you know, a few other people who are also in the room or in the. On the team or whatnot, and raise it with them. Right. Say, hey, here's something I'm noticing. I might be off, but I want to make sure I'm not off, you know, because if this is real, I want to address it. Here's something I'm noticing. I'm noticing that again, before, people used to be pretty forthright with me about things, but lately it feels like they're holding back, they're not putting things out there fully. Check that first. You know, is that something that you're noticing? And here's how I'm noticing it. Right. I ask in our meetings, what does everybody think? And nobody's saying anything. I will ask for suggestions on a document, and nobody responds in the Slack channel, or very few people do. Right. Like, be specific around how you're noticing that this is happening. So we take it away from the feeling because your feeling is your interpretation of the actions. We don't know if that's what's actually happening or not. Okay. So you want to sort of check, like, here's what I've done, and here's the response I'm getting, which is a different response than I was getting before. Do you have any sense as to. In asking these folks, do you have any sense as to what might be driving that?

[Mary Dew]

Right.

[Muriel Wilkins]

And not only what might be driving it, but, like, are you noticing that that's happening too, or is it me? Maybe I'm overreacting or whatnot. I don't know. So you want to try to get confirmation on is what you're seeing also being seen by others. And if they're seeing it too, hypotheses as to what might be driving it. Okay, now, you might get some information from that. You might not. I think if you get some information, it could help inform you as to how you approach the folks who you feel are now withdrawing a little bit. I'm not gonna let you off the hook and say, you don't have to do that. Right. Like, I think you need to go to them and have the same type of conversation. But you approach it from a place of our relationship or the way we work together is really important to me. And one of the things that really upholds that is our ability to be in communication for you to feel comfortable coming to me. Me comfortable coming to you. I'm assuming that's the case. And here's what I've been noticing lately. When I ask for your feedback or I ask for your input, I'm not getting it as readily as I used to, and I just want to understand what might be behind that. Right. So again, you're naming the observable behavior and then asking. Very curious. With seeking to understand what's behind it. You know, you've got to let them own their response. So if they come back and say, well, you know, the last time I gave you feedback, like, you kind of went off the rails, you know, then your job is not to be like, oh, well, let me explain to you why that happened. Your job is to. To say, oh, okay, thank you. I didn't know that that had impacted you that way. So what I hear you saying is when you give me feedback, the way that I respond then has an impact on how you give me feedback in the future. Yes, that's the case. Okay, so let me think about how I respond in a more productive way. So you continue down their lane. They could come back and be like, maybe they're not ready to share their response, or maybe in reality, they haven't experienced it. And they could come back and say, yeah, no, it's nothing like, what are you talking about? About, Right? And then that's where they are. And you were like, okay, because you gave them the opportunity to share. You've got to let them own that. And if they share, great. If they don't, then you've just got to take it at that and continue to do what you're doing and see if you can change, maybe move the needle with others. If anything, it kind of put them on alert that you're feeling this way. It might have Raised some awareness for them. They might not even know that that's the way that they were being, you know, and so it at least gives them a sense of that. What you don't want to do is like, particularly in this situation, push so much because you're like, I know something's there, I know something's there. You know, tell me I'm a good leader. Exactly. Because I think that'll be counterproductive. Like, people will like, you know, sort of push you away even more.

[Mary Dew]

Well, and I do think what you said about both it sort of being a feeling and also specifically thinking about what people you're getting that vibe from is really important because I've seen, you know, you can go along for six months and your team is good and like one person switches out or you hire a new person and it doesn't mean that person's any kind of a problem, but it sort of just changes the chemistry of the team. It changes the dynamic. Right. So, like, you could feel like it's different than it was six months ago, even if you feel like you've been doing the same thing, right?

[Muriel Wilkins]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you sort of have to look at, you know, what is actually happening, like double click on what's happening, double click on the data that you do have and then be inquisitive around it, you know, but that's not going to happen without having the conversations.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

That's it for this episode of Coaching Real Leaders. Next time.

[Muriel Wilkins]

It is just a choice, not a domino of choices. And it is one choice at a time and you make the choice that makes you happy, whatever that is. If you want me to coach you through an issue or have a question you want answered, head on over to 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, Muriel Wilkins and on Instagram. Instagram, oachmurielwilkins. 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 Soffa. Much gratitude to the leaders who joined me in these coaching conversations and to you, our listeners who share in their journeys. I'm Muriel Wilkins until next time, Be well. Early birds. Always rise to the occasion for summer

[Mary Dew]

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[Muriel Wilkins]

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