Helping Your Team Step Up

“I want to talk to you about your timekeeping. You’re always coming in late at the moment.” If someone said that to you, what would your first reaction be? For most of us, it’s something like: “What do you mean, always? That’s not fair.” And just like that, the conversation has gone sideways. In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I build on the previous episode about sharing feedback; if you’ve not seen it, you can watch or listen here. One of the biggest worries I hear from leaders and managers when they need to have a difficult conversation is: what if they argue back? What if they get defensive or emotional? Very often, we trigger that reaction ourselves. Not through what we say, but through how vague we are when we say it. I explain how to have a difficult conversation without putting the other person on the defensive, what specific feedback looks like in practice, and why not having a specific example might tell you something important about the feedback itself. Because vague feedback might feel easier to give. But specific feedback is far easier to receive. In this episode, you will learn: Why vague feedback triggers a defensive reaction How words like “always”, “never” and “a bit” pull a difficult conversation away from the behaviour What specific, observable feedback sounds like, with a practical example Why opening with a question rather than a verdict changes the whole conversation What to do when you don’t have a specific example to point to A simple way to prepare before you have your next difficult conversation

In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I want to pick up somewhere most conversations about feedback stop: the moment after someone's taken it on board and actually improved. I was coaching a senior leader recently. She had a team member whose performance wasn't where it needed to be. She'd tried giving feedback before, nothing really changed, and she'd been putting off having the conversation again. Sound familiar? We talked through how to approach it. She had the conversation. And when we next caught up, she told me it had gone well; the person's performance had genuinely improved. But here's the bit I want to focus on, because it's the part most leaders skip. I challenged her to go further: to accentuate the progress, reaffirm what the person was now doing well, and actively look for the chance to ‘catch them doing things right.’ As leaders, we're naturally wired to focus on what's wrong. That's most of the job: spotting the gap and closing it. Which means it's easy to miss what's going well, especially straight after a difficult conversation. So put yourself in the employee's shoes for a second. You've been told something isn't good enough. You've taken it on board. You've worked hard to change it. And your boss says... nothing. Or a cursory “thanks.” What's that likely to do to your motivation? For a lot of people, it's “I did what you asked, and I got zero recognition for it.” That's not a leader building trust. That's a leader quietly undoing the progress they just fought to get. In this episode, you will learn: Why a feedback conversation can stall even after it's gone well The habit that quietly undoes the progress you've just fought to get Why leaders are wired to spot problems rather than progress How to reinforce change so it actually sticks The one specific thing to do this week when someone acts on feedback you've given them

If you've ever wondered how to run effective meetings when everyone in the room seems to work differently, this episode is for you. Some people get energy from a meeting the moment it starts. Ideas come out as they talk, and the room moves with them. Others need quiet beforehand just to get their thinking straight, and being put on the spot leaves them scrambling to catch up. In the last episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I talked about internal versus external processing (thinking), and why quiet people in meetings are often contributing more than it looks like on the surface. This episode builds on that. Because once you understand the difference, you can actually use it, not just to manage yourself better, but to run effective meetings that work for everyone in the room. External processors think out loud. Internal processors think first, then speak. Neither is better, but each one struggles in a different type of meeting, and I share a story from early in my consultancy career about working alongside someone who processes information in the opposite way to me, and what that taught me about running effective meetings that give people the room they need to think. In this episode, you will learn how to run effective meetings, including: The difference between internal and external processors, and why neither approach is better Why meetings sprung on people with no agenda or pre-read undermine meeting effectiveness for internal processors What internal processors can do to give themselves thinking time before a meeting starts Why external processors are genuinely useful for generating ideas, and what they're doing for everyone else while they talk A practical way to think about who needs the pre-read and who needs the room, so you can run more effective meetings whatever the mix of personalities

How to Be Heard in Meetings as an Internal Thinker Have you ever left a meeting thinking, I didn't say enough? Maybe everyone else seemed to be talking, and you sat there processing, listening, staying fairly quiet. If that's you, this episode is about how to be heard in meetings, even if you're not the type who talks the most. In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I look at why quiet, internal thinkers often add more value than it seems, and what to do about it if you want people to actually notice. In my coaching and leadership workshops, I hear this all the time from people who process internally rather than externally. They worry that the people who speak up a lot in meetings are the ones getting ahead, the ones with their boss's ear. So, here's a question worth asking: Are they actually getting ahead? Or does it just look that way? There's a difference between talking a lot and adding value. Once you understand which type of processor you are, you can work out how to speak more in meetings without changing who you are. In this episode, you will learn: Why internal and external processors approach meetings so differently Why it's easy to mistake volume for value in a meeting A simple approach for how to be heard in meetings without dominating the conversation A practical way to speak more in meetings, even if it doesn't come naturally to you How consistently applying this approach changes the way people see you

Leadership Availability vs Productivity If you've ever promised yourself you'd switch your phone off for an hour, only to find your hand reaching for it ten minutes later, this episode is for you. In this episode of The Leaders Kitbag, I explore why being unavailable, something most leaders find genuinely uncomfortable, might be one of the most useful things you can do for your team. We've all had the moment where we picture switching off and our brain goes straight to the risk. What if my boss needs me? What if my team hits a problem and can't reach me? That fear is real. But it's only looking at one side of the equation. Because there's an upside to being unavailable that goes well beyond you getting your own work done. Without meaning to, a lot of us have trained our teams to come straight to us the moment a problem arises, which makes us the bottleneck and keeps us constantly interrupted. When you're genuinely not reachable, your team has to work things out for themselves. I share why that pattern needs breaking, and a simple experiment you can run this week to find out what actually happens when you switch off properly. In this episode, you will learn: Why it takes so long to mentally refocus after a distraction, and what that costs your day How constant availability can quietly train your team to stop thinking for themselves The two hidden costs of always being the one with the answer Why short periods of genuine unavailability can make your team more resourceful A simple experiment to test what happens when you properly switch off for an hour