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Conversations for Leaders & Teams
Welcome! Since 2020, the Conversations podcast has been dedicated to advancing leader and team excellence by exploring relevant topics that impact today's corporate, nonprofit, and faith organizations. Get social with us @belemleaders or visit belemleaders.org Check out Christian Coaching Magazine @christiancoachingmag on FB and Instagram, or christiancoachingmag.com
Conversations for Leaders & Teams
E74. LinkedIn LIVE!–Unlocking the Coach Within–Empowering Leaders & Teams for Success
Join LinkedIn LIVE Host, Samantha Amit as she and her guest, Dr. Kelly Whelan, explore how integrating coaching into leadership can transform team dynamics by enhancing listening skills and presence. Discover the art of boosting executive presence and foster genuine communication within teams. We'll share how being fully present is a skill that can deepen relationships and drive team success through intentional mindfulness techniques.
Discover the art of boosting executive presence and foster genuine communication within teams. We'll share how being fully present is a skill that can deepen relationships and drive team success through intentional mindfulness techniques.
Dive into the transformative power of feedback in leadership development. Embrace feedback not just as a necessity, but as a tool for growth that can foster a culture of open communication and positive reinforcement. By focusing on behaviors and performance, rather than personal attributes, leaders can build stronger relationships and align individual goals with the wider organizational objectives. We provide you with strategies to view feedback as a gift, encouraging personal and professional growth.
Navigate the challenges of team collaboration with strategic communication insights. From adapting your communication style to understanding the subtleties of empathy and emotional intelligence, we guide you through common pitfalls. Learn how to establish team norms that enhance performance and keep meetings productive and engaging. Ensure every participant is heard and valued, setting the stage for a collaborative and efficient team environment.
Find Samantha Amit @ ask-your-coach.com and on social @samamit
Find Dr. Kelly Whelan @ belemleaders.org
On social @belemleaders and @christiancoachingmag
BelemLeaders–Your organization's trusted partner for leader and team development. Visit our website to connect: belemleaders.org or book a discovery call today! belem.as.me/discovery
Until next time, keep doing great things!
Hi Kelly, how are you today? I am doing great, Sam. I'm so happy to be with you today and your audience, so thank you for having me Appreciate that Sure.
Samantha Amit :So hello everybody. Wherever you are, today we're going to be speaking about all things coaching and how you can integrate coaching into your work, into with your teams and with your external and internal stakeholders. So I'm Samantha Amit, welcome. I met Kelly. I'm a leadership coach and I met Kelly actually during a team coaching. We studied together for two years team coaching and I've also been on her podcast. So, kelly, would you like to say a few words about yourself?
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Sure, sure. Well, thanks again for having me. I am Kelly Whalen and I am the founder of Bellum Leaders excuse me which is a US based leader and team development firm. We do have different arms of the organization, so we do have coaching and consulting. We have a research arm, a training arm, an events arm. We also have the Conversations for Leaders in Teams podcast and we are the publisher of Christian Coaching Magazine. So just delighted to be here and talk around coaching today with you.
Samantha Amit :Fantastic. So maybe I'm going to invite everybody just to take a breath. Wherever you are, whether you're in the car, whether you're sitting down, walking, wherever you are take a breath and let's also invite some gratitude into the space. Yeah, into the space, you know. Welcome everybody, yeah. So, as I said, I'm samantha met and I coach leaders in 30 different countries, and I find that coaching um is the most amazing tool that you can add to your leadership toolbox, to your leadership brand. Just today, for example, I was working on, you know, with the leader who wants to get a promotion, and so it's a fantastic way really to open up and also to get fairer side and to encourage people to be their best selves and encourage yourself, encourage your team. So, kelly, what do you think? Should we start off with? Talking a bit about listening skills? Where do you think we should go?
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Sure, we can start wherever. Wherever you want to go, I'll go. You know, as far as, as listening skills, super important to have and I think you know, samantha, I think everything we talk about here today, yes, we can take it into the workplace, but it also is taken outside of the workplace and into our homes and with our friends. So, just as we're talking, I think, maybe think about not just the workplace but more of a holistic when we talk about like even listening, right, are we listening? Are we truly listening, and are we listening to hear?
Samantha Amit :Yeah, that's beautiful. And even now, just notice what's going on for you wherever you are. Many of the times we are multitasking. So many of the times I work with you know leaders, managers, that are running virtual meetings predominantly, and so many of the people that I coach tell me that they struggle. So many of the people that I coach tell me that they struggle. They have multiple screens open and often you know messages that are popping up and they themselves are guilty the managers themselves are guilty of not fully listening in the meeting. So I think the biggest gift you can give is your presence and I just got goosebumps, and so you know, being fully present and really listening is, I think, one of the biggest gifts that you can give to the people that you are working with today.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Yeah, and that goes back, you know, many times you talk about executive presence and really that active listening and fully sitting in that moment and listening to your people is so imperative, but then that's vice versa too. So how are our people really tuning into us? And a lot of that, you know, is around communication and understanding your people in order to understand, you know, are they focused, are they that multitasker? And how can we help them kind of maybe sit in the pause to open their ears and open their hearts to what's coming?
Samantha Amit :I love that, opening their hearts. So I think that we need to role model. As managers, we do need a role model being present and because I work with a lot of engineers, sometimes they really need to. You know, the brain sometimes doesn't just switch. If you're in the office and you're working on your computer and you are actually in person and somebody comes into your office, it's not always automatic to being in the moment is.
Samantha Amit :Yeah, I think that is one of the top things that I would recommend for people that are listening to practice, because when you truly listen, you can develop that curiosity skill. And when you develop that curiosity of really truly becoming like a detective and being like really curious around your team, then you can get to know them. Because that's what you were talking about, like do you really know your team? And this way, just through listening, you can really get to know them because you can pick up the subtle things. Um, you know, they're like nine. We learned at coaching school, like when I was studying around I don't know, 16 years ago there's like nine different ways of listening, and I'm sure they're more by now. So I mean nine different ways of listening, it's, it's a lot but it is.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:You know it goes back to that intentionality. And so how are you and you and the work you do with mindfulness, I mean that's a perfect space for you to be helping. You know, leaders and coaches really unpack the mind piece of it. And you know, when you go outside and listen, I'm only going to be listening for birds, you know as simple as that, and just trying to push out everything else except birds. And it's that intentionality and practice, if you will. So you start tuning your ear in to what's important as well.
Samantha Amit :Yeah, absolutely. So I'm going to shift us a bit to talking about questioning and how, as coaches, we use questioning a lot different kinds of questions, and how that opens up the conversation, how, actually, when you ask a question afterwards it also requires you to listen to the answer. So introduce us a little bit to how you think from your experience, maybe with even current teams you're coaching, or you know the team leader or or somebody that you're coaching one-on-one like what are you noticing about their leadership style? Because in this live, I want to also, I want us to encourage you know you to try new things. That's also a big thing in coaching to try new things. So how are you with your questioning? What's your questioning like? And I see we've already got a question here, so maybe, kelly, you can have a look. I actually know Brian.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:So, yeah, I do this hard work and I think it is great for leaders to be able to ask for time and complete a task or thought before giving them the person in the conversation your full attention. Great comment, that's a great comment, brian. Thank you for that. It is giving that space and I think we'll probably talk about psychological safety and trust at some point here. And it is so imperative to yes, we need to know our people, but, yes, we need to create that space for these things to happen as well, and before we even jump into all that but I'm sure we'll get to that as far as questions, it's truly important to move from when we're thinking about a coaching leadership style, if you will, to move from always that directive to more collaborative.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:I was coaching a leader gosh probably, I don't know eight or nine years ago, and he used to come into his sessions and say I feel like they're daddy, they're always coming to me with their problems and they want me to fix it.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:And he was. And so there was a shift, another mindset shift that needed to happen there, with helping this leader understand that questions will prompt that learning and development and growing your leaders when you start asking what questions or how questions, and it's truly inviting your people into the process of problem solving, so you're not the one who is always being directive and giving the answers. It's more having a conversation and figuring it out together and helping the other person really figure it out. I mean, you're there to listen, having that active listening and providing some questions to prompt their thinking. But it was amazing when he made that shift, that aha moment, when he started practicing and again I'm using that word practice because coaching is a practice. We are constantly trying new things in our field, work, if you will, in our working environments and at home to practice and see how they go.
Samantha Amit :Yeah, absolutely. So. I really appreciate the call out to how you can empower and grow your people and when you do that, you become a multiplier. And you know Liz Wiseman's book Multipliers is huge. And so if in your leadership style and again I've got goosebumps you're opening up, you're asking questions, you're a multiplier If you come in with all the answers. And you know, some managers, especially young managers, sometimes think that if they don't show up and actually you know, show how smart they are then they think that you know their teams will think that they have basically these limiting beliefs that they need to speak first, that they need to give all the answers and when they discover and hopefully you know people that are listening into us here, watching us, actually are at that stage where they're ready to ask more questions, and there are many different types of questions you can ask.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Yeah, you can ask yeah, you know that, you know when. When you talk about the young leaders, it also it reminds me of the generations and even the baby boomers who are in the workplace. They have always been very directive and it can be very difficult for these leaders to make that shift into a more coaching leadership style, because it's something that they've always done and perhaps it's worked in the past for them and so they continue to do that. So I think it's regardless of age, but it may be generational. I think there's, there needs to be that shift in that openness with the practice of let's try this and see what kind of result we get. That's different, especially if we don't like how something is going, like the leader that I talked about for sure.
Samantha Amit :So I want to give a practical example of somebody that I'm coaching and what she's done is she's created a template that she uses for one-on-ones with questions that she, you know, she, uh, she looked into and then she came up with these questions. And what she does is she helps, because some people like to think so when the leader, when the team member, the direct report, comes into the one-on-one, they already know that they're going to be questions, and what she's done is she's flipped it around. Usually she would be the first one to speak and share, et cetera. Now what she does is she leans back and she offers and she invites more the you know the team member, the direct report, to speak first, and she's doing this now in meetings as well. So it's like really, she's coming to a new space of like saying I believe in you, I trust you, and like I want to hear what you have to say, and that's also a big part in coaching.
Samantha Amit :So now I'm shifting a bit. We're going to still be with the questions, but now a big part of coaching is that as a coach, and when you bring a coaching hat into your leadership style, you're saying to your direct reports I believe in you and, as you mentioned, kelly, what you said a few minutes ago, you're saying to the people that you're working with let's collaborate together. We, together, can be so much more, and that's what a coaching partnership is. Together, we can be so much more, and that's what a coaching partnership is.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Together, we can be so much more. It is, and it's also how you're showing up, not just with your words, but it's also your actions. And so if you are a leader who is typically closed off, and your body language is is showing that you know, your arms crossed and maybe not such a nice facial expression and sometimes that's just your nature it's important to be thinking about that.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:I was working with a young manager and he just couldn't understand why people, just they weren't warming up to him, and so I was in observation mode and I noticed that arms were crossed, quite a bit facial expression there really wasn't much smiling, there wasn't much you know, openness to him, and so we really had to have that conversation about this isn't, yes, it's about you as a manager, as a leader, but it's more about the people that you're serving. And how are you showing up in your body language to help open the door right, so they will be listening to you, so they will be hearing you, so you can collaborate together. So I think that that's that's really important as well when you're thinking about your coaching, and we as coaches have to show up. We're showing up present. Our body language has to be a certain way. We can't be closed off. We want you to be open during the conversation, so the same is true for leaders.
Samantha Amit :Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to come back to what you said with the body language, but I'm going to shift a little bit and then come back to it. So, and what I've just done, by the way, is also coaching competency, where you want to always focus the conversation but you want to align. We do that a lot with teams. You want to align with people you're talking about. So, because I'm switching a little bit from what Kelly was speaking about, what I'm doing now is I'm just aligning with you listening to me that I am going to be doing that and then coming back to the body language. So that's a good thing to do. So, um, yeah, so it's really important to stretch yourself as a leader, as a manager, and you're doing that, I think, by showing up and learning, because when you learn, you can practice new. So what we do in the coaching space, we're always empowering the people that we're coaching to experiment and try new things and stretch at least 15% out of your comfort zone, and it's not comfortable.
Samantha Amit :So, and we're going to come back to that subject, but now I'm shifting back how does this connect to the body language? So, first of all, it connects in a number of ways. We were speaking a few minutes ago around mindset, and your mindset is going to impact on your action, the actions you choose. So if you choose that you want to come across as more open and you've received feedback in your 360 that you're a bit serious or you're a bit closed so if you want to stretch yourself, if you want to put yourself into a place, it's not going to be comfortable if you're used to sitting with your arms closed and I'm just doing that on the screen if anybody's listening.
Samantha Amit :If you're used to sitting with your arms closed and I'm just doing that on the screen if anybody's listening, it's not going to be easy, but you can easily read up an article of how can I show up with my body language to have a more open style. And this is true for anything. You want to practice anything. You want to practice everything is out there on the internet, so you Google it. Practice. Everything is out there on the internet, so you Google it. And then to be more coach-like means you stretch yourself 15% out of your comfort zone, so it's not going to be comfortable and that's what you want to do for yourself and you want to do it as well for your team, your direct reports, to help them grow.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:That's right. I love that because it is important that growth but also the practice right, because everything we do and as leaders we are always kind of not just ticking the boxes but we're saying what is the outcome and how are we measuring that outcome and how are we continually pushing the envelope? So if this works, so if now I'm not crossing my my arms, that's one piece of it. Now maybe I'm working on my facial expression and putting it all together and, like you said, samantha, that could be out of somebody's comfort zone when their whole life that's just normal for them, and so I think it's it's.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:We have to give ourselves grace. We have to remember that things aren't always going to go perfectly and it does take time. But it's also about asking people, you know, and getting that feedback, and feedback is another piece of you know, coaching and and helping people understand that. You know, be vocal. I'm trying to grow as a leader. Can you help me and ask whatever question it is that you want the answer to, but then be able to receive that information in a way to help you grow? You may not agree with it, it may make you uncomfortable, but if you really do have that mindset of I'm in this to develop myself as a leader, then just just take that, hold on to it and sit with it for a minute, if you need to, and then what's your next step beyond that to help you?
Samantha Amit :Yeah, so I think this is a great place to you know just like put the title that we're talking about feedback. Now, feedback is critical. It's one of the best ways to develop yourself and to develop your team again, help them grow, and also to develop the business. And so, Kelly, what you just named is asking for feedback, and so some companies that we work with we see that feedback is part of the culture and so it's a good thing. Where there is positive feedback, we need to give five times the amount of positive feedback for every one developmental or, let's say, criticism.
Samantha Amit :Okay, and um, this is also hard and difficult, as brian says here. All these, all these competencies, they don't come naturally to us. If we're not in an environment that supports feedback, either through a system, through template template, you know through documents or through, you know, conversations, then you as a leader, can start developing it. And by asking what Kelly just named, asking for feedback is the best way actually to bring it in, because if you're just going to expect it to happen, it doesn't just happen. If you're just going to expect it to happen, it doesn't just happen If you don't ask for it.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:people are nervous, for different reasons, of giving feedback. Yeah, and typically, samantha, people think of feedback as negative. Their body starts tensing up if they are going to be having a feedback session and instead let's think of it as a gift. It's a gift for ourselves, so we can then have that development and grow from it. And to remember that a lot of times it's about the behavior or the performance. It's not about you as a person, it's about that behavior, performance, and it could be good and it could be not so good. So we want to make sure that, as you said earlier, that we are not just saying what's wrong, because everyone is unique. Everybody has wonderful strengths and talents that they're bringing into the workplace and it's important to recognize those, but then also see how we can use those to help with our feedback and giving and receiving that, as well as creating our performance and our behaviors to align with that, but again, also with the organizational goals or the team goals or whatever your leader and the goals that you have established. Make sure they're aligning.
Samantha Amit :Right, right. What I'm going to do is I'm going to actually take this opportunity to bring in what you spoke about at the beginning, that this call this live session is not only about you at work and so how you could use feedback at home. Everybody needs positive reinforcement If you want to start practicing giving positive feedback, and it's really gold. Look at the people around you, look at the people that you're going to be meeting in a few hours. You know, maybe you're working from home. In between, you go and get a glass of water, or somebody brings you something, someone brings your coffee, and so it's not just about saying thank you or well done. Feedback is much more specific. Around you know saying to somebody, you know, you just know that no, this is what I need in the morning, and you know, just saying the right thing to that person, honoring them for that moment. It just takes sometimes 30 seconds to give specific feedback, and it's not just praise and it can really strengthen relationships.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:It sure can. I think also an important piece of feedback is really setting the stage or the table for it. Especially if it is going to be a conversation that you might be going into it, or even the leader who will be giving feedback, it might be a little bit uncomfortable and really understanding that again, it's not about the person, it's about whatever it is that you're going to be talking about. But also the timing of it is important. The environment that you're going to create, and that's not just from a psychological safety environment, but the actual physical environment that you're going to create, and that's not just from a psychological safety environment, but the actual physical environment that you're going to be in. I mean, we typically don't want to have these conversations, especially if they're uncomfortable conversations at the water cooler in the hallway with everybody you know standing around. So setting the stage is important when we're talking about feedback.
Samantha Amit :Yeah. So what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about the difference between, you know, having a style which is more giving autonomy, in other words giving space and lots of space to your direct reports to develop, as opposed to, you know, micromanaging them. And I see that and often, you know, these polar opposites are problematic. And so if you, let's say, if we're talking about feedback and you're giving developmental feedback, talking about feedback and you're giving developmental feedback, so somebody's you know, maybe, kelly, you can think of a good example. I'm just trying to think of an example of developmental feedback that we could give to somebody.
Samantha Amit :Sometimes it's harsh, but let's say it's not harsh and you're growing that person. Sometimes they need nurturing and you can't just give them the feedback and then leave them and expect them to just give them the feedback and then leave them and expect them to, you know, just show up and whatever they're doing in their style. So, oh, I've got one, okay. So I have this a lot of times is that, you know, some people are too direct in their approach so they come across as being rude to some individuals. So sometimes, especially in emails, because in emails or you know, messages, text messages if you don't take your time to explain and you're not very good at communication, so your direct report will come across as being abrupt or being stern or being disrespectful, and the truth is the the problem you know female or male is is not like that at all, that they're the nice.
Samantha Amit :I meet some of these people. They're the nicest people and they've been given feedback by their manager that, um, you know they need to change their style and so if you have somebody like this that you want to coach through because you want to give them this feedback, that they need to change their communication style, it's so important to develop them and to nurture them and know that it's a journey. So when we're coaching, you know a team or in one-on-one, it's a journey, there's an arc, it's not just about one conversation and that's it. You know a team or in one-on-one, it's a journey, there's an arc, it's not just about one conversation and that's it, you know. Move on.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Yes, you're absolutely right, and it reminds me of a few years ago I worked with one of the Bellum coaches, because we know that coaches always need coaches. Right, it's important for us to have a coach, because all good coaches and all great coaches have a coach, and this was around emotional intelligence and one of the things that I was on the lower side was empathy, and part of that shows up in my text messaging. This is just a quick example. So if I'm thinking of something, I shoot off the text and I had to learn how to preempt that. Preempt the thought of just shooting it off and somebody just receiving the text from me with just this message right?
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Yeah, it seems cold sometimes I had to learn how to be a little more warm and fuzzy at the beginning and be able to have a text message that said you know, hello, how are you? I hope everything's, you know, going well, and here's my thought. But it took me, and I'm still a work in practice, and you are too, I'm sure, with whatever it is that you're working on. But we have to have that self-awareness and then we have to decide how are we going to help ourselves? Have that action plan, if you will, based on the feedback that we've received.
Samantha Amit :Right, right. So what this is, you know. First, I'm not that too. I'm very results orientated, and that's why mindfulness for me has been a savior, because it's helped me to enjoy the journey, because I was so results orientated that I was always like, first of all rushing to the outcome, not enjoying the journey. And then I get to the outcome, you enjoy success for like I don't know one minute, and then you're on to your next goal come. You enjoy success for like I don't know one minute, and then you're on to your next goal. And so I often found myself also sending off messages and then realizing, oh my god, this person's you know father's in hospital. I didn't even ask, you know how. Like, uh, cold of me anyway.
Samantha Amit :So the thing is, when you know, obviously, when you know your team, well, they know you and so you can actually it's much easier within your team to be yourself and to be like not have any fuzziness or warmth, because you know, if you know the person and they know you, then you know, especially if there's trust there and you've built a strong relationship there, then you can actually get away with a lot of things because there's respect there, there's trust.
Samantha Amit :When you're building that with stakeholders that don't interact with you on a day-to-day basis, it's so important to put the extra in. To put the extra in or to understand, like, what is this person like? Are they similar to me? Do they need more? You know, now I'm going to shift again. Some people need more detail, some people need more strategy, and so being more coach like means adapting yourself to the person in front of you and um in order to work better together. So it doesn't mean you have to completely adapt, but it is really important to you know, find that way of um of communicating that's best for both of you.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:And that takes work. It takes work to understand your people, but the value and the benefits are going to surpass the time that it's going to take you to get to know your people. I mean just even knowing their name. Calling them by name I mean simple things like that mean so much to a person. It means that you see them, it means that you respect them when you call them by name something as simple as that. And many times we're just, we're just talking and they know that we know their name. But when you actually say, when I'm calling you Samantha or you're calling me Kelly, you are recognizing me and that is important for that relationship.
Samantha Amit :Yeah, yeah. So what you're referring to sometimes is well, I'm picking this up Sometimes the simplest things we actually could be using and we don't think about it. And I'm going to shift us again, if it's okay, on a similar subject, but to meetings, because we're all in a lot of meetings and how can we get the most out of our meetings? So I want to start off with the communication piece and creating connection. But then there's lots that we can cover in the subject of meetings, because a lot of people suffer from meetings and they're not being run well, and so bringing more coaching qualities into a meeting could be really good. So this is where we're going to be segwaying into. But just before that, I want to say that something also that's so simple Doesn't always happen.
Samantha Amit :So when you're running a virtual meeting, like a virtual team meeting, it's not always obvious if you're not a people person. If you're not a people person and you're more results and outcome orientated let's say you've got more of a science mind then what may happen in virtual meetings if, if you have a team, is you may jump into the agenda and you may jump into, you know, meeting stuff like outcome stuff, goal stuff, result stuff, and it's so important to have like a small connection exercise and that may be part of your leadership style. That may be part of your leadership style, it may be part of your company style, but if you're listening and it's not and you are just jumping straight into the data, please just take this as something to consider to find a way to connect with the people that are on the call and that you're going to need to figure out.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Yeah, that check-in piece I feel is so imperative when I'm working with teams. It's allowing not just me as a coach or you as a leader, to understand how your team is showing up in that moment, but it's also about the team members understanding what's happening, how they're showing up. And I recently met with a team that's just a couple weeks ago and in our check-in there were some pretty heavy words. They were just to have one word with how they're showing up. There were some pretty heavy words that were showing up. So it's not that everybody's going to be coming. You know all joyful to a meeting. You know, maybe something happened just before that meeting and it may mean that it gets talked about within that session. It may be that following that session, you're doing a check-in with the person to see how they're doing, but that's super important at the onset before, like you said, you jump into the task at hand.
Samantha Amit :Yeah. So if you want to be more coach-like in your leadership style, that means really bringing in the awareness to what's going on around you, what's going on with your team, how are they? And, if you know, as Kelly and I are team coaches, a big part of team coaching is creating collaboration and support within the team, so that the team members are not working in silos but they are supporting each other. And that can happen on a lot of different levels, and one of them Kelly's just spoken about now. So what she? What she said, is that if somebody names and there's a, you know, an exercise that Brene Brown talks about that you just name your emotion, you name your emotion and you put that in the chat. It could be something else, but that way you have a pulse and know what's going on with people around you. And this way it doesn't necessarily need to be spoken about in the team meeting, but at least you can be sure that some of the team members are going to check in with that person if they're saying they're feeling tired or they say they're feeling, you know, a little bit low.
Samantha Amit :Today I have an exercise that, again, I like to use because I work with a lot of people in the cyber space, and so for them it's easy to like write a number from 1 to 10, where 1 is low and 10 is high. What's your energy like right now? And so they put in from 1 to 10, where one is low and 10 is high. What's your energy like right now? And so they put in from one to 10 in, and that's just so that you can get a pulse as a leader. And it's something so simple and it takes 30 seconds. And then after that again, if somebody's written a five or four, you're definitely gonna be checking in on them and you can be sure that some of the team members are gonna check in on them, and you can be sure that some of the team members are going to check in on them. And that way you really really grow that team camaraderie, the team collaboration. You're going to be the high performing team in the company.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:That's what we want. We definitely want. It's not just around that high performance, it's also that value right? So it's you're a high performing team, which means you're adding value to the organization because of how you're operating collectively, for sure.
Samantha Amit :All right, all right, so is it. What else do we want to talk about in meetings?
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Let's see. Well, I mean in team coaching, when we're sitting in meetings, we are really being able to, you know, assess there could be that there's a lot of disruptions and you know team coaches if you have a team coach, come into your meeting, we're going to be really taking a peek at that and we may bring it up. It depends on what the agreement is with the team and how we're bringing that into the team meeting. But it may be that we're just aware of it and we'll talk with the team at a later time around it. But I think to have effective meetings, everybody has to have not just a seat at the table but a voice at the table and they have to be comfortable being able to bring their voice out and be speaking without disruption, being very respectful in meetings for sure.
Samantha Amit :Right, right. So that could be what we're calling team coaching, a team norm, and I'm always encouraging leaders to think what are the values that you want to bring into your team and what are the team norms? Team norms are like do's and don'ts. Those are agreements that you make with your team and so like an agreement could be because I just had this, now that you know, a team leader said that two people were late for the meeting and so the meeting started 15 minutes late. Now you can be sure that some people are going to see that as disrespectful. They're going to be discouraged. I mean, you know, time is important for some people. So having a team norm that we show up on time, you know, and if not, then you know you have a way to handle it. So just think about your team norms and your team values and what you want to bring in. That's like the flavor that you're bringing, and this could be something that you can talk about also in a team meeting.
Samantha Amit :So what I want to do now because I'm just noticing that we're almost at the end of our time, but I want to quickly throw in something else before we wrap up and maybe we can summarize a little bit. So I want to just talk about the structure of a meeting, because I often observe, as a team coach, I observe meetings and what I saw, you know with you know, somebody that I'm coaching's a. She's a business owner in the professional services space, so she has a great check-in at the beginning and then she also has like a really good discussion around what learnings you know learnings, uh, planning, um, and then what happens is what happened I saw a couple of times is they didn't have time to check out. So you have a check-in in the beginning, which is the connection piece. You have whatever needs to happen, the agenda, and then the ending is also important, what needs to happen at the end?
Samantha Amit :Because, like when you're writing an essay or you, you know there's a beginning, a middle and an end, and this is also in a coaching conversation. It's the same. So think about how you want to end your meetings and if you have an ending or everybody just rushes out and you don't always finish the meeting. So what I'd like to encourage you to do, because meetings are so important, first of all, you know they should be focused. So think of how you show up as, how you're creating that focus in the meeting and then see that you've got, you know, this check-in, the middle piece, which is like the real heart we call it the heart of the coaching, but the heart of the meeting and then you've got, you know, the checkout, which is what are the outcomes that you want to leave with.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Yes, and you know the agenda has to be intentional, like you're saying. I have sat in on some meetings that were three hours long because that's how they did things. Now could that have been condensed Absolutely. So there are ways to do that that. So if you think that you have to have this, this long meeting, let's just see how can we condense it and still have really good outcomes from that. Because people they're going to get tired, their brains are going to stop working, they are not going to be as engaged if you have that intentional agenda with a time span that is reasonable for you to get the work done.
Samantha Amit :Yeah, absolutely so. If you have somebody that's really good with time management and organized management in the team, you could nominate them and ask them if they want to be the timekeeper, so that you can say you know you have that. That could be a team norm that 10 minutes before we finish, or 15 minutes before we finish the time, people will say, hey, it's time to start wrapping up yes, absolutely yeah, I love it yeah.
Samantha Amit :So let us start wrapping up in these couple of minutes that we have left. Um, let's just go over a little bit of what we spoke about. Um, so I'm going to throw in a few things and you can throw in a few things. The piece that for me is really important is, uh, you know, being intentional. We've spoken about that a lot. So it starts with your mindset and what you as a leader okay, as a manager, as a leader, even if you're not a manager, you can still be a leader.
Samantha Amit :A leader is anybody that is influential, that's showing up, that has followers. So think about what you want. Think about how you want to show up, what your attitude is and how that's going to show up in your action, as Kelly was talking about. So how that's going to show up in your body language, how it's going to show up what your attitude is and how that's going to show up in your action, as Kelly was talking about. So how that's going to show up in your body language, how it's going to show up in the way you communicate, and then check are you getting the desired outcome?
Dr. Kelly Whelan:That's right, yeah, and for me, I think the message around everything that you said and everything we talked about today is to practice, practice, practice, practice. Be okay, not being perfect, because it's not about perfection and what you're trying or you know what the outcome is. It's really about how are you rising into excellence, so then you can be that high performer that had high add, high value to your organization as you are, you know, growing in your leadership.
Samantha Amit :Absolutely. And as you practice and experiment and encourage your team to do the same thing, remember to ask for feedback. So we've spoken about that as well Ask for feedback and just accept it as a gift. So thank you so much everybody for showing up. And, yeah, ping us with any questions you may have. And, katie, thank you so much. It's always such a pleasure.
Dr. Kelly Whelan:Thanks. I appreciate you asking. It's been a joy to be here with you today, Samantha. Thanks so much.
Samantha Amit :Bye everybody.