It was never about you

By the time you read this, I will (I hope) have submitted my coaching assignment to Henley Business School. I say I hope because as I write, the submission portal has been down for the last couple of hours. Of course it has!

The assignment drew on my reflections and 9 months of coaching conversations, also the topic of my latest video, Three Things Coaching Senior Leaders Has Taught Me Yhis Year. If you've seen it, you'll remember the story of someone who had exhausted herself being the person with all the answers. Most problems in her team ended up on her desk, and every time she solved one, she was inadvertently training them to bring her the next.

As always, there are some fascinating comments from viewers. Someone posted a question I hadn't addressed in the video at all and it got me thinking.

Why do some managers negatively target their high performers?

At first glance it's the opposite problem from what my coaching client had experienced. She was carrying her people. This commenter was describing leaders who undermine their best performers. My answer was that there are possibly several things going on, maybe jealousy, maybe the manager feels threatened. Often these negative behaviours come from something within the manager, and aren't to do with the high performer at all.

If you, as a manager, gain a sense of self from being the most capable person in the room, then a brilliant person on your team is one of two things. An asset, or a threat. My coaching client's desire to be the one with answers made her carry her team. The same need, in a different leader, makes them block the person who doesn't need carrying. Both behaviours will hold competent team members back.

Another reason for this negative treatment is that sometimes managers simply don't know how to develop people well. Plenty of managers were promoted because they were good at the delivery of a job, yet nobody ever taught them how to grow anyone else's skills. A high performer exposes that gap faster than anyone else, because they don't need supervising, they need stretching, and how to develop and stretch people is something many organisations never teach.

For the leaders reading this, what's your first reaction when someone on your team shines? Be honest with yourself. Whatever your reaction, it's worth being curious about rather than ashamed of.

And if you're the high performer, the one who's been sidelined or briefed against or mysteriously left off a team meeting invite, and you've been lying awake wondering what you did wrong, it was probably never about you. Knowing that won't make it hurt any less, but it might help you stop searching yourself for a fault that was never yours.

A quick one on coaching. All being well, I will complete my Henley Business School certification next month. Until then, sessions stay at current rates, and if you book a series of sessions before then, that rate will hold for your whole programme. So if you've been wondering whether now's the time for you to invest in yourself with some coaching, this is a good moment. Reply to this email and we'll find a time to talk. No pressure, no pitch, just a conversation about where you are and whether coaching might help.

And if 1:1 isn't right for you, something new is coming. In September I'm opening The ChangeOut Club, a small coaching group for leaders in purpose-driven work who are carrying a lot and feeling stuck. Eight people, meeting online for two hours every fortnight, and everyone gets coached, not just talked at. It'll be £250 a month, a founding member rate that stays locked in for as long as you're a member, because the first group gets to shape how the Club works. I'm keeping it deliberately small, so if you'd like first refusal on a place, reply with the word CLUB and I'll make sure you hear before anyone else does.

What am I reading? 📚

I've been reading Careless People - Power, Greed. Madness, Sarah Wynn-Williams' memoir of her years at Facebook. I make a lot of content about toxic workplaces and bullying bosses and it's a good case study of those things, sadly, telling the story of what happens when leaders surround themselves with people who won't challenge them.

What am I listening to?👂

Confessions II, Madonna's sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor, twenty-one years later. My main reflection is how tremendous it is that she's still there, still creating. She's now had number one albums in the UK in each of five decades, and she's topped the charts around the world with this one too. All power to her.

A lot of my videos are about mid life pivots and transitions, what a role model Madonna is for anyone wondering whether their best work might still be ahead of them. She's just over a decade older than I am 💃

What am I watching? 👀

Might as well go all in on the Madonna theme, Madonna & Graham.

Joy-giving things 😍

In this week's edition of hedgehog cam

Which might explain the lack of hedgehogs, badgers are their main predator so they tend to avoid them!

Have a wonderful weekend

Lucy

I've been writing regular blogs since 2020. If you want to go back and look, they are all here.

If you're wondering whether coaching might help you think through where you are and where you're going next, I'd love to hear from you.

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