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After completing a coaching session, I sometimes cannot help feeling the enormous weight of my client’s job. I may even catch myself sighing on their behalf. I have tremendous compassion as well as admiration for the leaders I coach, because they manage such full plates. One of the most useful things I can do is help them figure out how to distribute responsibility more broadly.  

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The simple answer to that question is: Pay attention to YOU -- to what you are thinking, feeling, and doing right where you are in each new moment.

Management is all about getting things done with and through others -- focusing on HOW the work will get done: WHO will do WHAT by WHEN.

My source of (re)learning as I entered the new year was not from a client this time. A family member tore both Achilles tendons in late December. Not a single medical professional we’ve encountered has seen a double tear. His initial post-operative recovery involved a few weeks of no weight on either foot as we approached the winter holiday. This was uncharted territory for all of us.

We are sometimes pushed by outside factors to quickly be hyper-decisive out of necessity.  In those moments, we can feel rushed, reactive, and ill-equipped.  When the pressure is not there, however, we miss opportunities to build ourselves a smooth pathway that is paved with decisions.  Small but grounded decisions can remove external uncertainties, reduce team-wide confusion, and reverse personal ambivalence.

Being misunderstood by others can be so frustrating! It is tempting to believe it’s all their fault, their deficiency. If only those “other people” whom we care about, work with, report to, and supervise did not misconstrue our words with their own misguided thinking. Then they could fully leverage our contributions!