Becoming Coachable: The Key to Continuous Evolution in Leadership with Jacquelyn Lane and Scott Osman
Jacquelyn Lane - Co-author of Becoming Coachable, President of 100 Coaches Agency and Executive Coach.
Jacquelyn Lane is the President of 100 Coaches Agency, an organization designed to amplify the collective impact of theworld’s most iconic leadership thinkers and executive coaches. She is the co-designer of 100 Coaches Agency proprietarycuration process and the company’s relationship-first philosophy. In her role as President, she oversees the growth anddevelopment of the Agency, serves as a critical pillar of the 100 Coaches community, and is a member of the editorial teamthat selects the authors and titles published in their new book imprint, 100 Coaches Publishing.
Scott Osman - Co-author of Becoming Coachable, Founder and President of 100 Coaches Agency
Scott Osman is the founder and CEO of 100 Coaches Agency, an organization designed to amplify the collective impact of theworld’s most iconic leadership thinkers and executive coaches. He is the co-designer of 100 Coaches Agency proprietarycuration process and the company’s relationship-first philosophy. In his role as CEO, he establishes the vision for the company,leads partnerships and business development, and serves as a critical pillar of the 100 Coaches community, which he co-fou
nded with Marshall Goldsmith in 2016. He is the co-founder of Methods by 100 Coaches, the online learning platform, andhe is a member of the editorial team that selects the authors and titles published in their new book imprint, 100 CoachesPublishing.
As a leader, we’re tasked often with empowering others and coaching them to become the best version of themselves at work, and beyond.
But how can we create the space for ourselves to become more coachable, and expand our leadership capabilities as a result? In this conversation we explore what it takes to become coachable with Jacqueline Lane and Scott Osman, Co-Authors of Becoming Coachable alongside Marshall Goldsmith.
We unpack not only why it’s critical leaders become coachable, but the necessary ingredients you need to make this happen.
Learn more about Jacquelyn Lane
Jacquelyn comes to the world of executive coaching naturally through her lifelong commitment to improving the lives of all people by elevating the quality of leadership. Previously, she held various roles in the energy industry during which time she developed deep insights into the perils and privileges of leadership. Throughout her experience in corporate America, academia, and the international humanitarian space, she observed a common thread - people issues were consistently the most complex and most overlooked. She knew that these problems were the ones she wanted to spend her life solving.
Jacquelyn received her Master’s in Engineering for Sustainable Development from the University of Cambridge, and presentedher Master’s Thesis on needs assessments and new solutions to support refugees in Greece. Through her work with vulnerablepopulations in Greece, Uganda, and South Africa, Jacquelyn has observed the impact of business on global development andhuman flourishing. She is a passionate advocate for conscious capitalism and entrepreneurship as a means to createsustainable solutions globally. As both a natural people person and systems thinker, Jacquelyn is committed to bringing theright people together to solve some of the world’s most complex challenges.
Learn more about Scott Osman
Entrepreneur and intrepreneur, Scott has started, grown, evolved, and marketed a diverse group of companies. He is a thoughtleader in the area of purpose strategy and has a rare skill set of multi-disciplinary talents spanning a broad spectrumincluding creative, management, financial, and vision. Scott has a passion for developing talent and for applying bestpractices for managing and contributing to high-performing teams. He has implemented numerous strategic initiatives anddeveloped and executed business plans. Scott understands the creative process and has created products, companies, brands,campaigns, and more. He has a rare ability to develop and execute holistic strategies that lead to new and successful solutions.With his diverse and multifaceted skill set, Scott is now fully focused on the world of executive coaching and leadershipthinking.
Among his highly diverse accomplishments, Scott was previously the Founder and Global Director of the Purpose Strategypractice area at Landor Associates, during which time he led the corporate rebranding of P&G and various Purpose Brandinginitiatives for Goldman Sachs, Yahoo, and other global brands. He founded and led Good Omen, a values-led, practice-driveninnovation lab, and was the president of Gigunda, the experiential company behind the rebranding of MLS and the highlyaward-winning Tides Loads of Hope and Charmin Times Square initiatives. He was a partner in the award-winning,
Learn more about Jacquelyn Lane and Scott Osman, and find their new book here:
Connect with Jacquelyn Lane and Scott Osman on LinkedIn.
Get your copy of their book ‘Becoming Coachable: Unleashing the Power of Executive Coaching to Transform Your Leadership and Life’ here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: As a leader, we're often tasked with empowering others and coaching them to become the best version of themselves at work and beyond. But how often do we create the space for ourselves to become more coachable and expand our leadership capabilities as a result? Welcome to We Are Human Leaders. I'm Alexa Sarna, and together with Sally Clark, today we're exploring what it takes to become coachable with Jacqueline Lane and Scott Osman.
[00:00:34] Alexis Zahner: Co authors of Becoming Coachable alongside the one and only Marshall Goldsmith. In this conversation, we'll explore not only why it's critical for leaders to become coachable, but what the necessary ingredients you need to make this happen. Jacqueline Lane is the president of 100 Coaches Agency, an organization designed to amplify the collective impact of the world's most iconic leadership thinkers and executive coaches.
[00:01:01] Alexis Zahner: She is the co designer of 100 Coaches Agency proprietary curation process and the company's relationship first philosophy. In her role as president, she oversees the growth and development of the agency, serves as a critical pillar in the 100 Coaches community, and is a member of the editorial team that selects the authors and titles published in their new book imprint, 100 Coaches Publishing.
[00:01:26] Alexis Zahner: Scott Osmond is the founder and CEO of the 100 Coaches Agency, and works alongside Jacqueline as the co designer of the agency's publishing team. Proprietary curation process. In his role as CEO, Scott establishes the vision for the company, leads partnerships and business development, and serves as a critical pillar in their 100 Coaches community, which he co founded alongside Marshall Goldsmith in 2016.
[00:01:50] Alexis Zahner: He is the co founder of Methods by 100 Coaches, the online learning platform, and he is a member of the editorial team that selects its authors and publishes its titles too. Together, this dynamic duo share their personal journey as leaders and the expansion that they've experienced personally through coaching.
[00:02:09] Alexis Zahner: They also share the results that leaders can expect when they commit to this journey too. Thank you for being here with us for another episode of We Are Human Leaders. Now let's dive in.
[00:02:22] Sally Clarke: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, Jacqueline and Scott. It is such a delight to have you with us today. We're really excited for our conversation and we'd like to start by really getting to know each of you a little bit better.
[00:02:33] Sally Clarke: Um, if you wouldn't mind sharing a little of your own story and the journey that's brought you to the important work that you're doing today.
[00:02:39] Jacquelyn Lane: Thanks, of course. I'm Jacqueline Lane, based now in New York City, but I come from a very small town in rural Southern Colorado. And, you know, my story is one where my world just continued to grow and shape and change over time, coming from a very small town now to a very big city and just meeting so many different types of people and where they come from, just been fascinated with the stories that people tell, the journeys that they're on.
[00:03:05] Jacquelyn Lane: And I realized just how complex human issues are and how much I want to solve those kinds of problems. And so that of course led me from a career in corporate America now to a career working with leadership development and then the world of executive coaching specifically, now we Scott and I together.
[00:03:22] Jacquelyn Lane: Run the a hundred coaches agency where we place the very best leaders in the world with the right executive coach for them. So we've gotten to interact with people to know them deeply and
[00:03:32] Sally Clarke: to help them find the right solution. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Jacqueline. I think it's such a beautiful journey from the small town to the big city, and also the journey from corporate America into really helping people find the support that they need to excel and thrive as leaders at the very top.
[00:03:48] Sally Clarke: And Scott, if we can pass to you to hear your story.
[00:03:50] Scott Osman: Sure. So most of my career, I was a brand strategist working with companies, large and small entrepreneurial conceiving of brands, executing brands, reforming global repositioning of major companies, things like that. And then 10 years ago, I met Marshall Goldsmith.
[00:04:04] Scott Osman: Yeah, everybody knows Marshall, number one executive coach in the world and got to know him a little bit. And then eight years ago, two years after that, he called me up and he said, Hey, I want to teach 15 people everything I know about coaching and asked me to help him put up a video on LinkedIn and 20, 000 people applied to be part of that first group.
[00:04:18] Scott Osman: We picked 25 and then it went really well. And over the course of the first year, I grew to a hundred and I realized there was something a little bit bigger going on here. And we created a community, which is now the 100 coaches community, about 400 leaders, leadership thinkers, and leadership coaches in that community.
[00:04:33] Scott Osman: I'm a natural sort of brand and community builder. So we built the 100 Coaches brand, and then as a consequence of that, we had brought all these amazing executive coaches together, and it turns out that executive coaches at the top of their game only take on six to ten new people a year, so they're really hard to find, and we had made a really great way to connect them, and so four years ago, we created the 100 Coaches agency, and that's kind of our work now.
[00:04:56] Alexis Zahner: Incredible, Scott. Thank you. And we would love to dive into this concept of coaching more with you both today. And obviously you're a new book that has recently come out called being coachable. Can you help us unpack this a little bit more and understand what it means to be coachable? You describe it as essential to maximizing our effectiveness as leaders and arguably as humans as well.
[00:05:16] Alexis Zahner: Can you tell us a little bit more about what it means to be coachable and why this is the case?
[00:05:20] Jacquelyn Lane: Yeah, at its core, all of us need other people. We are a deeply social species and we don't really have the ability to see ourselves. Uh, you know, there's more and more research today that shows that the world as we perceive it is very, very different.
[00:05:34] Jacquelyn Lane: heavily shaped by our experiences, by the way that, you know, we experience and see the world. And really what coaching is, is it's allowing us to hear the perspectives, thoughts, views, and opinions of other people so that we can more fully, more accurately see the world around us. And so whether that's through the help of a coach or whether that's just through this kind of being coachable mindset, really everyone around us has the ability to teach us something that we didn't know before.
[00:06:01] Jacquelyn Lane: And especially if we are leaders, especially if we're responsible for organizations of people and movements at scale, we need to tap into those perspectives around us more and more. And that's really at its core what coaching is.
[00:06:14] Scott Osman: Yeah, the inspiration for the book, which we wrote with Marshall, was that we knew from Marshall that the most important ingredient in any coaching engagement is the person who's being coached.
[00:06:23] Scott Osman: You know, you have a great person that you're coaching, you're going to be a very successful coach and have a great outcome. And as we looked into it, We found that there wasn't anybody who had written a book on how to become coachable, right? How to set yourself up for success in a coaching engagement.
[00:06:36] Scott Osman: And that's where we came up with our openness framework and all that. And I agree with you, Alexis. It's very much the same thing to be successful in life. The same things that are important to becoming coachable are really important to becoming good at any relationship.
[00:06:50] Sally Clarke: I love it. I think it's such a great framework for us all to understand how we can, you know, take steps to improve our capacity to learn and evolve as one does in coaching and as one can do in so many different sort of relational environments in life.
[00:07:04] Sally Clarke: And I'd love to dig deeper into something that you just mentioned, Scott, which is the openness to the way that it's framed in the book, which I love so much because you unpack how in order to. Become coachable. We have to be open to four key things. If I get them right, it's change, feedback, taking action, and being held accountable.
[00:07:23] Sally Clarke: Can you walk us through the importance of each of these facets? and share perhaps how leaders can ensure that they are indeed open to them.
[00:07:32] Scott Osman: Sure, I'll take the first one. So, uh, the first one being open to change. And I mean, it kind of seems like it should go without saying, and yet it needs to be said, if you're not willing to change, then you're not coachable.
[00:07:42] Scott Osman: Because coaching is at its very core about finding at least one thing that you want to change and making that change with the help of a coach. By the
[00:07:49] Jacquelyn Lane: way, change is very much the imperative these days, right? If we don't change and we don't continue to grow, then we're getting left behind.
[00:07:57] Scott Osman: Yeah. It's also, I have to say it's a little insidious, my own experience with coaching.
[00:08:01] Scott Osman: So I, um, of course I'm surrounded by these amazing coaches now and I figure, well, I should have a coach. And so I started asking my friends who are coaches, would they coach me? And they would say, sure, I'd be happy to coach you. What do you want to work on? And my response typically was, I, you know, things are pretty good.
[00:08:16] Scott Osman: Like, I don't feel like there's anything I need to work on, but I, you know, I'd like to, and they would say, if you can't think of anything you want to change, then I don't see how we can coach. And then I met the guy who's now my coach. He's been my coach for a couple of years now. And he said, this is where for me, it became like really like, and unlock your belief that there's nothing that you want to change is a self limiting belief, right?
[00:08:36] Scott Osman: That you have to be open to what he ended up calling expansion, right? What you want to change is you want to change the horizons of what you think is good enough. And understanding that it was like a, it's a little bit of a obtuse way of thinking about change. And yet, like Jacqueline was just saying, like we all have to change all the time.
[00:08:53] Scott Osman: The world is changing around us. We have to adapt to it. And so being open to change is the number one imperative.
[00:08:58] Alexis Zahner: I love that. And I just want to pause on what you've mentioned there, Scott, because that, I guess, almost subtle reframe from change to expansion for me feels that it's less about becoming different to becoming a better, bigger person.
[00:09:10] Alexis Zahner: more inclusive, perhaps version of ourselves when we sort of expand on the things that are already perhaps great about us and take them to another level where we open our capacity to be an even better version of ourselves. And I think for me, as someone who's been through coaching in various elements of my career and personal life, that really just hit home, that language, that shift between change to expansion, it's growing our capacity.
[00:09:33] Alexis Zahner: I absolutely love that.
[00:09:34] Scott Osman: Yeah. Love that. And in my own, I do a little bit of coaching in my own work. I love. Watching people unlock when all you do is let them know that what they thought was not possible is possible, right? It's so often the case and it's sometimes it's things that, you know, there's no reason why we have that belief that we can't do it.
[00:09:52] Scott Osman: I mean, obviously I'm not gonna play professional basketball, but when it comes to, you know, what I can imagine for myself, there's a lot more possibilities than I often give myself credit for.
[00:10:01] Sally Clarke: Can I just share very briefly that I had this exact experience? When I was a finance lawyer and I went through a really horrible burnout and I had a coaching session, one coaching session with an amazing coach who said to me, you already know if you want to leave this firm or not.
[00:10:15] Sally Clarke: And it had not actually struck me that I had that choice. And so it's exactly that, that proffering of an option and that opening my mind to the fact that this was a choice transformed my life. So thank you for highlighting that. Jackson, do you want to pick up?
[00:10:27] Jacquelyn Lane: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, the second step.
[00:10:29] Jacquelyn Lane: So once you're open to change, that's a very important first step, then you have to ask yourself if you're open to hearing feedback and feedback's a tough one. It's a, you know, like we'll get into this a little bit later, accountability too. Like those are words that a lot of people have a visceral reaction to.
[00:10:44] Jacquelyn Lane: And it's so often when someone says to us, can I offer you some feedback? Yeah. Yeah. We kind of, you know, steal ourselves and expect to hear the worst. That was certainly my experience of feedback, especially coming from corporate America. And so I love that Marshall gave me this reframe that has really helped unlock feedback for me is he calls it feed forward.
[00:11:04] Jacquelyn Lane: It's not about what I did wrong in the past and punishing myself for that. It's about what can I do different in the future? How can I move forward taking the information to make the best possible decision that I can make? And when you simply change that frame of mind, all feedback really then appears to be a gift.
[00:11:22] Jacquelyn Lane: Because someone is basically charting the course for you. How I can be a better person, how I can be a better leader, how I can be a better self. spouse or a parent, and that's incredibly valuable. That is a great gift. And so just being open to hearing that, and in fact, not even just being open, but soliciting it, asking people, please tell me how I can be a better friend, partner, leader, manager, et cetera, to you.
[00:11:47] Jacquelyn Lane: And then when they do give that perspective and that feedback, the correct answer is always thank you. And that's a really important thing. Again, if someone gives you a gift, you always say thank you because any defensiveness really starts to erode that trust and that relationship that's being built in that moment.
[00:12:03] Jacquelyn Lane: So that's been a really powerful journey for me.
[00:12:06] Sally Clarke: That's such a beautiful differentiation again, in the language change there as well, in terms of how we receive it and that sort of openness to it. It's interesting when you said Feedback, both Alexis and I sort of looked like a deer in the headlights.
[00:12:18] Sally Clarke: It's like that response that you have, it's like, what's coming. But I think that feed forward and knowing that it's the intention behind it is good and that there is a possibility for growth through it really changes the whole dynamic.
[00:12:30] Jacquelyn Lane: Right. None of us do this alone. I mean, that's what I've had to realize more and more.
[00:12:34] Jacquelyn Lane: But I actually don't know if my intention is being realized in the world without asking people to say, how did you perceive that? Did I hit the mark there?
[00:12:44] Alexis Zahner: And it's such an important thing. Sally and I often use this feedback as a mechanism to check if the impact we're having is that that we intended, Jacqueline, and it's similar to what you just mentioned there.
[00:12:54] Alexis Zahner: If we're actually moving through the world in the way that we feel internally is how we would like to move through the world. So that idea of soliciting. The right feedback from the right people. And I think it's an interesting thing when you mentioned this idea of soliciting it, versus taking on everything that might be said to us.
[00:13:11] Alexis Zahner: Certainly I know, especially in my younger career, feedback could feel like a bit of an affront, especially to the ego, and especially when it wasn't delivered to me in a way that felt like the person had care for me. And it reminds me a little bit of Kim Scott's work around, you know, radical candor and how we actually approach giving people feedback, or as you've suggested, the reframe of feed forward.
[00:13:31] Alexis Zahner: When we feel cared for and we feel like the person who's giving us that information actually cares about our best interests and wants to see us grow through that, rather than break us down or see us hurt as a result of that, we're able to receive it in a drastically more open and productive way when we can actually do something about it and not necessarily just feel attacked.
[00:13:49] Alexis Zahner: So I think that reframe is really powerful.
[00:13:51] Scott Osman: Yeah, couldn't agree more. And of course you can't change things that you don't know. That's really one of the great things about feedback is it lets you know the kinds of things that you can choose to change. And then of course the third part of the openness framework is being open to taking action.
[00:14:03] Scott Osman: You know, it's all well and good to say you're open to change and you're accepting the feedback, but then at least some of the time you have to do something with it and really take an action, create that change. Again, a lot of the work of coaching is about creating that change, growing as an individual, growing as a person.
[00:14:16] Scott Osman: As a leader,
[00:14:17] Jacquelyn Lane: creating new habits is like exercising a muscle. It takes action. It takes repetition. Sometimes you might try and fail and that's okay. But the point is that you keep trying because that's really where strength and where progress
[00:14:30] Sally Clarke: are made. That's such an interesting point as well. Cause I think so often and speaking for myself, I get caught up in the, again, former lawyer, a bit of like, I love the theory.
[00:14:37] Sally Clarke: I'll read about something a zillion times and really get like behind the idea. But translating that into action can feel quite good. So I think, you know, becoming coachable in that way as well as I am also open to translating this into my daily behaviors, my habits, how I treat myself, other people, whatever that might look like is, you know, an essential, essential skill to learn.
[00:14:57] Sally Clarke: And I'm still learning it if I want us to. Oh, I
[00:14:59] Jacquelyn Lane: think we all are. I think it's a lifelong learning journey. And that's part of what I love about the word becoming in becoming coachable is because it doesn't apply that we've imply we've just arrived. You know, and that we're a finished project. I mean, our life is the great project we all get to live every day.
[00:15:16] Jacquelyn Lane: And if we can either be staying the same or, you know, or stagnating, or we can be growing. The choice is ours.
[00:15:21] Scott Osman: Right. And even taking action. You know, we make a change and we move forward with something, we fall back, right? There are all those changes that we make and it's hard to, hard to keep up on them, which is the fourth part of the openness framework.
[00:15:33] Scott Osman: Because to have lasting change, you need accountability.
[00:15:35] Jacquelyn Lane: Yes. Yeah. And I think open to accountability is one of the steps that is the trickiest for people because it's much like feedback, except it's sort of like ongoing feedback where you're really saying to someone, you know, particularly a coach or an accountability partner.
[00:15:51] Jacquelyn Lane: Here's the intention I have. I'm trying to make a change in this way. Let's use as an example, I'm trying to let my team speak first and I'll share my ideas last. And then you'll ask someone who's, you know, a peer, a friend, coach, and you'll just ask them when I do that thing that I don't want to do, please remind me, hold me accountable to the fact that I'm trying to make this change and give my team more agency to speak up first.
[00:16:16] Jacquelyn Lane: And so it's tough. So many of us fail because we don't have the willpower on our own. We need to have other people in our life who can point out these things to us. Otherwise they just don't get done. I mean, Marshall invented this idea of daily questions that he writes about in his book triggers. And even Marshall who has been doing daily questions now for a decade or more.
[00:16:39] Jacquelyn Lane: He pays someone to call him every single day and ask him the questions that he wrote for himself. Yeah.
[00:16:46] Sally Clarke: Yeah. I mean, that's such a beautiful example. And also like a very sort of reassuring reminder that even when you are deep in this work, it can be so helpful to have that external accountability. And I think it comes back to what you mentioned at the outset and Jacqueline as well, that it's relational.
[00:17:01] Sally Clarke: Like we can't do this alone and we don't have to.
[00:17:04] Scott Osman: Yeah.
[00:17:04] Alexis Zahner: Exactly. Thanks so much for helping us understand those key things about becoming coachable, Scott and Jacqueline. And what we'd love to know, what are some of the key barriers that you see coming up for people that actually stop them from becoming coachable?
[00:17:18] Jacquelyn Lane: I think there are two really main culprits. The first is negativity. When someone is so quick to say, Oh, that'll never work. And they, you know, so much so that they don't. Try that's a really common one. We see the second one is someone who thinks I don't need to change Like or this is just how I am and you know Take me or leave me and then that also seems to be something that holds people back But even those mindsets with the right coach or with the right question can even see It's still like create and unlock that helps them be open to engaging in that process.
[00:17:54] Jacquelyn Lane: Problem is that those people don't even know that they're not open to becoming coachable in that moment.
[00:18:00] Scott Osman: Yeah. Lack of self awareness, I think is really one of the greatest barriers to change and to coaching. And somehow some of our great coaches have a way. of getting through to people who don't have that self awareness.
[00:18:11] Scott Osman: Marshall, in particular, just very bluntly lets people know that they're unaware of this thing that they're doing. And it's, and that's one of the great gifts of coaching.
[00:18:19] Sally Clarke: Absolutely. And it really does sometimes take that kind of almost a shock and awakening, if you will, to kind of have that like, Oh, actually it's me.
[00:18:28] Sally Clarke: Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. I'm in my own way here. So it can be such a gift coaching when we have this almost you know, this shock or awakening moment that snaps us into an awareness that we didn't previously have.
[00:18:40] Jacquelyn Lane: Absolutely. That's our experience as well. And some, you know, I think there's two types of insights that coaching provides.
[00:18:47] Jacquelyn Lane: There's some of those, you know, unlock moments as we've discussed here, where you, once you hear it and once you see it, you can't see it differently. And your, your mindset has kind of shifted permanently. Uh, and those are really, really important. profound and fulfilling moments. But then there are some things that you have to just do over time.
[00:19:04] Jacquelyn Lane: That it's a habit that you're putting into place, a small change that you're making to your life that kind of, you know, sets you on a journey. And sometimes those ones take a little bit longer, we'll say, but they can be just as powerful.
[00:19:17] Sally Clarke: I sometimes think of those as the kind of Often they're the like, less sexy work that we do, that's kind of the behind the scenes, you chip away, it takes a long time, it's often quite uncomfortable, and it may never be visible to the outside world at all, but it can be quite sexy.
[00:19:30] Sally Clarke: Some of the most profound work that we do. Absolutely. I wanted to touch on the discomfort that I think is inherent in many coaching processes, or at least good ones. The discomfort of being challenged on ideas or behaviors that are potentially quite ingrained in us. Or the feeling that our worldview may be being fundamentally challenged.
[00:19:49] Sally Clarke: In your experience, how can leaders who are looking to become coachable prepare themselves optimally to navigate this discomfort when it arises?
[00:19:58] Scott Osman: I think that that discomfort is really almost exclusively in the early part of the coaching relationship. And with those, in particular, those leaders who come into coaching thinking they don't have to change that much.
[00:20:08] Scott Osman: And they think, you know, some people I think come into coaching thinking, you know, I've got this and it's all well and good that I'm going through coaching, but I'm pretty squared away. And then they realize what's possible. And some people, when they understand what's possible, as you're mentioning, they take it as somehow it's shaking the foundation of their belief system.
[00:20:25] Scott Osman: But pretty quickly, our experience is when people realize that there's usually more. I mean, it's never less. It's usually the case that coaching creates a lot of expansion for the leader. And once the leader understands the kind of expansion that's possible, they really lean into coaching and embrace it.
[00:20:40] Scott Osman: And they also see the, you were talking earlier, I think, on personal and professional. A lot of coaching, in fact, I'd say almost all coaching, impacts you both personally and professionally. And pretty early into the coaching process, people start to see the results of that in their professional relationships and their
[00:20:55] Jacquelyn Lane: Yeah, I think discomfort in many ways is a necessary part of growth, but I think it's more so about learning to embrace some of that discomfort.
[00:21:04] Jacquelyn Lane: Sometimes, you know, it's uncomfortable, for example, when your coach is encouraging you to have a hard conversation that you've been putting off and that doesn't feel great, but you kind of know deep down. Oh, yeah, I have this thing hanging over my head. I really do need to have that conversation. And having the conversation can be also very uncomfortable.
[00:21:24] Jacquelyn Lane: But then afterwards, you reflect on it and say, I did something that I knew needed to be done. And I feel good about that. And there's some growth that happens in there. So yeah, of course, you know, in being challenged, I think discomfort is a big piece of it. But when we learn to, like, as Scott was saying, love it, embrace it, like, learn that that's part of the process, it starts to feel a little less uncomfortable.
[00:21:45] Jacquelyn Lane: Or at least, and you know that you have this great person in the trenches with you. You know, someone who's in your corner, your coach really just wants the best for you. That's part of what makes it such a special relationship, is that they have one goal and one goal only. And that's for you to get where you want to go.
[00:22:02] Alexis Zahner: I can honestly say in my experience, the first time that I worked with a coach, I was most certainly someone who brought the two things that you mentioned earlier, Jacqueline, to the table, the negativity, the closed off mindset and the unwillingness to change. And what I can say is that in my experience is because I'd grown up with a real fear of making mistakes, it really stemmed from a place of not wanting to appear fallible in any way or not wanting to appear that.
[00:22:31] Alexis Zahner: I didn't know the answers or that I wasn't capable of making the decisions or that it felt like a real threat to the identity I'd developed for myself. And that was someone who was intellectual, someone who was capable, someone who could achieve things. And to me, it felt like taking on feedback or admitting that I had room for growth kind of challenged that self identity that I had and how I appeared in the world.
[00:22:56] Alexis Zahner: So what I love about this conversation is In my personal experience, I had to really start at the bottom bricks of the foundation here. And that was actually build my tolerance to discomfort before I could even onboard some of the bigger pieces of information. So I totally resonate with everything that you're saying.
[00:23:14] Alexis Zahner: And I also personally know how hard it is to start from a baseline of zero. That is, I don't make mistakes. I don't have to change because I'm already perfect because I'm terrified to admit otherwise. Do you see this coming up for some of the leaders? Is that really like the baseline that you see folks starting from as well at times?
[00:23:33] Jacquelyn Lane: Well, Scott is laughing because you're basically describing me to a T as well. So, Alexis, I think you and I have been on the exact same journey. So, I'm glad I'm not the only one, because it is so scary initially, it really is. Absolutely. And, and I'm sure there are many others who are like us in that. It is terrifying.
[00:23:53] Jacquelyn Lane: And. But I have found that the right relationship and when I really have someone that I trust who goes on that journey with me, that has made the world of difference.
[00:24:03] Scott Osman: Yeah, I think a lot of leaders go through that. If you think about who becomes a leader, right? It's often people who've been overachievers earlier in their career.
[00:24:11] Scott Osman: They get A's, they get stars, they're head of their class, whatever. And then they begin work, and they're recognized as overachievers in work, and they're delivering on that sort of functional role. And then all of a sudden somebody says to them, Gee, you've done so well, we're gonna make you a leader. And as a leader, you have to put the, sort of the people, that you're leading ahead of you.
[00:24:30] Scott Osman: Like that's the job of leadership. And to make sure that they get all the rewards and that you're just supporting them. And that's very unnatural, right? And so you're still sort of, your insides are still telling you that you want to be seen and recognized for your accomplishments, but as a leader, you have to step aside.
[00:24:46] Sally Clarke: It's such an interesting process.
[00:24:47] Alexis Zahner: Yeah, that was the biggest lesson I had in my first leadership role as well. And I always reflect on it saying I had my butt kicked by leadership in my first leadership role because I was very used to being, I guess, the star of the show, if you will, and collecting my gold stars for my achievement and having that as a very external sort of validation point of my worth as well.
[00:25:05] Alexis Zahner: And suddenly I was having to lead from behind and not, not have that External validation anymore, but actually empower and make sure that my people were getting the credit that they deserved for the hard work we did as a team.
[00:25:18] Sally Clarke: It's such an interesting process that egos go through, I think in this journey as well.
[00:25:22] Scott Osman: Yeah. It's not for the faint of heart. I mean, we see it at the very high. I mean, there are people who get to very senior positions and haven't worked on it. And then, you know, the board calls the coach in and says for them to be successful, they've got to work through this issue.
[00:25:34] Jacquelyn Lane: Yeah. The stakes can be pretty high sometimes.
[00:25:36] Jacquelyn Lane: Where the board will even say something like, and if they don't resolve this issue, they're not going to be CEO anymore. Right?
[00:25:43] Scott Osman: Not in today's world. You know, there may have been a time decades ago where a leader could really be, you know, the classic boss and tell everybody what to do. Just not true anymore.
[00:25:50] Sally Clarke: No. And so to extend this point a little further, I'm curious, And imagine you get this question quite often for leaders who are perhaps, you know, on the journey already of becoming coachable. What can they do to support their team members to also become coachable?
[00:26:04] Jacquelyn Lane: Marshall has some great thinking on this.
[00:26:06] Jacquelyn Lane: His simple answer is you go first. If you're the leader of the team, then you model the behavior. You have to go first. And really, becoming coachable and hiring a coach is one of the greatest gifts the leader can offer to their team. Because what they're saying is, by me being coached, I'm going to learn how to better support you.
[00:26:24] Jacquelyn Lane: I'm going to learn how to better lead you. And really, most people who are on a team where the leader's being coached are exuberant that that leader has made that choice. And that often again starts them on that process where they're engaging in healthy feedback loops, right? And they'll start modeling that themselves too.
[00:26:41] Jacquelyn Lane: It really can become quite a culture shift, but I love the, I mean, in some ways it's the humility to say, I know I can be better. I know I'm not perfect, but I also have the confidence. that I can change. I have the confidence and the growth mindset to believe that I can go even further.
[00:26:58] Sally Clarke: I love that Jacqueline.
[00:26:59] Sally Clarke: I think especially because it's really partly, it sounds like also being very transparent about the fact that you're being coached as this is something that I see as being important to my leadership, to my, how I treat you as team members. This is something that I'm doing to work on myself. It sends a really strong signal.
[00:27:13] Sally Clarke: And I think it's important also that we acknowledge that it's. Really not something to be hidden or, you know, pretend that it's not going on, but it's something that is an enormous strength for leaders to be not only doing, but showing to their teams that they're in that process.
[00:27:25] Jacquelyn Lane: Oh, absolutely. Uh, we think coaching is one of the most outsized competitive advantages that exists today.
[00:27:31] Jacquelyn Lane: And so often when you enlist and enroll other people in. That process, they become overwhelming supporters. It can even turn relationships that have soured into really positive and productive ones.
[00:27:45] Alexis Zahner: That's a great point, Jacqueline. And I'd love to maybe explore, I guess, the consequences of coaching, if you will, a little bit more.
[00:27:51] Alexis Zahner: Can you help us illuminate? What are some of the markers that we might be able to see in ourselves and perhaps even at a team level around, you know, how do we know when this coaching starting to change us and our team? What are some of the outcomes we can expect to see at those different levels?
[00:28:06] Scott Osman: You know, in the third part of our book, we talk about different types of leaders.
[00:28:09] Scott Osman: We talk about striving leaders, people pleasers, rising leaders, and flourishing leaders. And I think that's also a good way of thinking of the markers of leadership. The striving leader, it's sort of, we put on a grid from me to we and from extraction to expansion. The striving leader is really like looking out for themselves, right?
[00:28:26] Scott Osman: They're trying to figure out how can I get there? from my leadership role, how can I extract the most value for me because I'm now in this position of power? And that's kind of the least desirable kind of leader. And in our experience, the one that goes the least far, but the people pleaser,
[00:28:39] Jacquelyn Lane: the people pleaser is a little tricky because on the outset, it looks like they're being focused on others.
[00:28:44] Jacquelyn Lane: And that can look really positive, except the problem is that they're also giving away their own agency. And they're often not caring for themselves. They're burning out usually. And that also is not expansion. That's ultimately extraction, but it's extraction for others. It's giving it all away. And so that ultimately doesn't go very far either.
[00:29:04] Jacquelyn Lane: It's not sustainable long term.
[00:29:06] Scott Osman: Yeah, the more common leader that we see that's still, I think, seen as a successful leader is the rising leader, rising leader is creating more growth or they're expanding their team is doing better, they're still very focused on what's in it for them, you know, I think of recent leaders of big companies that want to make sure that they're getting as much of the gain of the company as they can, that's still not creating the most value for everybody.
[00:29:26] Scott Osman: It's, as I said, very, very good, but there's still potential. And that's, I think, ultimately why we wrote the book is to let people know that through coaching, you could become this fourth kind of leader.
[00:29:36] Jacquelyn Lane: Yeah, this, we call it the flourishing leader because it really has some connotation to do with the environment that you're in and around as well.
[00:29:44] Jacquelyn Lane: That it really says, I'm not just thriving me as an individual, but we are all flourishing together. And when you put it that way, it starts to become very clear that this is about expansion, creating more for everyone. Of course, that means that there's going to be. more created for me, but it also means for everyone else too.
[00:30:03] Jacquelyn Lane: And it's, you know, it's the kind of a great leader who's flourishing, really removes themself from the equation and it unlocks something. They have this humility, this growth, they realize how interconnected they are with the people around them. And it becomes this just vast win, win, win, win.
[00:30:20] Scott Osman: Yeah. We tell the story in the book of Hubert Jolie at Best Buy, who, you know, even though he was like one of the greatest leaders.
[00:30:27] Scott Osman: comes into Best Buy and realizes that he does not have the solution for turning around Best Buy. Marshall was his coach and together they figured out that the employees of Best Buy have the answer. And so with all humility, Uber goes and visits people at the front lines and says, I'm the CO Best, I'm Uber Julie's CO Best Buy and I need your help.
[00:30:45] Scott Osman: And he heard the help and he listened to it and he took action and that's what saved the company. And he freely admits it. He credits the employees of the company as saving the company. He was just sort of the leader who acted on their advice. That's true flourishing leadership. And I think also rewarded the employees.
[00:31:00] Scott Osman: You know, they didn't lose their jobs and they flourished with him.
[00:31:03] Alexis Zahner: And it sounds like such a seemingly simple solution. Correct me if I'm wrong. If as a leader, we just, Get out of our own way and actually allow the people around us to do their best work and support us. Cause I know Uber took over Best Buy at a time where the company was quite close to liquidation or, or they were really in a sticky point.
[00:31:22] Alexis Zahner: So I think for him to be able to turn it around at that point, so something remarkable at harnessing the people around you to actually resolve the problem without putting yourself at the top of the pyramid and assuming that I have to know everything and I have to fix everything.
[00:31:35] Scott Osman: That's so true.
[00:31:36] Sally Clarke: Agreed.
[00:31:37] Sally Clarke: What I also heard a little as you were describing these different forms of leadership is I almost got this sense of there's a sort of a scarcity mindset around when we're really trying to just establish things for ourselves or please others as this kind of limited thinking and that perhaps when we shift more to a flourishing form of leadership that there is this sort of you know abundance to it this boundlessness to it and that gives rise to that win win win.
[00:32:00] Sally Clarke: It doesn't have to come at the cost.
[00:32:02] Jacquelyn Lane: Exactly. It's shifting from that zero sum mindset to the non zero sum. I completely agree. Amazing.
[00:32:09] Sally Clarke: We could chat with you guys for days. We have so many more questions about becoming coachable, but we'd love to finish with just any final thoughts that you have for the leaders who are listening now who are curious about taking their next steps to becoming coachable.
[00:32:23] Jacquelyn Lane: Yeah, well, I just want to encourage people to please, if they want to reach out, if you are curious at all about coaching, we are always happy to be a resource to help you find that right path. Uh, we call ourselves a relationship first organization, which means that we prioritize relationships above and beyond any transaction.
[00:32:42] Jacquelyn Lane: So we're here to serve, to support, and you can find us on our website. That's a hundred coaches, agency. com or on LinkedIn, uh, Jacqueline Scott Osmond. You can find us. Scott has also a great. email newsletter that's always got full insights on coaching and leadership and just everyday life as a metaphor for leadership.
[00:33:00] Jacquelyn Lane: It's really beautiful.
[00:33:01] Scott Osman: Yeah. Yeah. I'd also add that there are very, very few people who are not coachable. You know, we have, we come across some of the toughest leaders in the world and when they make the shift and become coachable, they realize this phenomenal expansion. I mean, I have to say, so 10 years ago, I didn't know anything about coaching and then I met Marshall and now I'm in the, you know, in the thick of it and the massive transformations that I've seen.
[00:33:22] Scott Osman: Seen from people who are already hugely successful is really just heartwarming and just shows how much potential everybody has to be even greater than they ever imagined. I think that's one of the gifts of coaching and the work that we are, you know, really honestly privileged to do is just helping great leaders become even greater, creating more flourishing and expansion.
[00:33:40] Alexis Zahner: A brilliant message to end on. Scott, thank you so much Scott and Jacqueline for being with us on we are Human Leaders. It's been an absolute privilege to learn from you both.
[00:33:49] Scott Osman: Thank you for having us. It's been ours. Nice to see you both.
[00:33:58] Alexis Zahner: As this conversation illuminates, becoming coachable is actually a seemingly simplistic process that many of us tend to forget. Making ourselves open to change, open to feedback, taking action and creating accountability is something all of us have the power to do. My question to you is, will you take up the invitation to become more coachable?
[00:34:21] Alexis Zahner: Find out more about Jacqueline Lane and Scott Osman, including a link to their latest book, Becoming Coachable, in our show notes at www. wearehumanleaders.
[00:34:33] Alexis Zahner: com. Thank you for joining us on another episode, Human Leader, and we will see you next time.