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Dave Stachowiak

Leaders aren’t born; they’re made. Many leaders reach points in their careers where what worked yesterday doesn’t work today. This Monday show helps leaders thrive at these key inflection points. Independently produced weekly since 2011, Dr. Dave Stachowiak shares insights from a decade of leading a global leadership academy, plus more than 15 years of leadership at Dale Carnegie. Bestselling authors, proven leaders, expert thinkers, and deep conversation have attracted 50 million downloads and over 300,000 followers. Join the FREE membership to search the entire leadership and management library by topic at CoachingforLeaders.com

Coaching for Leaders

Scott Keller: CEO Excellence

Scott is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Southern California office. He co-leads the firm’s global CEO Excellence service line and is the author of six books, including the bestseller Beyond Performance. Scott spent his early consulting years working on business strategy and operational topics until his life was turned upside down when his second child was born with profound special needs.

After taking time off to attend to his family, Scott returned to McKinsey with the desire to bring the best of psychology, social science, and the study of human potential into the workplace. He is a cofounder of Digital Divide Data and one of a few hundred people in history known to have traveled to every country in the world. His most recent book written with Carolyn Dewar and Vikram Malhotra is titled CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

In this conversation, Scott and I examine McKinsey’s research on what the top CEOs do (and avoid) when building great teams. We look at a few of the key mindsets that the best CEOs bring to their organizations — and how teamwork plays into this. Plus, we explore some of the key questions top leaders should ask when determining if it’s time to exit someone from the team.

Key Points

 • Top leaders staff for both aptitude and attitude. The have an eye to both the short and long term.

 • The most successful CEOs have a mindset of “first team” and expect leaders in the organization to prioritize serving the whole team/organization over any functional area.

 • New CEOs are often known for acting quickly on staffing, but the most successful leaders also temper this with fairness. They use the four questions below to act with both fairness and speed.

 • Top leaders stay connected with people throughout the organization, but also keep some distance. There’s a key distinction between being friendly and making friends.

The best CEO’s ensure that have positively addressed all four questions below before removing somebody:

 • Does the team member know exactly what’s expected of them: i.e., what the agenda is and what jobs need to be done to drive that agenda?

 • Have they been given the needed tools and resources, and a chance to build the necessary skills and confidence to use them effectively?

 • Are they surrounded by others (including the CEO) who are aligned on a common direction and who display the desired mindsets and behaviors?

 • Is it clear what the consequences are if they don’t get on board and deliver?

Resources Mentioned

CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest • by Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World • by Peter Wohlleben

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.

585R: How Top Leaders Influence Great Teamwork, with Scott Keller

Frances Frei: Move Fast & Fix Things

Frances Frei is a professor at Harvard Business School. Her research investigates how leaders create the context for organizations and individuals to thrive by designing for excellence in strategy, operations, and culture. She regularly works with companies embarking on large-scale change and organizational transformation, including embracing diversity and inclusion as a lever for improved performance. In 2017, Frances served as Uber’s first senior vice president of leadership and strategy to help the company navigate its very public crisis in leadership and culture.

Her partner Anne Morriss and her are the authors of Uncommon Service and The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. They are also hosts of Fixable, a leadership advice podcast from the TED Audio Collective, and they are recognized by Thinkers50 as among the world’s most influential business thinkers. Their newest book is Move Fast & Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems.

A lot of us assume that going fast is reckless. There are certainly times when that’s the case, but it’s also true that leaders going too slow at the wrong time can make things worse. In this conversation, Frances and I discuss how to do a better job of moving quickly when it’s time to address the toughest problems.

Key Points

 • Many of us believe that going fast is reckless and going slow is righteous. While there are times that is true, there are many examples where it’s not.

 • The fastest way to speed up your company is to empower more people to make more decisions.

 • Dare to be bad at something. Deciding what not to address allows you to go faster at what you’re best at.

 • Two key elements of completing work are work-in-progress and cycle time. Most leaders address cycle time first and miss the more substantial work-in-progress opportunities.

 • Create a way to fast-track projects that become important and build this into the culture of the organization.

Resources Mentioned

Move Fast & Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems • by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

658R: How to Help Change Happen Faster, with Frances Frei

Eileen Collins: Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars

Colonel Eileen M. Collins, USAF (retired), earned a place in history as the first American woman to pilot, and later to command, a space mission. She flew on the space shuttle four times, twice as commander – including the 2005 “return to flight” mission after the tragic Columbia accident. She is the subject of the documentary movie Spacewoman and author of the book Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

We all have times in our careers where all eyes are on us. In this conversation, Eileen and I explore the critical moments of her career and how she stayed grounded while soaring among the stars.

Key Points

 • Until we are tested, we don’t know what we are capable of.

 • Nerves creep in at times for all of us. When they do, it’s helpful to think about representing your role instead of representing yourself.

 • When decisions become difficult, always come back to, “What’s the mission?”

 • Train for the skill, not for the task.

 • During high-stakes times, remember your family and personal life. They will help you stay grounded.

Resources Mentioned

Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission • by Eileen Collins (
Amazon • , 
Bookshop • )*

Spacewoman documentary • , featuring Eileen Collins

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

How to Lead and Retain High Performers, with Ruth Gotian • (episode 567)

The Way to Handle Q&A, with Matt Abrahams • (episode 681)

How to Start the Top Job, with Scott Keller • (episode 752)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

763: Leading with Poise When the Stakes are High, with Eileen Collins

Claude Silver: Be Yourself at Work

Claude Silver is on a mission to revolutionize leadership, talent, and workplace culture. She is Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX and partners with CEO Gary Vaynerchuk to drive their success. Claude has earned Campaign US’s Female Frontier Award, and AdWeek’s Changing the Game Award and she’s the author of Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

We’ve all heard the advice to be ourselves at work. It’s easier said than done. In this conversation, Claude and I explore how we can actually move past some of the unhelpful self-talk so that we can show up better, faster.

Key Points

 • We all have songs that play in our heads. When the song isn’t working, it’s time to change it.

 • Labels are for soup cans, not people. Stop treating negative self-talk as gospel.

 • Begin by identifying the label you’ve put on yourself that’s harming you. When it’s hard to see a harmful label, use times of either reflection or agitation to help surface it.

 • Find the internal evidence for this label and record what confirms this belief and also what challenges it. If that’s hard, invite someone else (a partner, friend, or therapist) to help you see it more objectively.

 • Evolve by creating a new mantra for who you are becoming. If it doesn’t seem doable today, ask yourself if you can envision it being true in the future.

Resources Mentioned

Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart • by Claude Silver (
Amazon • , 
Bookshop • )*.

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

How to Tame Your Inner Critic, with Tara Mohr • (episode 232)

How to Stand Up for Yourself, with Sunita Sah • (episode 715)

When It Feels Like You Don’t Belong, with Muriel Wilkins • (episode 756)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

762: Show Up Better, Faster, with Claude Silver

Dave shares the results of the 2025 listener survey and previews what’s next for Coaching for Leaders. If you’re not already getting the weekly update and wish to receive Dave’s forthcoming FocusFive messages, join the free membership for access.

Listener Survey Results

Steve Blank: Blind to Disruption

Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford and co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement and the curriculums for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and Hacking for Defense and Diplomacy, he’s changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany and The Startup Owner’s Manual and is the author of his recent article at steveblank.com: Blind to Disruption: The CEOs Who Missed the Future.

Leaders may see the future coming, but we aren’t always incentivized to act on it. In this conversation, Steve and I discuss what we can learn from the common patterns of disruption so we don’t miss what’s next.

Key Points

 • In the 1890s, there were approximately 4,000 carriage and wagon makers in the United States. Only one company made the transition to automobiles.

 • In each of the three companies that survived, it was the founders, not hired CEOs, that drove the transition.

 • Studebaker recognized that it wasn’t in the business of carriages; it was in the business of mobility.

 • Clayton Christensen taught us that disruption begins with inferior products that incumbents don’t take seriously.

 • The real problem isn’t that companies can’t see the future. It’s that they are structurally disincentivized to act on it.

 • Parsing innovation theatre vs. innovation means paying attention to what’s actually shipping. If nothing is and you want to innovate, look elsewhere.

 • Bubbles in the market are normal. Timing may be off, but that doesn’t mean disruption isn’t happening.

Resources Mentioned

Blind to Disruption: The CEOs Who Missed the Future • by Steve Blank

Related Episodes

How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath • (episode 430)

How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder • (episode 470)

How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank • (episode 476)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

761: Notice Disruption and Innovate Through It, with Steve Blank

Shannon Minifie: Box of Crayons

Shannon Minifie is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures. They are the organization behind the bestselling book The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Shannon and her team recently released a report along with the Harris Poll titled Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity increases engagement, trust, and productivity.

Of course, you’ve heard that being curious and coach-like will help in leadership. But sometimes the very thing we think we’re doing well is actually getting in the way. In this conversation, Shannon and I explore the kind of curiosity that leaders often miss.

Key Points

 • 5-6 hours of the average workweek is lost to the fear of making mistakes.

 • A strong majority of leaders say employees are expressing a desire for more feedback, and a majority also say that people are unable to receive hard feedback.

 • Relationships are the core of these conflicting messages. Without a relationship of trust, helpful feedback often doesn’t land that way.

 • Intellectual curiosity helps us learn what we don’t know. Relationship curiosity helps the other person learn what they don’t know.

 • Ask yourself: what is my goal in asking this question?

 • Rather than asking a question that starts with a “why,” consider asking a question that starts with a “what.”

The 7 Essential Questions:

 1. What’s on your mind?

 2. And what else?

 3. What’s the real challenge here for you?

 4. What do you want?

 5. How can I help?

 6. If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?

 7. What was most useful for you?

Resources Mentioned

Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity Increases Engagement, Trust, and Productivity • .

Interactive Learning Preview: Invest in the Power of Curiosity
The Coaching Habit • * by Michael Bungay Stanier

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier • (episode 237)

How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet • (episode 454)

The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier • (episode 458)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

760: The Kind of Curiosity Leaders Often Miss, with Shannon Minifie

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Uncompete

Ruchika T. Malhotra is the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm that has worked with some of the world’s biggest organizations. She’s been recognized multiple times by Thinkers50 and co-wrote one of Harvard Business Review’s top 100 most-read articles in history: Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome. She is the author of Inclusion on Purpose, MIT Press’s top-selling book of 2022 and now her newest book, Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

A lot of people think about work as a competition for resources. But what if, by inviting others to the table, you created more for everyone? In this conversation, Ruchika and I explore the opportunity for all of us to uncompete.

Key Points

 • Many of us are so socialized to compete that we don’t realize the benefits of collective collaboration.

 • Reach out to someone who inspires you. Praising someone for something awesome about them, without an accompanying ask, is so rare.

 • Display genuine curiosity. Don’t confuse “nice” small talk for depth. Ask bigger questions that get to the heart of who people are.

 • As you build trust, talk numbers. In the professional context, real relationships of trust demand this kind of transparency.

 • Take regular stock of relationships. Take people at their word and also watch how their actions line up – or don’t.

 • Invite others to the table. The bigger your circle, the more you create for everybody.

Resources Mentioned

Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success • by Ruchika T. Malhotra (
Amazon • , 
Bookshop • )*

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

End Imposter Syndrome in Your Organization, with Jodi-Ann Burey • (episode 556)

How to Create Inclusive Hiring Practices, with Ruchika Tulshyan • (episode 589)

Doing Better Than Zero-Sum Thinking, with Renée Mauborgne • (episode 641)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

759: The Way to Build Collective Power, with Ruchika T. Malhotra

Kirstin Ferguson: Blindspotting

Kirstin Ferguson has been recognized globally by Thinkers50 as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world and is the recipient of the 2023 Distinguished Leadership Award. She was an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, and then went on to lead an international consulting firm as CEO, before serving on the boards of major publicly listed, private, and non-profit organizations. She is the author of Women Kind, Head & Heart, and her newest book Blindspotting: How to See What Others Miss (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

If we stop to think about it, almost all of us recognize that we have blind spots. Given that reality, anything we can do that helps us see what others might miss will help us lead better. In this conversation, Kirsten and I explore the mindsets and practices that will help us uncover more of our blind spots.

Key Points

 • Experts are better at knowing when they are right, but also less likely to show appropriate doubt when they could be wrong.

 • There’s a time to be a seeker and a time to be a knower. Both are important in different situations, but leaders in many situations would benefit from more seeking.

 • Blindspotting is about calibration, not hesitation.

 • Accept your intellectual limitations. A key way to do this is saying these four words more: “I don’t know yet.”

 • Disentangling your ego will help your blind spot better. Shift away from your pride a bit by separating yourself from your knowledge and expertise.

 • Hunt down your biases. Admitting they exist is step one. Model vulnerability by talking about your past mistakes both with yourself and with others.

Resources Mentioned

Blindspotting: How to See What Others Miss • by Kirstin Ferguson (
Amazon • , 
Bookshop • )*.

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

Getting Better at Reading the Room, with Kirstin Ferguson • (episode 651)

How to Find What’s Missing, with Jeff Wetzler • (episode 732)

How to Teach Your Expertise to Others, with Roger Kneebone • (episode 743)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

758: How to See What Others Miss, with Kirstin Ferguson

Goldie Chan: Personal Branding for Introverts

Goldie Chan is the founder of Warm Robots, a social media strategy and creative agency, and she is herself a creative, keynote speaker, author, and cancer survivor. She was named the “Oprah of LinkedIn” by Huffington Post, and her creative video channel won LinkedIn Top Voice for Social Media. She is the author of Personal Branding for Introverts (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

Many of us aspire to have a powerful personal brand, but it’s not always clear where to start. In this conversation, Goldie and I zero in on the five elements that matter most – and what you can do to get started.

Key Points

Five C’s of personal branding:

 • Clarity: Surface it by determining three words you want to be associated with.

 • Consistency: The internet is for introverts. Find the medium where you can show up often and that plays to your strengths.

 • Competency: Rather than promoting yourself, promote the ideas and practices you stand for through your experience.

 • Confidence: Ego is when you shout who you are to a room, and confidence is when you know who you are in a room.

 • Community: Join in on conversations with people discussing what you care about. Find these communities or build your own.

Resources Mentioned

Personal Branding for Introverts • by Goldie Chan (
Amazon • , 
Bookshop • )*.

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

The Four Critical Stories Leaders Need For Influence, with David Hutchens • (episode 148)

The Way to Get Noticed by Key Stakeholders, with Daphne E. Jones • (episode 614)

Your Reputation is Your Currency, with Maha Abouelenein • (episode 703)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

757: The Key Elements of a Powerful Personal Brand, with Goldie Chan

Sönke Ahrens: How to Take Smart Notes

Sönke Ahrens is the creator of Take Smart Notes, a project dedicated to helping students, academics and nonfiction writers get more done – ideally with more fun and less effort. He has spent years researching and experimenting with different note-taking systems and his settled on a methodology called Zettlekasten.

Sönke is a writer, coach, and academic — and also the author of the bestselling book, How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers*.

In this conversation, Sönke and I discuss how to move past the practice of simply reading and highlighting by beginning to seek meaning. We explore how you might create a system for doing this and how external scaffolding can help. Plus, we explain what notes might look like and how you can use them for an ongoing conversation with yourself — and perhaps others.

Key Points

 • Move past details and look for meaning.

 • As we become familiar with something, we may start believing we understand it.

 • Real thinking requires external scaffolding.

 • It’s not so much about saving information, but in making connections between the information.

 • Your notes need not be long or numerous, but should spark (and continue) future conversations with yourself.

Resources Mentioned

How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers • * by Sönke Ahrens

Take Smart Notes

Interview Notes

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

Related Episodes

How To Create a Personal Knowledge Management System, with Bonni Stachowiak • (episode 129)

Help People Learn Through Powerful Teaching, with Pooja Agarwal • (episode 421)

How to Use Cognitive Psychology to Enhance Learning • (Teaching in Higher Ed)

How to Enhance Your Credibility • (audio course)

Discover More

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.

564: Make Your Reading More Meaningful, with Sönke Ahrens

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