E8 | Leadership Presence | Bill Thompson

Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset, a podcast where every conversation sparks new ideas on how the best leaders unlock their followers potential. I am Dr Damian Goldberg, and I am here to inspire you to become the best leader you can be, be sure you subscribe and rate us. Let's jump right in. Hi today. We're very lucky to have with us Bill Thompson, the President and head of growth for Young Storytellers. And I had the opportunity to meet him several years ago, and we worked together, and he is also one of the contributors of my book, lead with a coaching mindset. Some of his experiences and stories are sharing in the book. So I want to thank you for accepting the invitation to be here with us today, and we are going to be focusing on leadership presence and how we need to be present when we're having conversation with our colleagues to be more effective for people who do not know you, Bill, what we like to share about you?

Well, I live in Los Angeles, and I have the pleasure of leading an organization called Young Storytellers. We inspire young people to discover the power of their voice by mentoring them to write their own original stories and then see them brought to life and celebrated in their community. And I've been here for almost 20 years now,

and we have the opportunity to work with your team and support them in being more effective as coaches, coaching the people that they were working with, their clients, for you as a leader, you were always committed to be a more effective coach. So when we talk about coaching presence, what's come up for you? What do you think are some of the challenges for current leaders to have that level of presence? And when we're talking about presence here, we're talking about being the here and now, versus having our heads in other places, or like there is so much in our play that most of the time we are with a person, but our head is somewhere else. Our mind is somewhere else. So how do we bring ourselves to be present and focused and paying attention to the person we have in front of us?

Yeah, I think it's more difficult now than it's ever been, because I think that the amount of distractions that we have, the amount of ways that people can contact us and communicate with us has proliferated so much, especially since covid Not only is there texting and there's also email, but now there's slack, and then there's notifications from Asana. And you know, there's all of these digital tools that we've adopted to become more efficient, but the price for that is our attention. I mean, one of the things that we've done here at Young Storytellers is we try to only have electronics in meetings if we need to use the electronics in meetings, otherwise, the electronics go away. We put the computers away, especially at our all team meeting every Monday, which is everybody, it's really a phone free space, like everyone is really just there present, even though we may have some people that are zooming into the meeting, we have a big zoom board that we use so we're not doing it on individual computers. We're all sitting around in a circle in the office so that we can be present for each other. I think presence is a big part of our culture. We do a lot of check in. We start every meeting like that with a check in where we ask a question, and everyone goes around and answers that question like yesterday, it was just, what's something that's bringing you joy? And so we spend 15 minutes just sort of listening and being present with each other about what is bringing folks joy before we get into the agenda of the meeting, which I think helps with presence. Sometimes we'll do mindfulness exercise, we'll do chair stretching, we'll do something that also makes us feel more grounded at our core, where a lot of arts people, you know, we do arts education. We all had arts experiences. I used to be an actor. There are a lot of theater people here. I think a big part of the theater is listening. So I've always felt that it's actually a something that I'm strong at, is the ability to be present with someone, to listen to them, and to be curious. I always sort of want to know more. And I know you and I talked a lot about this with coaching, I'm always curious about what's underneath. So even though this drives my teenager crazy, I do ask a lot of questions. I think my teenager wants to tell me what he's going to tell me, but I do think in a professional setting, you know, a lot of question asking and then just listening. And I still think about a lot of the skills that you've taught us about what else there? Anything else silence, sitting with something and letting you. Someone complete a thought, are all tactics that I use, and I have to say that I feel more energized as a leader and as a person after I've spent time being present with somebody. The days that I feel most exhausted are the days where I'm on the computer all day. I'm going from zoom to zoom to zoom. I'm keeping Inbox Zero. I'm answering slack. I'm trying to fit work in. At the end of those days, my head is buzzing. I feel like I'm part machine. But the days where I have the luxury of spending time one on one with folks, especially in person, I get energy from that experience, and I'm less tired as a leader,

if anything that there is a connection between being present we have we listen, recovering in this podcast, different competencies that leaders need to show to be developing this coaching mindset, and when you're talking about being present, a lot of these examples were related to listening how you are listening your curiosity. So we cannot listen if we are not present. But many times, one of the challenges that I heard from leaders is that there is so much on their plate, and there is so much pressure and stress in the job that stopping and paying attention to the person in front of you can be challenging. So what helps you to remind yourself to do that? What helps you to when you are having a conversation you're talking about being curious, what else remind you to be there, versus taking your mind to other places? What is so easy to do?

Well, I think that something that helps me do that is to be intentional about creating the space. So I will struggle, and we have an open floor plan, so I'll struggle if I'm in the middle of something and someone just comes up and expects my presence. Because typically I'm in the middle of something, and I'm very destination focused. I'm very task oriented as a person, in order for me to create that space, I need to feel as if I've finished the thing I was doing. So typically, what will work for me is let me finish the thing I'm doing. Can we connect in 15 minutes? Or can we connect in an hour, which gives me the time to be able to finish the thing that I'm doing, and then I can show up in a way that's present, because otherwise I'm going to be half I know myself well enough to know I'll be half stuck in the task that wasn't finished, and I either need to finish it or I need to be okay with the fact that I'm not going to finish it right now, but I have to have space to do that before I can provide that space for another person. I think something else that helps is sometimes this is difficult to manage because it takes so much time. But I try to start interactions, just meeting someone where they are as a human being. So even if we have an agenda of professional things that we need to get through, I still want to know like, how is your weekend? What's going on? I want to circle back to something you told me you were excited about last week. I'm interested in figuring out where they are in the moment and connecting with them as a human being before I get into work. Sometimes, though, because I'm curious, I can spend half an hour doing that, and it isn't the most efficient use of time. I've tried to get better about checking myself on that of like, setting a limit of how deep I go personally because I or even talking about things that are happening in my life. I think it helps with my relationships with folks, but it can take a lot of time.

It's an investment that you're making to connect with them, to the extent that you spend that time that you're genuinely curious and interested, because it doesn't work if you're not, if you're not, that not work, but if you are, you're sharing that in some way. You're showing that you care as a person, not just as a worker, but as a human being. And I do believe that this is one of the things that I learned in my training, when I trained leaders, and I had to think about the leaders that you respect the most, people who make a big impact in your life all the time. People are saying the leaders care about me, not just as in for my job, but who I was as a person, they care about my personal life. So I do believe that what you're sharing, even though it takes time, it really create a context for a relationship and a work environment that supports people to get engaged, collaborate, participate, be motivated. So at the end of the day, you. May feel maybe spend too much doing that, but this is an investment in the relationship.

I think that's true. I think it's a very human instinct to want to be seen. And I think that as a leader, we forget our positional privilege, and I forget this all the time, like I feel like I'm the most approachable person in the world, because I feel approachable, but that doesn't mean that folks, especially new folks to the organization, perceive me in that way, and so it is important to send that message and set that expectation consistently that I do have an open door, I am a safe person to talk to and explore challenges or difficulties or failure with. But I do think that that starts with sending that message of like I care about you as a human being. But again, I think so much of that comes from I feel like I grew up in the theater, and the theater is a very collaborative place, and everyone there has a role, and everyone's essential to the thing happening, and everyone is sort of like equally respected. And even though there's a director or there's a playwright or there might be the star of the show, everyone's essential. And I feel like that is the culture that we've created here, which is a culture that I enjoy and that I thrive in. So it is fun to see other people thrive in that same culture.

And it's a very collaborative culture where everybody collaborates and participate and feel value. It's another way people want to be seen. Wanted to feel value, yes, and also listen to and I think that this is one of the way that people disengage from their jobs when they feel that their leaders are not paying attention to them or not listening to them, or not feeling value. Have you heard be that people leave their not their job, but their bosses many times.

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the flip side of that is that sometimes it can be difficult to figure out a structure for making decisions like it's we've had to balance that over the years of Well, everyone has a voice, but we don't make decisions like a democracy. Everyone doesn't vote on every decision, so there's a balance between folks providing input, but then there are decision makers in the organization that consider the input, but then have to make a decision. But I do think that when you over index on the input seeking, people are typically more comfortable with whatever decision is made, because at least they express themselves and they feel heard, especially if, as a leader, you explain the rationale behind the decision, even if the decision is contrary to what someone felt or someone thought The organization should be doing.

So what would you say, Bill, that will be some of the tips or suggestions you may have for other leaders who were talking before we started recording the podcast today that you find valuable listening to other leaders from previous podcasts, for the leaders who are going to be listening to us, what will be some of the tips that you will say as a summary of our conversation today, that you wanted people to pay attention, to enhance the quality of the relationships, to enhance this leadership presence. What will be some tips and ideas that you suggest,

I think actually being intentional about creating the space to be present and being transparent about it. I think it's incumbent upon us as leaders to say, Okay, this is a space where these things will happen, and I'm committed to putting my phone aside. I'm here to be present for you. I think naming the thing, it's so important to be explicit. I've learned over years, because no one can see inside your mind or your heart. And so even though you think, and I get tired of hearing myself say things, I think, oh, people must be so tired of hearing it, but people need to hear those things, I think, to trust them or to believe them, especially, I mean, you still have to back them up with actions. But I think it's important to say this is why we're doing this. This is the space we're creating. And I think the other is to make sure that in those sessions, as a leader, the focus is not it's not that you go in without an agenda, but the focus has to be the other person. Then if you're actually listening, you need to be willing to deviate from your agenda, or your agenda needs to be uncovering something in the other person to be able to provide that space. So I think it's making sure that you're centering you. The employee, the partner, the board member, the donor. I mean, whomever it is that you're spending time with, that they are the center and focus of your attention, not your agenda. And then obviously the last piece would be like, deal with the technology, if like, if you're going to be disrupted by your watch vibrating, or your phone vibrating, or your email like then figure out a way to either put things on silent, turn your notifications off, shut the laptop, whatever you needs to do in order to be fully present. And I would say that's especially true when you're on Zoom, because it's so easy to see all of those red notifications start popping up and everything else. So I think it takes the level of discipline with your technology to make sure that you can be fully present and focused,

and it's about managing distractions. How do you manage distractions? And if you cannot be 100% present. What do you do? Like, for example, sometimes when I am coaching clients, something happen, and I realize that I'm happy in my environment at home, sometimes I got to say, Okay, I need to stop, because I need to resolve something. So I stop, and then I go and I do whatever needs to happen, whatever is happening in the context where you're working, and then I come back, because I found out if I don't do that, I cannot be present to the conversation, because my head is thinking something else. So I think that is also be what you're talking about, being intentional when we're having conversations, to plan to be present, to manage instruction, but also to set up for being present, and we cannot, because there is something else going on. Sometimes we need to be also strategic and intentionally, maybe moving a meeting or changing the time. Start to realize we cannot be present, how this is affecting and that's also at home, how we are not present to our loved ones. Many times, people come to talk to us, and we our head is somewhere else, and we do not communicate. We not don't let them know that our head is aware because we need to solve something. They don't have a crystal ball. People don't cannot read our minds and know that we are concerned or worry about something else, and that there is a way we cannot be present to them.

That's right. And people are very forgiving, I find if you are just honest and transparent about that. So if you say, I need to finish this thing that I'm working on so I can be fully present and give you the attention you deserve, but I need 30 minutes to do that, it's very rare that someone's like, well, that's not okay. They understand it because you're being honest. Their feelings get hurt when you don't express that, or you pretend that it's not true, or then you act irritated, or like you don't have time. You're sending all these other signals. So yeah, I think that that transparency is is super important. I mean, even you're right the personal life. I mean, when I'm home, there are times where I have to put my phone in the other room to be present with my children so that I'm not a hypocrite when I'm telling my teenager to get off his phone so that he

can be with me. This is an interesting for a different program, but our relationship with our cell phones, like when I do leadership trainings and I get people to let go of their phone. They cannot engage in conversation during the meeting. People get crazy like then I understand sometimes you may have emergencies. But also, what is a sense of emergency? What is really an emergency? Do you have somebody who is sick at home? That's right, that's an emergency. Other things. I don't know it's different for each person, but also, we sometimes need to let go of the phone so to be present with other people. And sometimes may or may not be possible, but when it is possible, I highly recommend people to disengage for a few minutes from their phones so they can be present to connect to other people. Yeah, Bill, I really appreciate your time. I appreciate your support over the years. Your support with my book, I hope you can make our lunch on September 2.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's my pleasure. I've learned so much from you over the years that have helped with you know, my leadership and my ability to coach and be present to folks, and which, again, I think culture is everything, and so I'm proud of being able to have taken those skills and put them into practice here with your help. So thank you, and keep up the good work. Thank

you. Great to hear that. And let's wrap up for today's LEAD with a coaching mindset. I am Damien Goldberg, thrilled to have shared this time with you. Don't forget to subscribe and give us a rating. Stay excited for more episodes. Take care and keep living with a coaching mindset. You.