E19 | Creating Space for Thinking: The Leadership Habit that Makes a Difference

Hi. Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset, a Podcast where we explore how leaders unlock their followers potential. I am Dr Damian Goldvarg, and I am very excited to discuss my new book, lead with a coaching mindset.

Hi everyone. I'm Elaine Padilla. I'm also coach and I will be the host of this podcast. We hope that you find this space inspirational and thought provoking. Let's get into it. Hi. Welcome to lead with a coaching mindset.

We are here with Elaine Padilla, and today we are going to be discussing the third chapter of my book, lead with a coaching mindset, and the chapter today focused on mindset is everything developing your inner coach. So this is our conversation today. Hi, Elaine, how are you today?

I'm doing well, good to see you. Damian.

Good to see you too. Thank you for partnering with me in this project. So let's jump into discussing the chapter.

Yeah. So I know this. This chapter is mindset is everything. So you know what is? What's a coaching mindset?

It's a good question, because many times people are not very clear what mindset means. And in this context, mindset means attitude, inclination, how are we paying attention to things? So for example, in this case, a coaching mindset means that the leader is paying attention to developing their people. So coaching mindset means that the leader pay attention, invest time, cares about how their colleagues learn, develop, grow. So because they really care about that, they are looking for opportunities to support them in that process. So that requires intention, and that requires a way of being as a leader that bring this style that many people appreciate these days, it's having somebody who is interested in investing time and energy and sometimes money, in building capacity, growing learning and creating learning organizations, learning cultures, where everybody's learning and together, we're supporting each Other in accomplishing results, but learning in the process together.

Yeah. So in your book, you talk about these five key concepts, so you really dig deep into what a coaching mindset is. Tell me about those five concepts.

Well, the five concepts is interesting because they are related to other competencies and other chapters of the book, because the whole book is about the coaching mindset, but there are five things you're saying that are key that I spend some time in this chapter explaining so people can understand a little bit more about what do we mean by a coaching mindset and what is trusting? Trusting employees are responsible beings, individuals who are able to accomplish what they need to accomplish. So when we're talking about leaders that have a coaching mindset, they are trusting people to do their jobs and they show support, and also allow people to learn from the experiences and sometimes even making mistakes as part of the process and the learning. But you're coming from a place of trusting others when, when leaders do not trust they're giving you the message, oh, I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do this job. So unconsciously, they are giving a message that I don't think you're capable. And many people have to deal with that many, many people have voices that make them feel insecure instead of bringing the best out of them for work, and so many times even they may not be aware they are doing that by not trusting, by not believing that people can do the job. They are giving that message, but it's not really helpful. The second one is committing to continue development, being sure that there is in place systems for people to keep learning, and that can be done in different ways. In the chapter, I describe different mechanisms where people can continue learn. Number three is creating a spaces for reflection, so having times intentionally to look at the work, to see what is working, so we can leverage our strength and look what can be done better. So we're looking at all the time to both not only what is not working, but also what is working. So being sure that there are times to provide feedback, to reflect on the learnings and see what we need to continue doing, stop doing, start doing, or do differently. The other one is about being aware of the culture and context and how what's happening is affecting us. There is a lot going on in the world, and we need to be aware that.

That that may be impacting our experiences, that may be distracting us. So being sure that you bring that to conversation so you can normalize, validate these experiences, and by bringing into the open people can feel that they understood and supported, even though many times you may not agree, for example, if it's a political issue, you may belong to different political ideas, but that doesn't mean necessarily that you cannot support each other with your experiences.

And finally, using one sense of self and intuition for the benefit of the team, just bringing your own experiences, just being genuinely committed to do this job and as a leader, is by creating yourself as a role model, when you bring your own concerns, when your own experiences, and it's what today people call being vulnerable, is bringing your authentic self, your authentic concerns, and by being genuinely aligned to your own values, when you come to work, people really appreciate that, and that creates a role model for others to do the same.

Yeah, that that all sounds great. I'm just curious about this, the the topic of committing to con, to continuous development.

You know, what does that look like? And what if the organization doesn't have funding, or what if you know the leader or the their direct reports don't have the time? How do you

This is interesting. Time and money. Is what is in everybody's mind. I don't have time or money. Send it in for coaching when, sometimes leader needs some support, sometimes when people need the most, when they don't have the time and money and they don't take advantage. But what is the cost if they don't invest time and money? So sometimes it's about looking at priorities. And you know, in the organization where you're working, and in other places, some of my clients, they're all of their funding for development and learning is being cut, so they need not the money is not theirs. But that does not mean necessarily that people cannot continue learning and growing. What are the most common ways is by getting a coach or getting training,

sometimes reading magazines. But these days, we don't need to subscribe to magazines to be on top of what's happening in the world. There are many organizations that send brief and open for free reports, like, for example, I receive it in my mail every week, some reports from Gallup from McKinsey, so I know that is it for free. And of course, there are some that you had to pay, but they did not a big investment. For example, I like the Wall Street Journal. There is a section every week about it's called The Future of everything, where you learn about future trends,

and I think it's a really good investment, and there are different ways that you can get subscribed without having to invest a lot of money. So the idea is that there are ways where we can still learn without having to invest money, but we still need to understand that we're putting time for that versus other things. There is a cost, but what is the cost of not doing it? So I like to ask people to think that question too is like, what is the cost of not being on top of what's happening in your business, not knowing what your competitors are doing? So we know that even sometimes can be challenging, we still need to look for creative ways where we can continue learning and being sure that we have some time in the week we will just spend for that. So that requires also some planning, like when I start my week, I know that there are some activities that I am going to be doing that. They are about my own learning and development. For example, I belong to coaching associations. Sometimes I am the one inviting people to Canada. There is one coming up tomorrow. Some others, I participate. We Elaine part of being part of the ICF Los Angeles chapter. Sometimes we get to see each other in these meetings. And once you belong to an association, when you belong to a group, you may not need to spend money in participating in these learning opportunities, but you still need to invest some time. And I will believe that it's about again. The mindset is about, okay, we have to put priorities.

How do we why we are sure that we are selective and we really choose the best learning opportunities instead of doing everything available, okay, what is the really best opportunity where we're sure we're going to be investing our time in an effective way?

Yeah, one of the things that I did this year is to put it, to put it. In a weekly reminder to review all the professional associations that I'm part of and sign up for webinars that are are free, or to make time to read articles, like you said, but I actually had to start with putting in a reminder for Monday at 8am to remind, you know, to to review those emails and sign up for anything for that week or for for future weeks I make, I make the space and for those events. Yeah, I'm curious about something else.

How do you? I mean you were talking about how some organizations can afford coaches, right and time is an issue. What about this element of creating reflective space? Tell me about tell me more about that. Like, how do you create that reflective space.

When part of coaching different than consulting or telling people what to do, having conversations with people. So one of the muscles that leaders needs to develop to be more effective is being able to have these coaching conversations. So a leader with a coaching mindset is intentional about having conversations that make people think so this is different than telling people what to do. So a coaching mindset is also eliciting from people their own answers. One of the key skills here is asking questions, and we have a whole chapter later when in the book where we talk about asking questions, how to use that effectively, but it is that you create reflective spaces by inviting people to stop and to think and to look at things from different places and different angles, and maybe asking the question, What you may not be seeing here, what you may not be paying attention to. So it's an is an intentional conversation, where we're inviting people to learn by looking at things from different angle, looking at things from places we're not paying attention to. And as a result of that, can be learning and growth. And I like to use the framework from clay Nancy clay, and she talks about 10 key elements of reflective spaces. And in the book, we explore everyone. But the idea is that to create a reflective space, you want to spend time having conversation, where first you embrace silence. So here is like you bite your tongue, and instead of telling people what to do, you give them space for people to think. And sometimes you may say, Okay, I don't have time. Yeah. Well, sometimes you may not have time, but you may look for opportunities when it's possible to spend some time having these conversations. And sometimes the conversations may not be formally in a meeting, that sometimes can be during a meal or walking to a meeting or driving in a car, so that can happen in different places, but the place should be

conducive to people being able to think, and place is one of the elements of these 10 elements from Nancy's claims model of more time to think. The other is about silence. It's about not interrupting. It's about letting people think without interrupting. And we usually interrupt because we won't tell people what we're thinking. We're afraid of losing our thoughts. But the idea in this model is when we're calling the space for people to think, we do not interrupt and we wait for people to finish, and then we ask them, okay, are you? Are you finished? So let me ask you another question or share your thought after that.

These are some of the elements it has to be, not interrupting right place, appreciating differences, being aware of the questions that you're asking, asking questions that make people think that go deeper, and I like to ask LA when we're thinking about coaching, conversations always going into directions from the present to the future, where we are and where we want to go, where we are or where we need to go, or where we are, and where should we go to accomplish whatever we need to accomplish. So these are the distance in the present towards the future, but then we want to go from where we are to what is underlying. So one go from the present to the future, and the other goes from the surface to the depth. What is underlying? What that underlying thoughts, and the line emotion, what is in their way? What can be limiting beliefs, what can be fears? So asking questions and exploring, going in these two directions is very helpful.

Yeah, it's really amazing. What happens when you create that reflective space and you just let your mind like, you know, explore, explore without feeling like rushed, because sometimes, when you you know you work in certain organizations, all you're thinking about is that next task right in front of you, when you create that space to open up and just consider problems that. Bubbling up and different ways to approach them with different points of view. Like you said, amazing things can happen. Yeah.

Yeah. You're saying sometimes, depending on the nature of the organization and the work, sometimes can be challenging. I'm not saying that it's easy to find this time, but again, when you have this coaching mindset, you're looking for any opportunity for any conversation to come from that place of curiosity you are talking and ask some questions to make people think, versus telling people what to do right away.

Yeah, yeah. And same thing as an individual, right, just creating that quiet space whenever possible to just explore what snacks or, yeah, just just letting your brain wander and see what solutions come up that that that won't come up if you're under pressure.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay, well, I think that's it for today.

Elaine, we had a great conversation today, looking forward to our next session, and thanks everybody for listening to us. We hope that this session today brought some new ideas for you so you can keep yourself continue growing and learning.