Lead Into It
Lead Into It is your go-to podcast for real, actionable leadership insights—no title required. Whether you're leading a team, a project, or just yourself, host Sara Greco brings you powerful conversations with leaders from corporate, nonprofit, hospitality, the U.S. military, and beyond. Each episode delivers tactical tools, fresh perspectives, and lasting inspiration to help you lead with confidence in your career and life.
Because leadership isn’t about a title—it’s about action.
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Lead Into It
46. Cultivating Curiosity as a Leader with Thomas Greek
Thomas Greek's leadership journey reads like a field guide for anyone who's ever struggled with the transition from boss to true leader. From his early days as a self-described "bossy boss" pointing at his metaphorical sheriff's badge, to becoming the youngest executive in his organization's history, Thomas reveals the pivotal moments that transformed his approach to leading others.
The conversation turns on a single question from a mentor who asked him, "Do you think your team likes working for you?" His initial response—"Does it matter?"—captures the mindset many new managers bring to leadership positions. This moment sparked a curiosity that would define his leadership philosophy moving forward.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is Thomas's willingness to share his vulnerabilities. He recounts landing an executive role running a multibillion-dollar credit card operation despite candidly admitting in the interview, "I'm not qualified for this job." His secret? Understanding that leadership excellence comes from building engaged teams and creating transformational environments, not from technical expertise alone.
Throughout our discussion, Thomas reveals practical frameworks like his "Three Ps" approach (People, Processes, Possibilities) and shares his favorite coaching question: "Is it true?" These simple but powerful tools have helped countless leaders shift from controlling to empowering, from telling to asking, and from feeling isolated to creating genuine connection.
Whether you're leading a small team or a large organization, Thomas's insights on psychological safety, workplace loneliness, and the integration of work and personal wellbeing offer a blueprint for more effective and fulfilling leadership. His parting wisdom? "Be kind. It's easy, it's free, and the world needs more of it."
Ready to transform your leadership approach? Learn more about Thomas's work helping leaders become coaches at thomasgreekcoaching.com.
Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn, subscribe to my Sunday newsletter, or reach out at sara@leadintoitco.
Excited to be back with you!
Hi and welcome to episode 46 of the Lead Into it podcast. Ever met someone with a similar last name and instantly felt like family? That's exactly how this episode kicks off, with a little Greek connection and a whole lot of leadership wisdom. Today, I'm joined by Thomas Greek, whose leadership journey is as real and relatable as it gets, from his early days of being the bossy boss his words, not mine to becoming a transformational leader and coach. Thomas gets candid about the tough lessons, the pivotal mentor moment that changed everything, and the power of leading with curiosity. He's gone from running billion dollar operations to launching a coaching program. That's all about helping leaders become better humans, and we get into all of it.
Sara :If you've ever wondered how to lead with more empathy, create psychological safety or just be a little bit more curious in your day-to-day leadership, this conversation is for you. Stick around. You're going to walk away with both inspiration and some seriously actionable takeaways. Let's get into it. Well, thomas, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited to talk to you. Considering our last names are so similar, we're probably somehow related. So Greco, greek, so we're probably already family in general.
Thomas:I feel that kinship already yeah.
Sara :I mean, we've only talked this is, I think, our second time talking but our first conversation a few weeks ago felt as though we've known each other for forever and when I was coming up with who to bring on for this season of lead into it, your name popped into mind, where I was like I would really enjoy a conversation with him and his background and kind of sharing some of the stories that we talked about. Just sharing that with others, cause I think they would really enjoy it.
Thomas:Well, I hope so. I hope they enjoy it as much as we will. I know we will. I think our first call was scheduled for an hour, and like two hours into it we're like okay, maybe we should wrap this up so we could talk all day about these things. So we'll, we'll try to keep it contained for your audience.
Sara :Well, I can always edit it too, so just know that whatever is being released, that might not be the whole episode, but we'll find out. Well, I'd love for you to kind of roll into your background, because this is a leadership podcast. Could you tell me kind of where your leadership journey began?
Thomas:Could you tell me, kind of, where your leadership journey began? Oh, it's a long, sordid tale. So you know, I've had a lifelong relationship with leadership. Even when I was, you know, little Thomas, kind of coming up in the world, leadership was always something that was a draw for me. When I was in school I was involved in a lot of different clubs and organizations. I was usually in some sort of leadership role. But even socially, I would say in my social network, there was a leadership role that I played with my friends and with my family. I don't know, sarah, exactly what drew me to it. I just knew that that felt like a comfortable role for me, that that felt like a comfortable role for me.
Thomas:Now I want to caveat heavily here and say that being drawn to something, having a passion for something, doesn't equate to being skilled at something. Certainly, early days of leadership for me, even before I entered into the workplace, it was a passion but a rough kind of experience. When I moved into the corporate world and found myself in my first leadership role, it very much felt like I was the boss, right, I'd been given this kind of positional authority. I always kind of joked, I had kind of a sheriff's badge and I wanted people to know I'd point to it and say, hey, look at me, I've got this positional authority. And so I was kind of a quintessential boss more than I was a leader.
Thomas:That took a lot of years, a lot of learning, a lot of experience, a lot of failing before I really would have said I was an effective leader. So maybe a long-winded answer, but it's always been there leadership with me. It's been an evolutionary journey that has had a lot of zigs and zags.
Sara :Thanks for sharing all that. I would love to hear more about the boss story because it feels like there is a pitfall that happens when we enter into our first supervisory managerial role. So could you dive in a little bit more about what that boss looked like and when you had your aha moment of changing?
Thomas:Yeah, and there really was a moment. So I and I do think this is instructive I do like to tell this tale, sarah, for the same reason that you're suggesting is that it's not. Sometimes I think people have this idea of like they'll move into a leadership role and then all will be well with the world, and yet we've all experienced bad bosses, so some things missing. There there's a gap, and for me personally, what happened was I was a very young supervisor, so I had a small team of people. I would have been probably 21, 22 years old and I had applied for this job. I was like many leaders right, the idea of you're doing really well at what you do and then had applied for this job. I was like many leaders, right, the idea of you're you're doing really well at what you do, and then you apply for the job leading those that do that job. It's the old what got you here won't get you there kind of concept.
Thomas:So I was, I was particularly good at the job, and then I became the supervisor of folks doing the job and I was a very self-s this day, a very driven, motivated beat the war drums get the thing done, and I think what happened was, when I moved into that role, I was very insistent on everybody matching me, matching my level of energy, my drive, doing the work that I the way that I would want to do it. So my team. What I learned early on in that first supervisory job was I could get results from my team. They just hated me along the way, right, and I think there's an academic lesson in that, where you know you can see that out there, where bad bosses are really authoritative, leaders can get results. I think the difference, though, is in that it's short-term results instead of long-lived. Certainly, turnover, lower engagement all of those were byproducts of my bossiness.
Thomas:But here's the aha moment. Right, I was pulled aside by somebody who was a bit of a mentor of mine. They were a little more senior, a little more tenured than me, and this gentleman pulled me aside and had a very tough love conversation, very stark conversation, where he basically said do you think your team likes working for you? And my initial response was like, does it matter? I mean really that kind of ego. It's like we're getting results, we're getting things done. Does it matter if they like me?
Thomas:And I think in kind of a proto-coaching conversation. He was really asking me questions like well, what do you think would happen if they did respect you? What more could you get out of them if they did trust you more? What would it look like if you had a better relationship with the people that you work with? So maybe without knowing it, he was coaching me in that context and it did unveil for me a moment of probably not altogether altruistic. There probably was a selfish component to me where those questions opened up for me an avenue to say, hmm, if I did behave differently I could get even more and it would make me look better. So I don't want to. You know I'm sounding like a monster, I'm like hoping your audience will remember I'm 21 years old, with too much power, m-ha-ha. But I think at the time it was the right conversation to at least open the door for me to understand that I could be a more effective leader if I practice some of those leadership traits.
Sara :So I'd be curious you were talking a little bit about how you're like. Well, maybe this will help improve the productivity of the team by me implementing. How did it, did your leadership style evolve as you implemented some of these different tactics and did you become more accepting of that leadership evolution?
Thomas:Yes, let's talk about the tactics. Let's be precise in some of like, what did I do differently? Right, because certainly there's a different mindset coming in, where you're switching from boss to leader, perhaps, but the behavior like what could you point to that was different from, you know, 21-year-old Thomas to 22-year-old Thomas. I think it started with trying to get to know the person behind the position. So what I did differently was try to break down some of those barriers to I'm the boss, you're the employee, and that looked like asking more questions about how they spent their weekend, who they were spending their time with, who and what mattered most to them, which, from a coaching perspective, I know now has a lot to do with values work. Didn't have that vocabulary then, but that was really what I was doing. I was trying to understand their motivations.
Thomas:Um, and I think it had to do with a little bit more wiggle room for the how, and here's what I mean by that. You know, as the leader of the team, I was still responsible for setting direction, and that looked like, you know, when something had to be done, what had to get done. But what I relinquished was the how, because I was again a very driven, control-oriented, task-oriented, leader right, you know those people. Leader right, you know those people. And so I wanted to micromanage right by another name.
Thomas:I wanted to be very precise in letting people know how to do the task. And if they veered off, then there was an abrasive conversation like why didn't you do it the way that I wanted you to do it? So the more evolved version of me let go of that question of how I could still be directive in the sense of when things had to get done and what format they needed to be received in, and then let it go and that empowered that's a big buzzword, I know, but it basically empowered them to figure that out on their own. And then I had to be okay with when things came in, not the way that I would have expected them to, as long as they still got done in a way that kind of fit the task. Then I had to learn to be okay with that. There was a lot of growth going on in those early formative years from boss to leader.
Sara :I was just thinking because you said 21 to 22,. As a 21 year old, your prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet either. So I mean they're saying it's even later now than 25. And when it comes to leading people, some I would say the pitfall that you've talked about and kind of the journey that you've talked about it seems like it wasn't fast forward, because you went from, uh, being a high achiever to becoming a leader and then you quickly evolved as a leader and from what I've seen and heard that I mean that can take 10 years. So or I mean.
Sara :I'm making a broader number, but it's it takes a long time to evolve into kind of creating your own leadership style and leadership philosophy that works for you and is productive.
Thomas:Yeah, you know, and it kind of it did take 10 years there. I don't want to make myself sound like a like a wonder kid. I think the difference is I was, I was heading down a path that I think was not going to serve me well, both professionally and from my own values perspective. I think it was. You know, the power was going to my head. You know this small team of like six people I had some authoritative power over.
Thomas:But I think the difference is, as well as being a very driven person, I'm a very curious person and I think what that mentor did for me was just unlock my curiosity and asking those questions Because I think it would have been different and this is, I know, foreshadowing to talking more about coaching. But had he just told me what I was doing wrong and told me to do things differently, I probably would have resisted that Because again, remember, I was getting results. My team was like would have resisted that Because again, remember, I was getting results. My team was like, top of the scorecard, I was getting it done. But I think by him asking those questions, it unlocked a path of curiosity where I can say maybe there's another way to do this, something you know to get super technical here, but the Dunning-Kruger effect are you familiar?
Sara :with. That Sounds familiar, yeah.
Thomas:Essentially boiling it down is that leaders in particular have this tendency to overestimate their ability. Right, and it's based on some work that two psychiatrists, dunning and Kruger, worked together to show that the people who think that they're the best at a particular task are usually not the best at the task. And so I and I'm. You know it's like you ask a hundred leaders if you know kind of where they are on a scale of one to 10, and they're all like I'm a nine or a 10. And we know that law of averages say that can't be true, but yet they feel that way.
Thomas:And I think, again that version of myself as a leader, I felt like I was doing such a good job. Had someone come and told me that I wasn't, I would have rooted down, gotten defensive, shown them all the ways they were wrong and not want it to pivot. But again, I think having someone engender that curiosity in me let me look for new and different paths. And so it started rapidly. I would say that I did make a very fundamental shift and I think it took all the years to build on that.
Sara :That's pretty incredible to think about how early the coaching mindset kind of came into play in your career.
Thomas:Yeah, yeah. Without even knowing it, I didn't have the words right, the vocabulary wasn't there but it was there taking root.
Sara :Yeah, and there's a lot of you talked about empowerment. Empowering, I think another key term that is getting thrown around a lot is psychological safety, where it's basically feeling safe enough to bring up issues that you might have or ideas that you have for improvement, which all kind of. I personally feel like those fall into a coaching bucket 100%.
Thomas:I mean, you know some of the key tenants of coaching is seeing people as whole and resourceful, really believing in because there's there's a little bit of a faith element to coaching, where you believe that they have all the answers that they need. And and again, this, this sensibility of like them, being whole people, not just their work persona and their, you know, personal lives, but just being whole and complete. That is the precursor, I think, to psychological safety. You know that, as a receiver of that, knowing that your leader is looking at you as resourceful and whole, that they know that you're more than just the automaton, the worker bee, that's the starting point, right For trust and being able to brought ideas or fail and fail forward. I think that's an absolute necessity for psychological safety.
Sara :Yeah, and it's very true, I think, even now. So before, without cell phones and having less access to internet, you were nine to five, that's it. And now that we're constantly available, having this whole person, idea, um and understanding that everyone is a whole person, is even more important, just because we can be reached and connected to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Thomas:Yeah, I think, sarah, you're spot on. The technology has definitely enabled that. That bleed over between work and home. Right, you can't say like, well, I can't take it with me now, it's there waiting for you. And I think culturally there are some differences too, in that you know some of this, even generational, that the younger folks in the workplace today expect it of their leaders. Like I used to say, again with good intention, when I was in leadership roles many, many years ago, I used to say to my teams leave your troubles at the door, let the workplace be an oasis, right, just set it down, come in here.
Sara :An oasis. I love that.
Thomas:It wasn't. Yeah right, it's so beautiful the imagery and yet it wasn't true then. It isn't true now. If you're, you know you've got a kid that's struggling in school, you're caring for an elder more and you're going through relationship issues you name it that's coming with you into the workplace. So, yes, it's true that now, because of technology, work is coming into your home. But your home life was always coming with you into the workplace and only really in the last few years, post-covid in particular, has that been a major area of focus, for employers is recognizing that. But it has made leadership harder because, again, a younger version of me leading teams I wasn't expected to do that, to be that kind of armchair therapist for my employees' problems Today. I think that's very different for leaders, that that's a bit of an expectation of the job.
Sara :And I think the employees expect that of their boss too, which throws them off guard because they're like well, hold on, do you need a tissue? I didn't have a box in my office and I'm always like I always have a box of tissues in your office.
Sara :now you become in order for people to be their whole selves and to feel safe. I mean, I'm reiterating everything that we've already talked about, but you really have to create this environment so that they can be their whole selves, their authentic selves, their whole person, and then you get the full value and productivity out of that person too.
Thomas:Yes, right, and I love that last bit. There is a throughput to business right Because I think there are some. There is a throughput to business Right Because I think there are some leaders that maybe a little older school like me, who just they might feel a little resistant or ill-equipped. It might not be that they don't want to do it, they just aren't really sure how Like, is it OK for me to talk about this? How do I talk about this? I don't have the skills. So, either way, I think that the the end line here, the bottom line right. The old banker in me is always looking for that bottom line, the reason to do it. There are many moral reasons to do it, but the business reason to do it is you will actually get a better work product. Go figure. If you create that psychological safety, that engaged environment where your team members do feel seen and safe, they'll give you more. That's the business reason, if not the moral reason to do it.
Sara :So true. So we just touched the surface level of your career so far and obviously you had a pretty in-depth career at the same location for a pretty long while. Can you kind of talk about that leadership evolution as you continued in that organization?
Thomas:Yeah, actually, you know, kind of stepping off of the last part of the story, you know I, you know, from boss to leader, okay, we'll call that chapter one. So you know, chapter two was it worked? You know, go figure, like getting to know your team and trusting them, empowering them, failing forward, like go figure that some of those skills would be returned, which, by the way, I mentioned, you know, early on. I don't know that I did those changes completely out of altruism. I did think that this could help me differentiate myself as a distinct and different kind of leader, and it definitely worked. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to paint myself too bad a picture. I'm just trying to be very real in the sense that it wasn't just like my values alarm was going off and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm treating people this way and I don't want to be that leader. That's also true. But the reason I mentioned that is because I still got results. I got better results for having shifted my leadership style and so I got promoted again and now I'm leading leaders right, I'm in a managerial position again at a very young age in this very big organization and then quickly thereafter rose to the ranks of executives and a little bit of a I don't know if it's a point of pride or a point of interest but I was the youngest executive in this company's almost 100 year history.
Thomas:I was, you know, again, probably at this point, 26, 27, you know in an executive role managing, by the way, a multibillion dollar operation. Executive role managing, by the way, a multibillion-dollar operation. So this was a lot of responsibility, both in terms of the human capital and for the profit and loss center that I was running in the hands of a 27-year-old. And I think the reason that happened again, coaching, right, I didn't have the language, I didn't have the vocabulary, but it was a very coachy leadership style that I was employing and it worked. Let me give you again for instance, just to make this more real and less abstract. So I was responsible for a credit card operation. I was running a credit card lending shop and at this stage of my life, at 27, I didn't even have a credit card. I knew nothing about credit cards, nothing, right. So I remember I was actually in a developmental program for kind of up and coming leaders and the position had come open, you know, to be the vice president of this shop and really more out of curiosity, I applied for the role, competed against all the who's who of the organization.
Thomas:And I remember, going into the interview, sarah, the very first question it was this firing squad of senior executives and they asked a very appropriate first question what are your qualifications for this job? And I'll never forget this I said I don't have any. It just kind of came out of my mouth like in a very extroverted like. Did I just say that out loud kind of moment. I was like I'm not qualified for this job. And I remember they turned and looked at each other and this wasn't really a strategy on my part. It's fun to tell the tale and retro, retroactively, but at the time I was, I'm sure I turned ghost white and you know I was like what? What did I just say? And they're like, okay, tell me more about that. And I said, listen, I don't know anything about this product. I've never run a lending operation before. I don't know anything about balance sheets, marketing, all the rest. What I do know how to do was build engaged teams. I know how to create transformation. I know how to create the right kind of climate where we can do the new and the different and do it well and get results, and I think that was enough of an intrigue to move on to question two. And then, go figure, I ended up getting the job. So, from the very first answers I'm not qualified to and I probably wasn't qualified, but they gave me the job anyway and off we went. So, yeah, that was the next stage of my career, and I think I'll land the plane here, at least if you have more questions.
Thomas:I think the next pivotal moment, though, was while I'm running this multi-billion dollar credit card operation and responsible for bringing in all the bucks for the organization which, by the way, was over the Great Recession.
Thomas:So that was a really interesting time to be running a business over that 2008 period. But what I was doing, without knowing it, was building a reputation for myself as a teacher. So I had been along my career path. I had been a trainer, a classroom trainer, I had led a team of trainers, kind of school principal, if you will, but more than that, I think what I was doing was cementing for myself a reputation in the organization as someone who coached again didn't have that language, but I was, you know, coaching, mentoring, really, by another name, hundreds of people, whether that was in large group settings. I would just call all the leaders into a conference room and talk about a different leadership topic, invite their answers in to the conversation, set up book clubs. I was doing all of this almost as a side gig while I'm supposed to be focusing in on these lending products. Eventually, you know, my bosses were like okay, like we get it.
Thomas:You know, mr Leader Guy, why don't you go over and run our learning and development operation and that was, you know, almost maybe the halfway point of my 25-year career there, and so there was a recognition that that was a passion and a strength of mine helping to develop other leaders and so that's what I did, for the second half of my career was led our learning and development operation, which let me really lean into how we train our leaders to be better leaders.
Sara :Yeah, and to say that you went from I'm not being qualified to training the traders and training leaders is pretty cool to hear about.
Sara :I will say I feel like this proves a point of mine that I'm very passionate about, where I often believe that if you are a good leader, you can be anywhere. You can be in IT, you can be in a restaurant, you could be leading a construction crew. You don't have to be an expert in your field, you have to be an expert in leadership, and that's why I think the military does well in a lot of different ways, because that's something that is a theme, and so, while, yes, you might not have been qualified in that specific area, you knew how to lead teams and so you could insert yourself into that operation and be like okay, well, leading back to an earlier point about empowering your team and not worrying about the how you came in I'm assuming and didn't worry too much about the how You're like what's the goal and how do we get there and what do you person, team, how do you influence this specific part? Go do.
Thomas:You have nailed that perfectly, perfectly, and you know I would say that again, this goes back to curiosity, right? Cultivating our curiosity is something that my passion is really beating the war drums to help leaders be more curious and surrender the idea of having to know, because I think again, like here, I am in this executive role in this example, and I could have come in with a lot of self-doubt. And you know, talk about imposter syndrome. It was beyond. You know, the whole idea of imposter syndrome is you hope that people won't discover you, right, that you're. You know that someday they're going to the secret is revealed.
Thomas:Well, I already gave that up, you know, in the literal interview. I surely wasn't coming to this team of experts and saying, like I know all this stuff, like I know how to run this operation, they would have seen right through it and I didn't believe it in the first place. So it wasn't really imposter syndrome, but it was an opportunity for me to be entirely curious, just like you described, when I'd show up to a team let's say I had, you know, a card fraud operation right to a team that had you know a card fraud operation, right, like what did I know about neural network processing, and you know security and fraud and disputes, absolutely nothing. So instead I showed up full of curiosity, like you know. Teach me, tell me, help me understand what it is that you do.
Thomas:Back to that sentiment of surrendering the how. That wasn't my objective anymore. I could not tell them what to do. It was more about inviting from others that same sense of curiosity so that we could create something new and different. So that again, I think, is such a critical leadership skill that's overlooked is curiosity, as not knowing can be an incredible strength.
Sara :In addition to everything that you just spoke of, which is so important, when people get to talk about what they do and how they do it, they have a sense of pride and authenticity to what they do, and that creates a little bit more sense of empowerment and autonomy, and that also helps create more productivity and space where people do better work.
Thomas:By the way, to that point, you know, I'll share this with your listeners, something that I share with leaders that I coach today. It's kind of the three Ps, I call it, and I don't know if I'm borrowing this from somebody somewhere, so I'll have to give credit to the universe. But basically it goes like this like people, processes, possibilities, and as this example goes like. So here I am in this brand new role, in this executive role, and what I had learned by then again from the boss, the leader, chapter one, was to really get to know the people behind the position. So the very first thing I did, really in this order, was I didn't show up at asking a bunch of questions about the processes. I showed up and asked them questions about themselves. Like you know, hey, jane, tell me a little bit about yourself. Hey, john, you know where do you spend your time, how do you spend your weekends? They were in many ways ready for me to hear about the process. Right, they're proud of what they do, they're experts at what they do, and I had to like slow them down a bit. Like we're going to get to that. We're going to get to that Right now. I just want to know about you and, by the way, a big part of that vulnerability is sharing a bit about myself, so it didn't sound like an interrogation.
Thomas:I think sometimes when leaders talk about being vulnerable with their teams, it often looks like letting other people tell them about themselves and they don't do the same. So I was very, very quick to share a little bit about myself beyond the workplace, like who I am, how I spend my time, with whom I spend my time, invite in from them. And then we moved to the processes, where it was very much a discovery process, where I would ask these wonderful experts right, that are so proud of what they do, tell me about what you do and how you do it. And then we moved into the possibilities, which was the opportunities for transformation. So I like to, you know, share that with leaders that I work with, because I think that order in my experience has been really pivotal it's know the person behind the position, build trust and then seek to understand and then co-create the new and the different with those wonderful folks. It's a brilliant recipe.
Sara :Yeah, and it I mean you build a foundation and then you just grow from there.
Thomas:Yeah, and it's, if you said that at the beginning.
Sara :it's so much easier to from there on out, but you can do it at any time. You can make these changes at any time.
Thomas:You know, I often have to remind people when I'm coaching a leader and they're so quick to want to get to the possibility stage right, like they just got the job and they want to prove, they want to validate to the organization, to their myself I already got the job right, I'm not interviewing for this job anymore. Like I'm in it and I think there's a little bit of a surrender because it does take a little more time to get there, to really pause and get to know the people and go through the discovery process. I could have started from a place of like oh well, we need to change the way that we make these offers and we need to change the way that we do this and just start throwing out changes. We know these leaders right, like we know what it's like to be on the receiving end of that.
Thomas:It's like you know where someone's going to come in and tell you that this needs to change and they haven't stopped to even ask why you do it in the first place and the context and history you get it.
Sara :Yeah, the context and history, you get it. Yeah, and not to say that something doesn't need to be changed. But if you sit back and just wait, you might find the reasons why they do it the way that they do it, and it might not be something that you thought of. Like you have to see the full picture before you make the changes, before you have to see it play into full scope and a full cycle type thing. In the military we're always taught like when we enter into a new role because we switch roles all the time wait 30 days, Just wait 30 days and set the tone, but also sit back and see what happens and what the processes are in place and then, after your 30 days, see what you want to change.
Thomas:That is sage advice. One of the things I think we forget when we're in a leadership role is the and this again, that's another part of coaching keeps coming up, but the emotional undercurrent and what I mean by that is like with change management, it's really about the feelings, and I know for me I was an analyst, I'm very I would describe myself as very left-brained, and feelings in the early part of my career were not a regular topic of conversation. I still sometimes pinch myself that now, as a coach, I'm talking about feelings all day, every day. But I think, even again, without the language I understood well enough, that the change management principles behind any effort really have to do with feelings. So making this tangible what I mean by that is like this 30-day process of like letting it sit and sitting with your team and not being so quick to make changes.
Thomas:More often than not, those folks know that the thing needs to change. You know you think about like a weird example perhaps, but zooming out and thinking about, you know, bottled water versus tap water, right, and the reason we are so keen on paying hundreds of times more for bottled water than tap water is because of how we feel about it. Like there's been plenty of like blind tests. Tap water tastes just as good as bottled water. It's just as safe in most parts of the country, but yet we feel a certain way about it. Every commercial has smiley, happy people in it where they could just read you the facts. Our feelings matter. So even those people, those experts on the team that know that a process or procedure needs to be changed, it's trying to really help them understand the feelings behind it so that they'll be invested in the change, they'll feel part of the change, some sense of ownership, and not just feel like something's being done to them. Does that make sense?
Sara :Oh, for sure, Because when you feel like you're part of the process and part of the change itself, it's different than it happening to you. You're happening with it. Yes, Right.
Thomas:And this again it's where, like you know, if I'm coaching a leader, sometimes you know, in the business environment, our feelings are, you know, kind of that third rail. You don't want to talk about them, you don't want to deal with them. And I have to remind leaders sometimes again to that bottom line effort is you're going to get the change is going to be better received, you're going to invite more buy-in and ultimately get there faster, with less friction, if we can attend, go figure to their feelings, and then the leader might come around like, okay, all right, the lack we have, let's talk about our feelings.
Sara :Everyone has feelings. Everyone's human. Everyone's a person. Let's just accept that.
Thomas:Absolutely.
Sara :We've talked a lot about your leadership journey, which I love hearing about because I think it led you to coaching, which we keep bringing up in little spurts. But how did you transition from being an executive to doing leadership, to training leaders, to coaching?
Thomas:Yeah, this is kind of a fun story too. So again, I think, like my, my passion for leadership has always been there. My passion for coaching has been there too, but a little bit more covert. So my introduction to coaching when I went to lead our learning and development operation, we had some folks on the team in an organizational development capacity who had some expertise in coaching. They had gone to coaching school. They brought that into the organization but it was very.
Thomas:You know, coaching had a very negative connotation in the organization. The few times that we actually pulled in an external coach to work with an executive was because the executive wasn't doing well, right, and you know their leaders didn't want to have the kinds of critical conversations that probably needed to be had. So, you know, get our coach, and you know we'll use that as the salve or the solution for the problem. And what that did, you know the consequences of that was, it created this kind of connotation where nobody would want a coach, right, like it's like. Oh, you know Thomas just volunteered to get a coach. Oh, he must be on his way out. There must be a problem, there must be there must be stagnant in his career, Right?
Thomas:So nobody wanted to touch coaching. And, um, so I had this wonderful team of super talented ODs that had gone to coaching school and I had gotten to see, through them coaching me, some really cool examples of the power of coaching. And the strategy to shift gears was to go to my most senior leaders the CEO and COO of the organization and offer them up a coach. Now, this was an external coach, right? Because you know it's going to be easier to bring somebody in who wasn't associated with the organization. And so we did that and a few other senior leaders, because I knew a little bit of faith here that they were going to have an amazing experience. Oftentimes, as you know, Sarah, the coaching especially in the past coaching was really only offered at those levels because of the price tag. But also, when you get to that level, when you're the CEO or the CEO or the CFO or anybody in the C-suite, a traditional leadership development offering is usually not what they're after, right? They already know how to do the job. They're top of their game. Coaching, of course, offered up something completely different where it was, but likewise they also veered away from therapy or anything that seemed like therapy because, again, the stigma associated with it. So this was a little bit of a cross-pollinization. There was a developmental aspect, a therapeutic aspect, personalized to what they need at that time, and so of course, they were going to love it, and they did. They absolutely loved it, and that did two things for me. One, it helped to embolden my plans for coaching within the organization in terms of funding and planning. But it also changed the paradigm where now I could point to those experiences with their permission and say, hey, look, they got a coach. And don't you believe that? All the other executives are like, how did I get a coach? They changed the entire game. And so from there I started working on building out coaching at multiple levels in the organization and, to bring it back into my experience with coaching, I got curious.
Thomas:Again, this theme of curiosity keeps coming up. I wanted to learn more about it. I was surrounded by it at this point within my team and some external folks that I was working with, and I decided I'm going to go to school, I'm going to go take myself to coaching school. And I had done you know, being in that learning and development space a lot of the other psychometric assessments, EQ and the BPI and DISC, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that wasn't so different for me the idea of me taking myself to school to learn about a product or a service that we offered it made me a better advocate. But coaching was different. It was transformative. It completely changed my trajectory, both in life and at work, and set me on a completely different path. But yeah, that was how I got introduced to coaching and what I did to help make it a reality in my organization.
Sara :And what did you notice after coaching got more integrated in the organization?
Thomas:I think the biggest changes were the shift from telling to asking. That was what manifested quickly, right and I see this even today with leaders that I work with when I'm teaching these coaching skills to other leaders that you know leaders are problem solvers. They're paid to solve problems, right. So every problem in search of a solution comes their way and they feel a responsibility to provide that answer. And we know that that comes with some level of decision fatigue. Right, when you're being asked questions all day long, you think about this. Sarah, you get home after a long day of answering everybody's questions.
Sara :What do you want for?
Thomas:dinner. Yes, exactly what do you want for dinner? Oh my God, not one more question, I don't care.
Sara :Just tell me what I'm having.
Thomas:You got it, you got it. It wears you down, it does so. I think you know the number one challenge that people have with coaching as a skill is learning to resist the urge to give advice, to solve problems via filling out answers. You're still solving problems, by the way. You still get to do that. You're just doing it through an interrogative process, by asking questions and, again, believing in the people that you work with to come up with viable solutions.
Thomas:But that was probably the biggest change, I think, and I'll add to it. Let me add also this sense of the whole person. That was also a huge shift, I think, organizationally. And again, the pandemic helped bring some of this about, this idea of like you know we are one person and that we're more integrated than we'd like to believe, or even a spouse. So I think that was another huge benefit of introducing coaching, because you can imagine even the receiving end of coaching. Those leaders that were being coached found themselves able to talk about their personal lives in a way. Again it wasn't quite therapy, even if it's therapeutic, but in a way that was like wow, I can see how I can lead my teams better if I feel better about myself personally, be it physically, spiritually, financially, any of those dimensions of wellness and well-being. Wellbeing go figure, and so I think that had a ripple effect throughout the organization.
Sara :It's interesting that you bring that up, because there's an organization I'm part of right now where we talk a lot Empowered Women Empower Women. But in the same sense, empowered Leaders Empower Leaders because it's you see, the experience that you have, and you see the situations and you it's usually a very similar situation that people are struggling with a similar obstacle. And so when you yourself, as a leader, have encountered that obstacle before, you can see it in another person and be like oh, I see that they're really overwhelmed at home. Oh, I can see that this project has a lot of steps and they're very just overwhelmed with the amount of steps that it has and doesn't don't know where to start. It doesn't know where it's going to make the most impact. And so when you go through that experience, and maybe what I'm coming to is like, as a leader, the reason you're leading is because you have that experience, and so now you can kind of guide those people while you're leading through empowerment.
Thomas:Go figure right, it's absolutely. I think that's a great example of how, if you've experienced it for yourself, you're much more likely to see it in others and want that for others. I think that's true.
Sara :And it's the self awareness that coaching brings, because everyone goes through all the things, but coaching brings that self-awareness that you weren't even there, like you completely level up.
Thomas:Oh my God, right, you know it's. It's funny, you know, when, either teaching coaching or talking to a leader in a coaching context, we of course start with self-awareness and there's, I think, a natural resistance to this idea that they're not self-aware, right? They're like. Well, I've been me for 47 years. Who knows me better than me? I am plenty self-aware. And then, through coaching, you discover blind spots that you didn't know were there. Context about the narrative. You know the story you've been telling others and yourself about yourself for all these years. Maybe isn't quite what you think it is. Maybe you're just so quick to throw the headlines out that you missed the bylines. There's such great work in the coaching space for building self-awareness and sometimes those folks that feel like they've got more of it are surprised to find how much more there is to know, which is a beautiful process to watch.
Sara :It leans back into your curiosity theme, being curious about what that might. You might be leaning into Absolutely your work throughout corporate and training the leaders and coaching and creating this coaching team. What would you say?
Thomas:some of the common gaps were that you encountered or maybe you're the coaches that you led encountered- you know, one of the things that that surprised me, I think yeah, I gotta use that word I was. I was taken aback, for sure when I was coaching these leaders, that how much loneliness showed up in those conversations. So you know, this was years ago before. You know, our prior surgeon general declared, you know, the loneliness epidemic, which I found fascinating, and there's been a lot of great work on some social science about loneliness today and all the repercussions of it. But early days of my coaching experience I started hearing that word come up from people that I didn't expect it from.
Thomas:These were people who were leading large teams, you know. So they were certainly surrounded by plenty of others. They were often married or partnered, kids, the whole social network. And yet there was this sense of disconnectedness which you know. We mentioned technology earlier. You know there's an obvious kind of paradox that we're more connected now than ever through social media, fast travel, connected now than ever through social media, fast travel and yet more and more people were finding themselves lonely and in the workplace I think what they did was there was this lack of connection. They weren't sure how to connect with people in a very meaningful way and I think through coaching. There was a lot of exploration about, like, how to get past that a lot of social anxiety, vulnerability issues and when you saw a leader get to the other side of that, where they got closer to more meaningful relationships, what that did to unlock their leadership potential was just a beautiful thing to witness.
Sara :That's interesting. What do you think the correlation between loneliness and experiencing connectedness is to leadership?
Thomas:I think, at the end of the day, leadership is about relating right. It's relating to the people around you yes, your teams, but also your peers, to your customers, your clients. I mean you pick it. It's about making connections with others and I think when you're feeling like you can't do that effectively whether that's a, you know again, some sort of limiting belief about yourself or about your environment, where you lock that part of yourself away it, I think, makes leading others hard. Harder. It's friction, where they just don't know how to connect with someone in a way that's going to be fruitful.
Sara :And I guess that relates back to what we were talking about earlier when you want to talk to the person and learn about people, when you're able to be vulnerable and make that connection that reduces the amount of loneliness that you have.
Thomas:Yeah, you know there's. There's a um, a model that I like. Um that I I work with a lot of leaders and I mentioned earlier, like social anxiety, limiting beliefs, um, self-fulfilling prophecies. I've tried this before. It didn't work. So there's a particular model that I like. It's from um, uh, tommy Spalding's book. It's not just who you know, I think it's the name of the book and it's the five floors of connectedness. And basically, quickly, succinctly, it goes like this Like the first floor is the transaction, right, it's seeing somebody in the hallway, saying hi, making eye contact, and of course we're not in hallways as often as we used to be, so those transactional relationships don't appear as often as they used to, but they're meaningful, they're important.
Thomas:You know, the second floor is something a little bit more like water cooler. Talk back in the day. You talk about the news, the weather, sports, maybe not the news these days that's a little polarizing, but anybody can talk about the weather. Right, it's so hot out there. Oh, that rain will it ever end?
Thomas:Level three is a little more collegial. That might be where you start asking about your weekend. How was your weekend? You know, just take the kids to the movies. You know something a little bit safe. You're still not sharing deep personal truths, but more. And then, quickly, level four is friendship. You'd be friends with that person whether you worked at the organization or not. You can share, you know, opposing beliefs and thoughts and not terminate the relationship.
Thomas:And then level five is the pinnacle, where you're reserved for your spouse, your partner, your kids, maybe a best friend or two, right? So the reason I bring this up is for people who are struggling to make connection and they just don't know where to start. A model like that can be helpful because you can start from the bottom. Most relationships tend to be evolutionary in nature, right, you know, aside from a rom-com, meet cute. You don't generally go from like level one to level five.
Thomas:Right, takes time, but this way you can, you know, help people understand that. Like, start off with, like you know, you see this person in the office, make some eye contact, say hello, how are you? Then? Start commenting on the weather, and then maybe you start asking about, like you know, their Netflix binge habits and then maybe eventually you graduate to spending time on the weekend. So, you know, trying to take this out of the abstract, this idea of like okay, you're lonely and you're feeling disconnected. What do you do about it? Helping through coaching, through curiosity, helping them figure out a way for themselves to move from here to there.
Sara :Yeah, and the key is, I think, to not doom scroll Like social media. Might be social in it, but let me tell you it doesn't create connection whatsoever.
Thomas:Nope, we'll be unpacking that for generations to come, won't we Right?
Sara :Okay, so let's switch a little bit and go into, kind of we talked a little bit about loneliness and how to build connection. Is connected this and building those relationships and self-awareness what kind of relate into personal wellbeing and creating that world? What role would you say that wellbeing and personal growth play into a leader's overall effectiveness?
Thomas:I think it's. There's a huge correlation between being well and being an effective leader. I think, again, the pandemic to draw on that is really helping people understand that, whether it's your own mental health, this is oxygen mask, right? So you know, I love to use that kind of imagery with the leaders that I coach, where I'm like okay, you know, you have to put the oxygen mask on first so that you can take care of others. Most leaders that I know that I work with are in that position because they like taking care of others. It's some form of nourishing the tribe, right? And I'm not surprised that most leaders I know are really good at taking care of their families, taking care of their community, taking care of their customers and their teams. You're taking care of a whole lot of people and generally they put themselves last on that list.
Thomas:So part of my work is helping to convince them. It's again back to this kind of like bottom line. You know, return on investment. If you will spend more time investing in your own wellness and wellbeing, you will have more energy to give to your partner, your company, your community, your friends and everybody else in your orbit. So I think it has an oversized impact on leadership effectiveness, but I think that's a relatively new. I think it's always been true, but I think we're understanding it better now, more I mean, some of the themes that you're hearing are burnout is on the rise higher than ever. You know the job responsibilities of a leader today. We already mentioned a few. It's like the armchair therapist there's new and different elements of leading today. Leadership has always been hard work, work that matters, but it's been hard and the leaders today have it much harder still having to manage remotely, make these kinds of connections through a virtual medium, managing that whole person sensibility, creating a psychologically safe place to work, et cetera, et cetera.
Sara :It's not about just doing the job anymore. It's not about just checking out things, getting the stack smaller.
Thomas:It's not that it really things getting the stack smaller, like it's not that. It really isn't.
Sara :When it comes to well-being and the people that you coach. Is there a cue or something that you notice of somebody who might be close to burnout?
Thomas:You know, I think it's kind of a perpetual question for me. I think most are of a perpetual question for me, I think most are. So I think I probably go in with a little bit of an assumption mixed with some curiosity. So one of the things I do with all of the leaders that I coach is some sort of wellness check and that could be a wellness wheel where you know and sometimes this surprises them again because they may come to me with a very in their mind, a very distinct, defined challenge that they're facing right, like I want to get promoted and I'm like great, let's get to that after we do this wellness wheel. And so there's sometimes a little bit of a like wait, why are we talking about my spiritual or financial wellness when I'm really wanting to get promoted?
Thomas:And so you know, I'll try to wade into those waters sensitively and with some compassion and help them understand again that oxygen mask metaphor of yes, believe it or not, if you're feeling well in these dimensions, you are more likely to present yourself in a way that is more likely to get promoted or to find fulfillment in other areas of your life. So I think just to answer more bluntly, I think it's there for everybody in some degree. It's just a matter you know like. Today it's burnout, but for years prior to that it was work-life balance, this never-ending quest that we were on by a different name. I think most leaders have to find the way to integrate both parts of their life in a way that feels satisfactory to them.
Sara :That's true. I also have heard about the work-life integration too, where it's like it's not about work-life balance, it's work-life integration. We talked about technology earlier. We're constantly being reached out to have constant connection. How do you put your phone down and just kind of be the other thing that is interesting to hear. I love that you do a whole, a whole picture of your clients, because it's interesting to see that maybe it's not that you're like I want to be promoted, but did you know that actually here's some aspects that might help improve your whole life and go forward with promotion? So it's interesting to hear that Also. The last thing I want to mention is for regards to this is when the people that you lead see that you are working on your full self, they will also work on their full self, and that is such a good consequence result of the work that you're doing as a leader.
Thomas:Right. Oftentimes, these same leaders that bulked at the assignment at first blush will take that back to their teams and they'll find themselves asking their team members about their wellness, their overall levels of wellbeing. And I'm just, you know, I couldn't be a more proud pop. I'm like, yeah right, go figure.
Sara :This is a perfect, perfect transition into coaching the leaders and teaching them how to coach. Do you want to dive into a little bit of that?
Thomas:Yeah, let's do that. You know, certainlyling back to kind of my career journey. Where I left off was I was leading or learning and development operation, right, and I had done that for 10 or more years and then another opportunity came my way. You know, this is maybe an example of manifestation, right, about how some of these things like even finding my way into the learning and development if you remember from my story, it's because I was kind of already doing it for the organization as like I don't know gig work and others around me recognized it and said, hey, why don't you go over to learning and development and lead that operation? So I did that for 10 years and I had, during that time, gone to coaching school and come out the other side of the change and I really doubled down on mentoring by another name, right, and there is a distinction, of course, between mentoring and coaching, but I think I was doing coaching under the guise of a mentorship, right. So people would seek me out because of you know where I was on an org chart and then find themselves in the coachee seat, you know, with my newfound coaching powers. Yeah, all to say, that I had, you know, at any time I probably had dozens of people that I was mentoring, and this again was while I was leading a learning and development operation. So I don't know how I got away all these years doing all this side work. You know not the stuff that was on my job description, but there you go.
Thomas:So I had built a reputation for myself as a coach and so some new leadership had come in and they had seen for themselves the power of having an internal coaching presence, a really strong internal coaching presence. So the offer came across my desk Would you like to go and start up our coaching operation and be the vice president of talent coaching? So I kind of aside from learning and development, kind of adjacent to it, and started our very first ever internal coaching wing. And when I took on that responsibility it was kind of a sandbox. It's like, ok, congratulations. And when I took on that responsibility, it was kind of a sandbox. It's like, okay, congratulations, you're now our first fully dedicated internal coach. Go right, go do something. Coach the people, teach the people, whatever.
Thomas:And I realized quickly that there was one of me and 20,000 of them, and so the idea of me coaching individually one-on-one, which was an element of it. I did do one-on-one coaching, but I could only do so many of those, and so really I had become a bit of an evangelist about coaching as a skill, having gone to coaching school myself, that I wanted to bring this to the masses. So I developed a program Leaders as Coaches internal to the organization and phoned a few friends by other executives around the organization to see if anybody would be interested, and before you know it, we had hundreds of people come through this program hundreds and the idea was not necessarily to turn them into coaches, right, because I always say coaching is a skill, coaching is a mindset and coaching is a job. So what I was offering is two of the three of those, right, so come into a program we. Basically. The program was a six-month cohort program where I taught them how to be better coaches, because we're also not starting from zero, right, most, if not all, leaders already coach, they already ask questions, they already listen deeply, they already exercise some empathy. So this was a matter of elevating their coaching skills to move them closer to asking instead of telling, and it was such a huge success. The participants came out the other side feeling that they were more effective at leadership at large and were able to apply their coaching skills in their workplace.
Thomas:I was just overwhelmed with all the testimonials that kind of came from the experience. But I think one of the cool things was a little anecdote was how much it was helping them in their personal lives. Of cool things was a little anecdote was how much it was helping them in their personal lives. I mean, of course you know we're being paid to do this. That's the you know the reason why we're there. But oh, like the, uh, this, the sense of like I'm, uh, I was able to have a better relationship with my kids because of this coaching skill, to relate better to my partner, my parents.
Thomas:Um, it's a life skill, right? I mean, of course it's going to help you in the workplace, but it's really great when you can see them coaching themselves, trying to figure out what is and is not in their control. Just beautiful work. So that ultimately led me Sarah. After two years of doing that work, I decided to take the show on the road. After a 25-year career, I retired from that organization and struck out on my own, and now what I'm doing today is traveling around the country teaching leaders how to coach. So that's become not just my passion, but my purpose.
Sara :Yeah, so it's interesting how curiosity has led you all the way around to help other people become curious.
Thomas:I love it Right.
Sara :Brilliant. So if you were to give and this might be a hard question to answer, so let me know but if you were to give kind of the top level for folks that are listening, um, in what would be the top things that you would recommend them embrace as a leader who wants to embrace coaching, or a leader as a coach?
Thomas:Let's stick with the theme of curiosity, right, because the best coaches are the curious coaches they really are. You know, sometimes the idea is being comfortable, not knowing. You know, coming into any situation, even situations where you are the subject matter expert of really coming in with a beginner's mindset and striving to understand another person's perspective a new opportunity. It is so freeing when you can really adopt that mindset where you don't have to have all the answers, even when you think you do that, you can question your own thinking, challenge your own rationality, because you know better people than me have explained that we want to be right more than we want to be happy. So as soon as we have an idea, we want to lock into it, defend it to the hilt, and I think the best advice I can give to someone who really is interested in seeking out that kind of coaching mindset or adopting coaching skills is to get curious. That is the best thing you can do for yourself and it will show up, you know. Because, getting back to behaviors, what does that look like? That's a very coachy thing to say, but what it means is you're going to listen more effectively, you know. You're going to ask better effectively. You're going to ask better questions. You're going to be attuned to their body language. You're going to learn to tap into your intuition right.
Thomas:All these wonderful coach skills may manifest through different behaviors and instead of doling out answers right away, you know I have to remind leaders too. It's not like you can never give an answer. I would never say that. It's just that usually that's our starting point and all I'm suggesting is, behaviorally, that becomes the second thing or the third thing. You do Start with a question and then find your way. If the questions aren't leading to good answers, then maybe offer up an answer of your own, but don't start there. So I think you know, just taking it out of the abstract, like what does curiosity look like in that setting? Asking better questions, being a better listener, trusting your instincts and your intuition, you will show up differently, and I think that's wonderful.
Sara :And I've often heard that we listen to respond instead of listening to understand. So embracing that with the curiosity mindset that you just spoke of can do wonders, because, again, we do always want to be right. I mean, I'm always right, I know Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Thomas:But if we embrace it, I'll tell you here's the thing that I always my favorite coaching question right. So I get paid to ask questions all the live long day and I've got all the questions. Here's my favorite one and I offer this up to any of your listeners One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself and others. Three words is it true? And that T needs to be capital T true, objectively true? Because what often happens, you know, in the sense of like always needing to be right, is you may have a thought, that might be.
Thomas:You know, I'm not credentialed enough for this job, so I won't bother applying for it. I'm not ready for this new job, so I won't bother applying for it. I'm not ready for this new relationship, so I won't bother. It's just checking yourself and asking yourself is it true? Is it capital T true? And if it isn't, then explore that a little bit, be curious. What are you making it mean? How can you test for evidence of this thing? How can you seek clarification? You know so those three words for me have been life-changing and I think for a lot of the leaders that I've taught this skill to, it can really illuminate when you are just clutching onto a truth that isn't necessarily objectively true, right.
Sara :I, as you're saying that, I'm like, oh, all these moments that I had where I unknowingly asked myself that, and one of them was when I was leading a team we had in the military physical training. They're offered up certain a number of hours and I went in and this team needed to be fixed and I just knew it and I was like they're not going to get PT time right now. It was, I was being stern, I was like they need to earn it back and I was like do they? Do they actually need to earn it back? Like also, that's not my leadership style, like I'm not a like you see me, I'm not like a hard hitting type of leader here, like you do everything exactly as I say.
Sara :But unintentionally I asked that question and I was like screw this, I'm going to do it the way I want to do it. And everyone obviously really liked having their PT time back. But also it felt more true to me and there was no reason that I could had to hold that time back. It was just a perception, a leadership thing that the military has where it's like be stern, be disciplined. In that instance, nothing had related to PT, so might as well have them give it back and have them feel good about themselves while doing their work.
Thomas:And it felt more congruous with your leadership style, with your values. But you know, sarah, again you can imagine like how many times we, especially in the military, where you're adopting a new team, you know we very rarely, I imagine, you get to build them from the ground up. So, coming in with some sort of preconceived notion, or someone tells you their truth about the experience and you adopt it. I had you in that circumstance, just like clung onto that thought because it was yours right. So it must be precious because you generate it. You know, scientists think we have something like 60,000 thoughts a day.
Thomas:That's a lot and I don't know about you, but I know for me most of those thoughts are either objectively not true or definitely not in service of me, Some of the self-talk that just kind of generates in my mind. So that question can be a safeguard against that of holding on too tight to a thought that isn't in service of you.
Sara :It gives you a chance to pause.
Thomas:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Sara :So where are you today? What are you spending your time? What's your mission now that you're kind of in this lead as a coach space?
Thomas:Yeah, you know I mean living the dream, sarah, as a coach space. Yeah, you know, I mean living the dream, sarah. I am fortunate right now to be working with organizations again all around the country where I come in to work with teams of leaders to teach them coaching skills, to help enhance their coaching skills. What I'm really excited about, though, is any day now we're launching our Leaders as Coaches online program, because up until now, I mean, there's just one of me, so I can only be in so many places at once, and I've had a lot of interest and demand from folks that want to learn more about coaching as a skill.
Thomas:You know go and you know this yourself going to coaching school is very expensive. I mean it can cost upwards of $10,000. It can take a year or more to complete. It's a really rigorous adventure, and that makes sense for some if they are intending to be a coach or to use coaching as a part of their profession. To this experience, this online version is going to open up for folks the ability to participate in that learning and be part of this community, and so that's launching any day now. I'm so excited to be able to take this work I mean I'm like an evangelist for all things. Coaching now and to really put that out into the world where anybody could take advantage of that. That's what I'm up to these days.
Sara :Well, congratulations. I'm excited to see it out and live in the world and I completely agree after experiencing coaching myself and seeing how it transforms me, some peers, the community that I've built, coaching really is a skill that can help enhance not only your leadership but really your whole life, and it's only beneficial to you and the people that surround you Got it, you got it.
Thomas:That's again the thing that brings me so much joy.
Thomas:Of course I love, you know, being a little bit of an antidote for the workplace, those bosses because, remember, I've been one that bossy boss, right, I think coaching can definitely be, that it can help. We spend so much of our lives at work, and so making sure that leaders are better equipped to be there for their teams is passionate enough. But I really love the idea that this, like you, like me, the coaching skill and the coaching mindset can help us in our personal life, because I think a big theme of our conversation today is just how integrated those two are anyway. And so when you can see the world through our coaching lens, you, just you tend to be more empathetic towards others. You know, go figure, a better listener, you know someone who is a more curious person. Those same skills that help so much in the workplace are wonderful for the rest of our world. I think our world needs a little more of that right now. Right, nobody needs a coach. I think you need oxygen, you need food, but I think everybody deserves one.
Sara :Yes, I completely agree, and something I do want to mention is we've talked a lot about leaders leading their teams, but very rarely will you not have somebody also leading you, and having those coaching skills is so critical to understand your leader, to understand their perspective and where they're coming from. Those coaching skills are directly translatable not just you yourself being in a leadership role, but working with those that might lead you.
Thomas:So true, Sarah. I mean, managing up is a tough skill anyway, right, but we all have bosses, and so the idea of being able to really seek their perspective, to understand where they're coming from, to again be curious, ask better questions your peer group too right, it goes the whole 360, interacting with your peers in a more productive, profound way.
Sara :These coaching skills know no bounds Great, Well, I do want to ask really quick, as we come to a close, if there is one piece of wisdom, of advice, of leadership, that you could offer anyone, anyone who's leading, managing up, what would that be?
Thomas:Be kind.
Sara :That's a good one.
Thomas:Be kind, just be nice. It's easy, it's free, it doesn't take a lot of effort. You know, environmentally, right now again, there's just a lot of angst in our world. A lot of folks stress out, uncertainty is high, volatility, all the rest, and I think you know, looking back on my own leadership journey, the thing that you know, the value, the skill even that really came through, was being a kind person, the kind of person that you know wants to. You know, we talk a lot about servant leadership today as a kind of a buzzword and I like it, the sensibility of just being there for others. Be nice, be kind, treat others well, even if they don't treat you well. I mean, you know, it's a matter of how, choosing to show up in a way that is in alignment with your values. I think the world needs more kindness.
Sara :I agree, especially right now. Especially so, where can our listeners find out more about you?
Thomas:Ooh, they can find me at thomasgriecoachingcom, and on thomasgriecoachingcom you'll find all the information you need about our Leaders as Coaches program and how you can enroll and learn these valuable coaching skills.
Sara :Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, as always, loving our conversations. Definitely, it's great to be part of this coaching community and get to chat with lovely people like you and learn more about leadership, coaching and all of those things. So thank you again for coming on the show.
Thomas:Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for all you're doing to help leaders along their path and live and lead better. I appreciate you.
Sara :Thanks for listening to another episode of Lead Into it. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean a lot to me if you would leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help future listeners. If you want to learn more about the podcast or me, go to leadintoitco. That's leadintoitco. Thanks again.
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