Coaching practices for Not Taking it Personally Leadership

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Not Taking it Personally Leadership, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • When someone attacks a decision I made it lands like they’re attacking who I am, and I go straight to defensive or wrecked
  • I treat my whole team the same way and run the same kind of one-on-one with everyone, and it’s landing flat
  • Someone on my team is underperforming and I keep collapsing the two things together
  • Everyone brings their problems to me to solve, I jump in and fix each one, and now I’m the bottleneck for everything while my people never grow
  • I keep catching myself making calls based on how they’ll make me look rather than what’s actually best for the thing I’m building

Practices that may help

  1. Distinguish your self from your role
    Separate who you are from the authority position you occupy — your role takes the heat, not you.
    Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
  2. Treat each person as an individual with distinct needs and aspirations
    Know what each team member needs to grow and provide support tailored to them.
    Transformational Leadership, Made Practical
  3. Lead with empathy and acceptance
    Accept the person fully even while refusing to accept poor performance.
    Servant Leadership, Made Practical
  4. Give the work back without abandoning people
    Resist taking ownership of problems that belong to the people facing the adaptive challenge.
    Adaptive Leadership, Made Practical
  5. Channel ambition to the institution, not yourself
    Care more about the organization’s success than your personal legacy.
    Level 5 Leadership: Humility and Will in Great Leaders
  6. Acknowledge what you heard before advancing to advice
    A solution offered before the speaker feels heard is usually rejected, even when it is correct.
    The Leader as Coach: A New Management Paradigm
  7. Show up for the person, not just the deliverable
    Acknowledge what is happening in someone’s life when it is clearly affecting them — before addressing the work.
    Caring Personally: The Foundation of Radical Candor
  8. Look out the window for credit, in the mirror for blame
    When things go well, credit others; when things go wrong, look at yourself first.
    Level 5 Leadership: Humility and Will in Great Leaders
  9. Listen before diagnosing
    Resist the urge to solve until you can restate the problem in terms the other person agrees with.
    The Trust Equation, Made Practical
  10. Learn what each person actually wants from their career and life
    Care personally means knowing the goal behind the job — not just what they’re working on, but why.
    Caring Personally: The Foundation of Radical Candor

Related concerns

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