[00:00:00] Stephanie Willmore: This is how it’s going. This is where I want it to go. And let’s think about all the steps in between. And how is that going to change over time? Like you said, it’s transformational. And this is what the Leadership Transformations podcast, right?

[00:00:18] So we want to think about what it is that I do and where can I go with it. And I think that sometimes leaders don’t allow themselves the breathing room to do that. And it can cause a lot of burnout. And so even just having the space and time. To think about what they’re doing, to be intentional about it, to feel invested in that way gives them the resilience to keep going and to re-energize.

[00:00:38] Stephanie Willmore: Welcome to the Leadership Transformations podcast. I’m your host, Stephanie Wilmore, accountability coach with Peridot Circle Consulting. In this podcast, we explore real-life situations with the help of our two founders and principal consultants, Janet Taggart and Linda Linfield. 

[00:01:03] Today, we are joined by Janet Taggart. Janet specializes in empowering leadership transformation from the inside out, coaching aspiring to executive leaders to become known for their highest value. 

{00:01:14] Welcome, Janet.  

[00:01:15] Janet Taggart: Thank you, Stephanie. And thank you for that introduction. Today, we’re going to do something a little bit different. We’re going to turn the tables a bit.

[00:01:24] And I’m going to interview you. So a lot of you don’t know Stephanie. She’s been with us for a while. She’s our head accountability coach. She has her master’s from Brigham Young University with a background in psychology, marriage, family, and human development to be exact. Stephanie, I’m delighted to talk to you today.

[00:01:44] And you have taken the reins as an accountability coach for us. And I’d love for you to explain to our audience what is accountability coaching and why is it so useful for leaders who are trying to develop promising individuals on their teams and for the individuals with whom you coach. 

[00:02:04] Stephanie Willmore: Well, I’m really grateful for this opportunity because I’ve honestly loved this position. I love being an accountability coach and working with these really talented and capable individuals. We have people who are on the managerial level, but we also have people on the VP level, sometimes the SVP level. So it really just depends on what that person needs to develop, or if they just need some support in their current position, but accountability coaching, it can be an individual service or an add-on service, but really what it does is it gives us the opportunity to work with these leaders one-on-one to give them the space to kind of take an inventory of how their career is going.

[00:02:45] And there’s a lot of different ways you could do that. You could just sit down on the conversation and literally say, “How is it going?” But we have a real strategic way of taking an inventory of how that person is feeling. And it’s a satisfaction scale really, but we look at all of the different areas in their life that could be influencing their career, including the current position they are in and what goals they have with their career moving forward and say, “Is this going the way that you want it to?”

[00:03:15] Because everything that we do with our coaching is to be authentic and to be intentional. And a lot of these professionals are in very high stress, fast-paced environments. And when you’re in that environment and you’re inundated with different objectives and with different pressures from different people, sometimes it’s your own team who are really relying on you and they’re stressed out about a new challenge that you have.

[00:03:39] And then you have your direct supervisor and sometimes even the C-suite or the board of the organization who are all kind of clamoring for your attention and for your needs. It’s easy to get reactive. It’s easy to feel like you just show up to work and you just do your best. And then, it’s sometimes you kind of get lost about what it is that you want to do and where you want this to go, where you want your career to go.

[00:04:05] And we give them the space to figure that out for aspiring leaders, especially who are in a new role where they’ve been given a new role based on their technical talent and maybe a few dividing it, defining qualities and characteristics they’ve shown with being an innovator or being a go-getter and they just need to have the confidence to show up at now as a business leader, not as somebody who just has some technical skills, but somebody who can really move the needle and get things done and have people rely on them.

[00:04:38] But some of those leaders, it might be new for them. And so we use accountability coaching to help them find out where they need to go and to give them the support to do that. And so does that answer your question? We really, we offer that program to a variety of leaders, but the real important thing is that they have that one-on-one attention to get the support they need for whatever it is they need and to set goals because, you know, you offer executive coaching.

[00:05:04] We have group coaching sessions where they can share some of their experiences with peers where they get it with you and Linda, and you have incredible advice, but accountability coaching is really about the follow-up. It’s about saying from month to month, “What are we going to do to help you get where you want to go? And how to continue doing what you’re doing well and just stop doing the things that aren’t going well?” And then to look at that from month to month, and I’m here to make sure that becomes a reality. That’s like the, probably the most structural support we give in our coaching is accountability coaching.

[00:05:35] Janet Taggart: That’s perfect. And I know the work that you’ve done has been indispensable for leaders and aspiring leaders working in those high-speed, rapidly shifting environments. And I loved how you said our emphasis is on authenticity and being intentional because it’s really what we’re trying to help leaders do because we know when they do that, that they will be more effective.

[00:06:01] And you have a lot of tools and strategies to help them to first of all, identify those areas that are most impactful for them to set goals around and tools and strategies to help them stay focused on those areas in a more productive way. 

[00:06:20] Stephanie Willmore: Right. 

[00:06:20] Janet Taggart: In these environments, it’s so easy to be in a constant state of reacting and to be able to develop the muscle, to be more deliberate and proactive about where they want to take their career.

[00:06:33] If you ask them what their to-do list is, it’s a mile long. But if you ask them, “Where do you want to be in 5 years?” They might throw out a promotion or something general, but they don’t have that real clarity and so often their leaders can see their potential and they want them to succeed, but the leader has only so much time and resources themselves as far as what they can personally give to their employees and especially those that they want to develop.

[00:07:05] Can you share with us what you’ve seen? Maybe a couple of themes or examples of what typically holds individuals back from reaching their full potential. 

[00:07:19] Stephanie Willmore: Absolutely. I think that having sometimes going into a new role or being in a position for a long time and wanting to move up the ladder a little bit, but not knowing how, but having the talent, some of that is a lack of clarity or sense of self and confidence, but that person has. Sometimes their own self-perception can be interestingly negative when they are so talented and so confident. 

[00:07:46] And sometimes I’ve been approached by leaders and talked to leaders who you wouldn’t think that there would be an insecure bone in their body. And yet, when we do the inventory on their own self-perception, it’s rather low. And I was like, “Okay, let’s talk about that.” And the reason why that matters is not do we–I mean, of course we care about how these individuals are feeling, but what happens is that turns into negative consequences like second guessing yourself, not offering proposals, being quiet in meetings, sometimes not being very responsive because they don’t want to show up and be embarrassed or say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing because of this negative internal dialogue or because they’ve had bad experiences in the past or at a different company and they don’t want to mess up again.

[00:08:31] And so we offer them a low-risk space to talk about that if they want to, and that’s not something people always want to talk about in a group session. They probably would in an executive session, but usually those kinds of conversations don’t always come out because the inventory kind of gets it out of people.

[00:08:47] It’s almost like a little bit of an icebreaker or a prompt to say, “Oh, okay, you mentioned the score. Tell me about that.” And sometimes confidence isn’t the only issue. Sometimes it’s a lack of satisfaction or a purpose or a feeling of being settled, and that can come out with being a little more passive at work.

[00:09:08] It can be not being as responsive to their team or just coming across as tired or in a presentation, not having the confidence or the passion that you would want to see out of a leader. And so we’re able to talk through some of those things and help them realize first what they’re doing well.

[00:09:26] Well, one of the things that I love is when I talk to a leader and we talk about their wins. And it’s so interesting that many of them know what they need to do better. But they are shy about their wins. And we were like, “No, tell us this month what you did that was well.” And they have to think about it for a minute.

[00:09:43] And was like, “Well, actually…” And then we use that as a springboard to say, “Okay, then why are we second-guessing ourselves? Why are we feeling anxious when a new challenge comes,” right? It’s a human reaction. It’s normal to feel a little nervous or overwhelmed when something comes at us that may not be the most desirable situation, or if we have to change gears, we have these objectives that we were working on so consistently.

[00:10:09] And then this one came out of nowhere and took—but you can sit back in and talk about it and say, “I’ve got this. We’ve got this. This is how we recalibrate. This is how we lock in and we go with it. Go into it with optimism.” So I think that’s just one of the things that I see is that a lot of that second guessing and that negative internal dialogue and then we flip it on–so we take a 180 and we say, “We know you can do this because you’ve done it before and where you have the capacity because you’ve demonstrated it before, and then we turn that into goals that can help them realize that.”

[00:10:45] Janet Taggart: These issues that you shared can take such a profound effect on these individuals as well as their quality of work.

[00:10:53] And I think that what you’re talking about is not just a temporary goal that you reach and you check it off. But it’s actually about significant and lasting change that’s congruent with who they are and what their purpose is. Those deeper things within us that create that greater satisfaction at work and with our lives. It never seems to, ceases to amaze me at the inner struggle that people have, even those that seem the most confident and capable. It’s just, it’s always so interesting. And here at the Peridot Circle Consulting, we offer accountability coaching as a stand-alone service or as an add on to group coaching, as you mentioned.

[00:11:42] And these are fairly economical options for those who want professional development opportunities, either for themselves or on behalf of others. So, Stephanie, how would you say that accountability coaching benefits these high-performing individuals? Like if you could kind of tick off a few of those for us, what would you say that those benefits could be?

[00:12:06] Stephanie Willmore: I would say first it gives them a minute to even think about it, right? So we talked about intention and sometimes, and what I love is that these sessions that I have with people are fairly brief. They’re only once a month, and we get a lot done in that short session because we have a target, but we also just give them the opportunity.

[00:12:29] Sometimes these professionals are so busy and inundated that they don’t even have a minute to think about what they’re really doing. They have a little bit, but there’s just so much that it just gives their brain an opportunity to say, “Okay, this is how it’s going. This is where I want it to go. And let’s think about all the steps in between. And how is that going to change over time?” Like you said, it’s transformational, and this is what, the Leadership Transformations Podcast, right? So we want to think about what it is that I do and where can I go with it? And I think that sometimes leaders don’t allow themselves the breathing room to do that and it can cause a lot of burnout.

[00:13:08] And so even just having the space and time to think about what they’re doing to be intentional about it to feel invested in that way gives them the resilience to keep going and to re-energize. And so I think that just–because these leaders are so capable and like you said, they’re so intelligent.

[00:13:26] I think sometimes they know, and, or they’ve gotten so lost in the busyness of all of it, they need somebody else to see what they can’t see through the chaos, and then giving them that space helps them feel like, “Okay. I know what I need to do. I know what my purpose is. I know how to engage. Let’s get going.” Right? So that would probably be the first benefit. The next benefit kind of we already tapped onto is bringing out that confidence in that individual. A lot of those, like you said, who are recommended to us have talent. They are seen as potential leaders. They’re seen as capable individuals.

[00:14:03] However, because of some of those negative, that negative inner dialogue, they may not know when to show up or how to show up, or they may feel they need permission to show up, right? And so we give them that permission. By talking through what it is they contribute, what their brand is. Personal leadership brand is something that you are an expert in, Janet, and we coach them through that and say, “This is a unique contribution you give that nobody else does in the way that you do it and you should let that shine.”

[00:14:34] And it’s not a boisterous thing, it’s not a bragging thing. It’s an authentic thing where we allow them to truly lead and fulfill and realize their potential. And so if you have an employee or if you have a potential leader who just seems a little reticent or a little quiet, our coaching often helps them show up in the ways that you hope that they would.

[00:14:55] And then I would say the final one is clarity. I think clarity is something that sometimes our more seasoned leaders need again. If they’ve been doing this for a long time or if they’re feeling a little burnout or if they’re just not knowing where to go next, they’re in a season in their career where maybe they’ve accomplished a lot.

[00:15:12] Maybe they’ve, you know, are in a place where they feel settled, where they feel like they’ve realized, you know, a certain point in their career, but they’re looking for mentorship, maybe as a potential avenue they could go down. “I haven’t really been able to mentor as many people as I would like to. Let’s talk about what we need to do so that you can have those opportunities.” Or maybe, “I think I want this promotion to be an SVP or to be a vice president,” but they’re not quite ready yet. And we give them the clarity of what they need to do to get there. We give them, you know, “You need to communicate more in this way.” Or, “You need to find ways to make better resolutions with people you disagree with.” Or, “Are you making the proposals that you need to?”

[00:15:53] And what’s great about accountability coaching is I can help them gain that clarity and make those goals. And then they go to our executive coaches and come up with really wonderful in-depth plans on how to do that and get expert advice. So I love it when our clients also have this as an add-on service because then we can tag team it, between Linda or I or Linda and Janet and you, right?

[00:16:18] And so again, resilience, confidence building, and clarity are some of the really great results that we’ve seen from accountability coaching. 

[00:16:28] Janet Taggart: I love that. I love that. And you’ve shared some examples before of a couple of, well, more than one person. How they had their sights set on, I want to get a promotion that was going to bring purpose and help, elevate who they were and all of that stuff.

[00:16:50] And as they’ve worked with you, they realized just how depleted they were. And by gaining that clarity, building their resilience, and building their confidence, they were then able to either say, “Okay, I want to take my career this direction,” right? “Grow in my current position,” or they’ve actually decided, “Yes, I’m now more prepared and ready for that greater opportunity.” 

[00:17:20] So it’s interesting to see how everybody has a path and where they are on that path is just right for them and accountability coaching helps them in a structured way, gain clarity, resilience, confidence. So that they can move forward in a way that both benefits them and the organization.

[00:17:20] It really is a win-win for everyone. So just love it. So thank you Stephanie for sharing your expertise on this important subject. And since you are the official host, I’m gonna step out of the chair, not literally, but figuratively, and allow you to close out this episode for us. Thanks again.

[00:18:01] Stephanie Willmore: My pleasure. I love talking about the work that we do. And to our listeners, we invite you to appreciate the experiences that have brought you here to this moment of your life’s journey. And we invite you to stay open to the possibilities within you. You were meant for greater things. Until next time.

At Peridot Circle, we facilitate the growth and transformation of individuals, leaders, and emerging leaders of fast-growing tech-savvy organizations. If any of our listeners are interested in learning more about our approach to leadership coaching at Peridot Circle Consulting and how to help transform how you show up at work, book a consult with us online at peridotcircleconsulting.com. We would love to help you and your organization achieve more than ever before.