Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want

to be perceived. I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today

we're talking about accessing your best thinking. Richard had been CFO at a defense contracting company for four years when I met him.

He was technically gifted, maintained strong relationships, was fairly expressive, and highly

intuitive. This guy was clearly a high performer.

He wanted to work with me because he felt he wasn't a very strong presenter.

When I asked him to tell me about presenters he liked, he easily thought of three.

When I asked him to identify specific behaviors that made those presenters powerful, he was

amazingly articulate about what each one did to be effective. I asked him,

so what's stopping you from taking any of those behaviors and making them your own?

Nothing he replied.

I just never stopped to think about it before.

Gary is Senior Vice President of IT for an international finance company, highly analytical and a gifted strategic

thinker, Gary often forgot to manage his relationships. His boss complained

that Gary wasn't managing up very well, which is why I was coaching him.

When I asked Gary to self-prescribe corrective tactics, he thoughtfully listed a series of actions

that were so insightful I wondered what I was doing there.

How did you figure all that out so quickly? I asked him.

Oh, I know this stuff, he said ruefully. I just don't make the time to pay attention to it.

Over and over, I find people at all levels are craving one thing these days. Time for reflection, time to read what's piling up on their

shelves, time to attend courses and conferences that will help them grow professionally.

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