HBR Presents

I'm Muriel Wilkins and this is Coaching Real Leaders part of the HBR Presents Network.

I'm a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who've hit a bump in the road.

My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them.

I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show we have a one-time

coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing.

Today's guest is someone will refer to as Cam to protect his confidentiality. Cam has had a

relatively long career in the military,

and when he moved to civilian life to manage in large-sized manufacturing plants,

he learned how to lead differently, because it was less about the chain of command,

and more about getting people on your side. Still, there were some similarities between the two worlds.

The military is very hierarchical and very, I guess, authoritative with the way the system works.

You could essentially tell somebody to jump and they would have to say all high.

Not literally, but that's kind of the approach there. Whereas when I went to a steel plan,

it's a union, unionized facility, you had to take that

to account that if you tell them a jump, they're not going to say how I, you know, so it requires

a different approach to your leadership skills in there. So just the way you manage people, the way

people react, it's very different because, you know, this is the real world, as I call it, not

the military. For me, having it all as always continuously to teach myself my roles when I stepped in the steel industry, it just

allowed me to move from role to roll with minimal issues because I was used to having

to teach myself, find the people to connect with, and learn what I need to do to add value

to the team. After many years as the maintenance lead in large plants, a role that is literally

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