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 how behaviors change.

That's it? Christina asked, clearly disappointed in me.

A high performer used to taking on big challenges,

she was reacting to the homework assignment I'd just given her at the end of our first

coaching session. She clearly thought it was too easy.

Aren't you going to give me something to do? It might not seem like it I said but this is

something to do. A major theme had emerged in Christina's feedback, people felt strongly

that she was not a good listener. I'd assigned her a seemingly simple bit of homework,

at the end of at least one interaction every day

mentally review how well she had or hadn't been listening.

That was all, just reflect and gather data.

At our next session I'd asked her to tell me what she observed.

When we met two weeks later, Christina told me that at first she hadn't been able to observe

much about her behaviors at all.

Then, as the days went by and she stuck with it, she found she could

begin to notice times when she had or hadn't listened well. Her biggest aha had come during

a phone call with her husband. She heard herself talk right over him.

Reflecting on it later, she felt pretty certain she'd been doing this for years without any

awareness of it at all.

...