I'm Muriel Wilkins and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Podcast 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 so that hopefully they can lead with a little more ease.

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 call Flynn to protect her confidentiality.

She's an entrepreneur and has led her business to a fair amount of success.

But recently, she felt like things weren't going as smoothly as they could, and she became frustrated with how effectively the company was running.

Basically, this started.

I became aware of a need to change, and to be honest, it sort of was a big birthday, and it

may sort of coincide with what people call not a midlife crisis but like a

recontemplation of things and I realized I was like wait I'm doing everything for everyone like me

leading this company more looks like me cleaning up everyone's stuff you know I really took this all

seriously like there's a lot of things that need to be

examined because I'm doing people's work versus leading them to have their greatest success.

Flynn even considered stepping away from the company. But while trying to sort out the issues she

faced, she took steps to better develop herself and improve her

leadership and brought in some new team members. I wanted to find stronger players. I actually

worked with a headhunter and I filled some posts with stronger players. It was incredible because

the type of people that came were very different than ones I had had in the past.

The idea of where I was trying to get is really having people own their work.

...