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 positive opposites.

Ellie felt like she'd been shot between the eyes. For six grueling weeks, she'd prepped a presentation

she would make to the senior execs. She'd painstakingly built a deck of 42 slides.

During the presentation, the execs began to challenge her at slide four. By

slide six they were clearly angry with her. At slide eight they pulled her plug and kicked

her out of the room. Later her boss, one of the execs, had nothing but

blame and accusation. You did all the things we asked you not to do, he told her. During the prep

interviews we made it clear we wanted strategies and recommendations

but your slides were nothing but tactics and details. The more we asked for high-level

summarizing the more you drove down into the details and this isn't the first time

this has happened

Ellie. After telling me this story she sat silently for a long time. Then in a very

quiet voice she said, he's talked to me about strategy versus tactics before, but I really

thought I was giving them what they'd asked for. What's wrong with me? Am I stupid?

Of course Ellie is far from stupid, but her leap to all or nothing

thinking I'm either right or stupid was completely natural. I see it all the time. For example Seth, a barrel-chested operations

VP, had gotten feedback for years that he steamrolled people. Early in our coaching I asked

him to help me understand his thinking, he explained himself this way.

Look, my job is to get stuff done, so I do. I'd rather be a bully than a doormat.

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