Taming the Defensiveness Dragon

The Look & Sound of Leadership

Essential Communications - Tom Henschel

Education, Executive Presence, Management, Careers, Executive Coaching, Self-improvement, Business

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At the end of her rope, a leader asks her coach for help managing a direct report who, she says, is the most defensive person she’s ever met.

This episode was packed with tools. We’ve put them into an easy-to-understand infographic. Download it for free here.

Kim Scott, the best-selling author of the electric book Radical Candor, wrote a short, friendly guide with tools for handling defensive employees. Find it here.

Harvard Business Review’s Amy Gallo talked with Dave Stachowiak on this episode of the Coaching for Leaders podcast. As with every episode of Dave’s, this is indispensable.

To work on “deserving” dive into The Four Agreements.

To dig deeper into tools for taming defensiveness, search our podcast library in these three categories:

Five specific episodes on this topic you could listen to are:

Calling all COACHES! Come join our Executive Coaching special interest group (SIG) sponsored by the Los Angeles Chapter of ICF. Check out our SIG and all the others here.

Or shoot me an email with your questions. I’m at [email protected].

All our free infographics are in the Essential Tools bin.

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Until next month, be well!

Thanks from Tom and everyone at The Look & Sound of Leadership.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive coaching tips
0:08.2	designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you want to be perceived.
0:13.6	I'm Tom Henshel, your executive coach, and today we're talking about
0:17.4	Taming the Defensiveness Dragon.
0:22.8	Jackie was a highly analytical introvert.
0:26.6	I learned early in our coaching.
0:28.6	She used silence to think.
0:32.2	It's not to say she didn't speak up.
0:34.2	When she felt strongly about something, the words flew out of her.
0:37.4	From our very first conversation, I knew Jackie felt strongly
0:41.4	about a direct report of her's named Tate.
0:44.4	Tate was, according to Jackie, the most defensive person she had ever met.
0:49.7	Not every minute of every day, not even every day.
0:52.8	But when she would attempt to give him feedback, his hackles would go up.
0:56.1	He'd interrupt her and say things like, I do have my MBA, you know,
1:00.0	or I don't know why I even try.
1:04.1	I asked Jackie if she thought Tate's defensiveness might be triggered by her gender or her race.
1:10.1	She didn't think so.
1:11.4	She told me he displayed the same defensive behaviors in meetings with department heads and chief officers.
1:17.5	Recently, during a coaching conversation, she said to me,
1:20.2	that's why I'd like to help him.
1:22.3	I know he's ambitious, but if he keeps it up,
	...

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