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 thinking errors.

Jody was a people-centered leader.

She based her decision-making on her values.

Depending on the situation, her values might align with the consumer or the company,

with the employee or the corporation.

People didn't view her as inconsistent. Rather rather they experienced her as a weather vein continuously pointing in an ethical direction. And people also knew she sometimes cared too

much. She could be easily wounded, and she was known to hold a grudge.

About halfway into our coaching engagement, Jody mentioned she was angry at a young woman named

Britt.

A few weeks back, she told me, Britt had introduced herself via email and asked for an appointment to talk about her career.

It was known throughout the company that Jody welcomed mentoring meetings with other women.

As was Jody's norm, she said yes to Britt.

But when she showed up the other day, said Jody, clearly still angry, she didn't want career advice.

She wanted to complain about something one of my vice presidents did at a meeting.

How did that go? I asked.

Not so well.

I listened, but I was pissed. I still am. I feel like I got sandbagged. And I asked her, straight out, why didn't you just tell me the truth instead of lying about it? And she said,

Ah, usual. She didn't think it could be explained in an email,

and she didn't think I would have accepted an invitation

with the subject line complaints about Carlos, blah, blah, blah, blah,

to which you said that she should have known better.

...