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, 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

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.

To which you said, that she should have known better.

Twice before in our coaching conversations, Jody had said someone should have known better.

Hearing her use that phrase now for the third time, I asked,

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