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 your goodwill bank account.

I hadn't heard from Caroline since her coaching

ended several years before. I had loved coaching Caroline. Her high

self-esteem allowed her to examine her thoughts and her behaviors without defensiveness.

During the coaching, she'd accomplished significant growth and had been rewarded with a promotion.

Now she was calling about Avi one of her direct reports.

I know he's not the easiest guy to be around, but I didn't realize how bad things had gotten.

Two of his peers are declining his meeting invitations, an

enormous project is stalling because Avi is the leader and people are boycotting him.

Yikes, I said, what have you done?

Well, I've done a lot of listening and I found out why people are so upset with him.

And I prompted.

To begin with, everyone agrees he's a credit hog. He takes credit for everything, and it pisses people off.

Well, I'm sure it does, I agreed. How come you didn't know it?

Well, he didn't do it with me. Here's an example. People complain

he dominates meetings. They say he has to have the first word and the last word. But he's

not like that in my staff meetings. He puts on a completely different

face when I'm around. Oh, I bet that pisses people off even more. So what have you told him?

I've told him?

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