The Story You Added

The Coach Who Listens

Great listeners aren't born — they're built. In this episode, Nathan steps back and hands the floor to one of the most-watched communication talks of the last decade. Celeste Headlee spent decades as a public radio host before she asked herself a hard question: What actually makes a conversation good? Her answer, delivered in a 2015 TEDx talk, is one of the most practical things a leader can hear.

Coaching The Last Two Minutes

Congrats coach! You've put in the time. You've invested. And then they get up from their chair, leave your office and...nothing changes. Why? How? The most common coaching mistake is the loss of the last two minutes. After spending the scheduled time in valuable coaching conversation, the close it where the rubber hits the road. In this episode, we focus on exactly that...the last two minutes.

Coaching Intentions

Most leaders think coaching is something they schedule. A one-on-one. A development conversation. A blocked-off hour on the calendar. In this episode, we make the case that coaching is actually a language — and it happens in real time, in the flow of the work, in the moments nobody planned for. Drawing on the experiences of David Marquet, retired U.S. Navy Captain and author of Turn the Ship Around, Nathan tells the story of the USS Santa Fe — the worst-performing submarine in the U.S. Navy — and the single moment that revealed why smart, experienced leaders keep getting mediocre results from the people around them. The problem wasn't the crew. It was the language. This is Part 2 of a multi-part series on coaching. Today is practical: three questions that replace the instinct to give answers, why fear is the reason your team isn't telling you what they know, and the daily choice every leader faces between task accomplishment and actually developing people.

Advice Monsters

Frequently, we promote people into leadership based on a criteria that doesn't translate and often works to undercut their own success. To begin addressing the issue, we're starting with one many angles: the pressure to have the answers. In this episode, Nathan Metz introduces a concept from author Michael Bungay Stanier that every leader needs to hear: the advice monster. It's the part of you that starts solving before the other person finishes talking. It's the habit that's keeping your team from growing — and wearing you out in the process. This is Part 1 of a multi-part series on coaching. Today is personal: the internal shift from task-focused to person-focused, and what actually gets in the way.

The Story You Added

The average employee spends two hours and twenty-six minutes every workday in what researcher Cy Wakeman calls drama — not conflict, not hard conversations, but the mental energy spent rehearsing grievances, replaying meetings, and building the case for why things are unfair. Multiply that across your building. That number adds up fast. What if the lost time and energy is all a response to nothing that actually happened but to the story we added? This is part two of our "Soft Heart, Thick Skin" series...an honest look at the emotionally healthy leader. In The Lead is a leadership development podcast of TLC Management. New episodes on the 16th of each month.