Stephen H Baum Leadership

I wish I had learned of Jerry Colonna earlier. His tweets and posts resonate with my own beliefs about coaching and owner/ceo clients and stimulate my thinking a great deal. You can find him at:

Great coach Jerry Colonna

In his interview with Tech Berlin he speaks of homework assignments. Implicit in his remarks is the idea that only by self-discovery can leaders adapt and grow. Coaches are not consultants: we enable self-discovery, we do not provide answers devoid of implementation. Only by action, mental plus physical plus emotional can we change the assumptions, beliefs and fears that drive behavior.

In his post about fears, Jerry stimulated a notion as I thought about a particularly troubled ceo client:  fears drive behaviors not only at work but at home and at leisure. Therefore, there is sometimes an option to do a “field experiment (action)” at home to begin the journey of transcending the fear. It may be seen as safer to do this at home than to start at work. This client is — by his own admission — “…always at work even when not at work” and has no “pause button” once he starts a task. It is hurting his health and family relationships and limiting his opportunities at work. So we will establish criteria by which to recognize the opportunity at home and prepare the field experiment in advance. Then we will revisit on the feelings, thinking and outcomes.

As you know if you have followed my posts, I am a huge fan of Albert Ellis who founded cognitive psychology. He transcended a fear of dialogue with females to become a high sought after speaker at women’s events. Wikipedia has a useful primer but you can find his work in many places.

It may be of interest to some readers to learn of a bit of the underlying aspect of the fear: “If I take my foot off the pedal 1% it has a 20% impact on the outcomes. My board values my drive and dedication.” The first statement is factually unlikely to be true. The second statement may be a mis-perception and, even if true, implies a short-sided tradeoff with potentially terrible consequences.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, two of my clients have the same fear, though with different ability to moderate its effect. Surprising? No. The successful CEOs interviewed for my book (see side panel on my website) all had to transcend the deep-seated fear of self-doubt.

That’s my view. What’s yours?