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Kendall Colman’s leadership journey starts with a coach who saw her potential before she did. Early struggles with self-doubt and feeling out of place shifted when a field hockey coach challenged her to get out of her own way. That moment sparked a lifelong focus on unlocking potential in others. Over the past 25 years, she’s built Colman Coaching, helping senior leaders elevate their presence, communication, and impact, especially when the stakes are high and the spotlight is unavoidable.
Episode Takeaways:
- Pride is a quiet blocker. Leaders often agree they need to improve but hesitate to seek coaching, slowing growth right at the starting line
- Courage is a daily practice, not a grand gesture. Small moments like speaking up, asking for help, or trying something new build real leadership muscle
- Limiting beliefs quietly fuel the failure gap. Until leaders surface and rewrite them, progress stalls despite good intentions.
- Great leadership shifts from correction mode to teaching mode. Alignment improves when leaders focus on purpose, process, and people, not just fixing outputs
- Servant leadership without strong communication falls flat. Intent matters, but impact depends on how clearly and confidently leaders show up
Kendall’s perspective brings a sharp reminder that many leadership gaps aren’t about capability, they’re about alignment. Leaders know they should communicate better, lead with intention, and invest in growth. The breakdown happens in the follow-through. What stands out is how closely courage, coaching, and communication tie to alignment. Without courage, leaders avoid hard conversations. Without coaching, blind spots stay hidden. Without strong communication, even the best intentions get lost in translation. It’s a perfect recipe for staying stuck in agreement instead of moving to action.
There’s also a subtle but important shift from “how do I perform?” to “how do I serve?” When leaders make that move, presence becomes less about ego and more about impact, which tends to be where the real results live anyway.
If there’s one thing to align on from this conversation, it’s this: growth requires visible effort. You can’t outsource it, and you can’t think your way into it. At some point, you have to step forward, take the swing, and yes, probably realize it wasn’t a half swing after all.
Connect with Kendall Colman outside of this episode on LinkedIn here or through Colman Coaching here.
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Is misalignment holding your organization back?
Aligned teams deliver better results more consistently, and they have deeper connections to each other and their organizations.
Connect with Kendall Colman outside of this episode on LinkedIn here or through Colman Coaching here.
-------------------------
Is misalignment holding your organization back?
Aligned teams deliver better results more consistently, and they have deeper connections to each other and their organizations.
Download our free Leadership Alignment Evaluation Tool and take the first step toward transforming how your team works together.
Learn more about Julie and Karrikins Group:
Learn more about Julie and Karrikins Group:
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Failure Gap ?
The Failure Gap podcast is hosted by Julie Williamson, Ph.D., the CEO and a Managing Partner at Karrikins Group, a Denver-based, global-serving business consultancy. Julie delves into the critical space between agreement and alignment - where even the best ideas falter without decisive action. Through candid conversations with a diverse mix of leaders, this podcast explores both the successes and failures that shape the journey of leadership. Featuring visionary leaders from companies of all sizes, from billion-dollar giants to mid-market innovators, to scrappy start-ups, The Failure Gap uncovers the real-life challenges of transforming ideas into impactful outcomes. Tune in to learn how top leaders bridge the gap and drive meaningful progress in their organizations.
speaker-0 (00:00.472)
Hello and welcome to the Failure Gap where we talk with leaders about closing the space between agreement and alignment. We love talking with interesting people and today we're joined by Kendall Colman. For the past 25 years, Kendall has been the CEO of Colman Coaching where she helps top industry leaders to advance their careers, elevate their speaking skills and scale their companies. She's also the host of One Step Ahead, Practical Foresight in Uncertain Times on her YouTube channel, Colman Coaching.
We'll put links to that in the show notes as well. Kendall, welcome to the Failure Gap.
speaker-1 (00:35.192)
Thank so much. I'm delighted to be here.
speaker-0 (00:37.25)
Yeah, I'm excited for this conversation because I think there are a lot of people who know that their presentation skills and how they show up in different environments could be better. And they're in agreement around that. And they're not sure how to get aligned and take action on it. So looking forward to hearing more from you about that. But before we dive into that, I would love for you to give our audience just a little bit of your background and your leadership journey. How did you come to be the CEO of Colman?
speaker-1 (01:05.16)
absolutely. Well, just welcome to everybody. And if you are looking for skills and habits and mindsets and tools that you could absolutely apply right away today on how to boost both your courage and public speaking skills, you are in the right place. So I just wanted to really anchor everybody that that's where we're going today. And my leadership journey really started more as a self leader, as most all of us do.
in those sort of tender years where I was so fascinated with people's potential, including my own, but it wasn't really in an environment that was encouraged or supported in that way. And so, you know, to be honest, I was a little bit off track as an understatement, as a youth. And it was really, and Julie, you know this story because you and I share the love of field hockey.
It was my field hockey coach who tapped me on the shoulder and said, Kendall, you have some of the best talent I've ever seen, but you're in your own way, dude. Kind of like, that's kind of how she said it to me. She said, you're in your own way. I see you self-sabotaging yourself. You're second guessing yourself. You're overthinking. You're constantly criticizing yourself and comparing yourself to others and never measuring up. Do you trust me?
And I said, actually, I do trust you. And she was probably the only, one of the only people I did trust at that point in my life. And she said to me, if you do what I tell you to do, both with your mind, your body and your heart, essentially is what she said. We're gonna get your mind right and we're gonna get your body trained for, to be a winner. I did everything she said, Julie, because I was pretty much at my last, my last,
my last end rope, you I was just like, I've kind of like, don't know what I'm really doing here kind of feeling and maybe somebody in this audience has ever felt like that, a black sheep, lone wolf, what am I doing here? I've got these unique gifts but they're not really matching in the world. And so I did what she said and shocking, we started winning and we started winning a lot and we started winning state and I became the MVP and the captain and.
speaker-1 (03:21.388)
And then I realized, you know what, leadership is so much more about just like being some kind of figurehead. It is truly about one-to-one building the team. That's always been my strength is pulling people aside and building, building folks one by one instead of, you know, you know, being in front of the room and kind of being that, that cheerleader. I added those skills later, but
but that was really my orientation story. And it was because of my coach, Sue Carlson, just shout out to her, that inspired me that there is a place for people who help others in this unique way, to be a coach, to see potential and then grow that potential, very specifically through mindsets, tools, hacks, skills, and all the goodies we're gonna talk about today.
speaker-0 (04:11.566)
Yeah, I love that your story starts with a really, really great coach. And that's really what you've become is your own really wonderful coach. And I know the work that you do with leaders has such an impact. And I appreciate hearing that origin story because it just tells everybody that it comes from a really authentic place. The way that you show up comes from a really true place for you that you've experienced this and it is a gift that you can give others. So thanks for taking a few minutes to share that.
Well, we always love to hear from people about your experiences with the failure gap, with moving from agreeing that something's a good idea to getting aligned and being able to get it done. And I'm curious, I'm sure you have lots of examples from the people that you work with where, like I said, a lot of people think that they agree that they could be better with presence and with presentation, and they struggle to get themselves aligned and really take action on it.
When you reflect back on some of the people that you've worked with, what stands out to you as some of those real blockers, maybe mindsets, maybe skillset gaps, things like that, that hold people back from leaning into getting better in this really important leadership space?
speaker-1 (05:22.51)
Great question. I mean, there are so many, Julie. I'd love to even just talk about one recently that we captured in a great interview that's on our YouTube page with a COO who is leading a Fortune 500 company. He has 1,200 employees under him as a COO. And one of the things that he said was, don't let your pride stop you from getting coaching. Something so basic.
But so many of us think, gosh, I'm kind of embarrassed I don't have this handled yet. And there's no need for that because I myself have been at this 25 years and I write a check every year for my coach. So we always can be getting better. I wanna be on the cutting edge. I wanna know how I can even get better and better. So A, don't let your pride get in the way of hiring a coach or working with a mentor.
It can be absolutely a game changer and it actually can send your career into the stratosphere if that's what you should desire. We personally have a huge improvement rate of 90 % of our clients have gotten the promotion they want. They've gotten what they've wanted and the rest of them have said, thanks, I'm stepping out. Maybe I'm going to early retirement, et cetera.
But I'm saying that coaching is the one accessible advantage that you could have in your corner and make a huge difference. And that's leadership coaching, that's executive coaching. In that situation, I'm talking about a COO who, again, sometimes male or female, we can have pride that says, I should have had this figured out already.
A lot of us don't get that training in college. We don't get leadership skills. We don't get self leadership skills. And then the two areas also that I wanna talk a little bit if we have time at the end is around courage. And that's one of the, when I look at what are some of the failures that we have right now in our cultures. Courage, think is in developing courage intentionally is a huge access point to
speaker-1 (07:43.672)
to fill some gaps that you feel like you might have. And then also the second aspect I want to be speaking about is having a servant leadership mindset. We can have huge failures inside our organizations if we don't have that servant heart, I'm going to call it. And we may not have all the time to talk about that today, but I definitely want to lean into that because...
We're really, you my skill set is really around leadership coaching and public speaking coaching. And so I'll spend some more time talking about how those can create the more significant failures in our organization. But just an asterisk around being able to be a good speaker requires cultivating courage.
speaker-0 (08:32.459)
Yeah, I think you've brought up three really important things. One is don't let your pride get in the way of coaching. And I think that's so pertinent in leadership. We see it in sports, we see it in all sorts of, in writing, like people who are authors get coaching. But for some reason, leaders seem to think that they shouldn't need a coach. And so there might be anxiety there, there might be pride there, there's a lot of things holding them back. But all of us can use coaching to do better at the things that we wanna do better at. That's just all there is to it.
So I really like clicking down on that a little bit. This idea of courage, you we talk a lot about the difference between big C courage and little C courage. And like, you don't have to run into a burning building, but you do have to have the courage to ask for help or the courage to try something different or the courage to maybe be embarrassed, right? Like how do you find that space in yourself? And so it'd be really interesting to hear, I think some of your examples and stories around how people have tackled that.
And you talk about being a good presenter or being able to hold the space. And I do think this servant mindset of servant leadership of how is my presence in service to others rather than how is me being at the front of the room in service to me and my ego is a really important shift for leaders to tackle. And they have to sometimes do that with real courage, with authenticity and...
self-reflection around what they're trying to achieve. So I think those are three great areas for us to dive into. Yeah, when you think about this idea of pride, I also connect that sometimes to anxiety when it comes to leaders. I don't know about you, but it does feel like sometimes people let their pride get in the way of being better. I think underpinning that can be anxiety that they feel like they might get found out or like,
speaker-1 (10:01.208)
Great.
speaker-0 (10:23.32)
people might realize that they don't know what they're doing. Do you see that with the people that you work with?
speaker-1 (10:29.45)
Yes, 100%. I mean, especially in my area, which is the specialty of really being a speaker coach. So really helping people take their great work and spotlight their great work. That's really our goal, right? It's like help you package it in a way that really is accessible for your audience to understand and then also showcase it through visibility.
And PS, visibility challenges are like a great courage booster. So if you're feeling like, hey Kendall, give me one idea right now, set yourself on like a visibility challenge. One, I'm gonna post every day for 30 days kind of challenge and just that's gonna boost right away your ability to break through some and just boost that courage for when you really need it.
speaker-0 (11:23.446)
Yeah, desensitize yourself to the anxiety, right?
speaker-1 (11:26.732)
Yes, yes, yes. So public speaking has a unique edge that is the number one fear. So probably everybody listening knows that public speaking has been known to be the number one fear. People would rather die than get up in front of the room and speak. And my goal really has always been to deconstruct and...
to basically put stage fright in the rear view mirror, make public speaking fun, make it something you wanna do. You see it on your schedule, like I saw this today and I was like, I cannot wait to get to that conversation with Julie. That's where we wanna get to because what we're trying to do and then a mantra that I do to overcome my anxiety, like you talked about the anxiety is little me move over and big me take over.
And basically what that means is...
speaker-0 (12:24.438)
say that one more time let me make sure I got it little me move over big me take over that's the mantra great
speaker-1 (12:32.622)
That's my mantra. have many that we share in our public speaking program, but that's just mine because what I like is that the anxiety is typically founded in more of that little part of us, right? Anxiety probably started, and I started as a mental health therapist, so I kind of have an orientation or a lens I work through, is, you know, what were some of those earliest messages that you got as a kid about your ideas, about speaking up?
Right? And it usually happens, let's say at the dinner table, right? Or at school. And this is where I've been able to actually cure hundreds of people of stage fright. And through just a couple of exercises, I'm not trying to impress anyone, I'm just trying to impress upon everybody listening that there are ways, if you have anxiety about public speaking, that there are easy, accessible ways.
that you can conquer it forever and never be like, I mean, Bruce Springsteen still says, yeah, his knees shake a little bit when he goes on stage, but to him, it means it's time to go on stage. And that's what I would encourage everybody as well, is that most likely you learned something from a very young age that probably wasn't true. For me, I had a lot of ideas, I'm not gonna lie. When I was a kid, I had a lot of ideas of what we could do.
speaker-0 (13:58.958)
This surprise me.
speaker-1 (14:01.326)
I mean, I was like an IBM generator machine and I didn't know not to keep it to myself. I just would share those like, oh my gosh, Julie, I see this for you. I did this the other day with you in fact. I was like, oh, I see how we can even make this better. And so I was like that as a kid. Well, I got told to not outshine the boys with my great ideas. That was part of my journey, right?
I had all boys around me all the time because of my family and I only had brothers. And so I learned to kind of start, I better keep these to myself. So one of my limiting beliefs that I needed to overcome was it's okay to shine. It's my time to shine. It's because we're changing it from...
that this is something that doesn't even, this wasn't ever my orientation. Somebody imposed their orientation onto me and in my own way, I had to give that back to them and say, that's your stuff to work through? Mine is that it's my time to shine. And so now I bring that it's my time to shine attitude to all of my clients and I basically pushed that onto them.
and help them turn that anxiety into aspiration.
speaker-0 (15:31.692)
I really appreciate you calling out the idea of understanding what your own limiting mindsets are, because they could be different for everybody. You've shared one of yours, but the important thing here is to figure out what yours are. And I think that does keep people in the failure gap, is they don't shine a light on their limiting beliefs. And so they stay in agreement that they want to do better, but they're stuck not being able to get there because they have
these really deep seated, limiting beliefs that keep them afraid or kind of stuck.
speaker-1 (16:09.255)
Exactly. Yeah, and we can rewrite those. It's wonderful. There's some, in fact, we just did a podcast on this the other day. There's so many easy ways to just, basically all it is, is just reorienting your subconscious in a new direction. It's pretty simple if you do it, but like the whole thing of it works if you work it, it's true with this too. You have to work it all the time. mean, and there are other limiting beliefs that I work with people all the time.
you know, I'm not worthy might be one, or it could be if I'm successful, then more people will rely on me and I'm not sure I'm ready for that, right? So there's also that one that says, or if I'm successful, people will abandon me. That's when I worked on recently with somebody. If I become, you know, right? If you're the first person in your family to go to college or something like that, how could you leave us behind? You know, are you better than us, right? Kind of thing.
Lots of limiting beliefs. Some are others and we have a practice of giving them back to that person. Some you've adopted yourself and we just take a minute, reorient those, you say them in a different way to yourself every day and then you watch the magic happen.
speaker-0 (17:25.41)
Well, and I will just bring us back to the point that this work, while accessible and possible, does, I think, require a good coach to help you. And if you're stuck in that point of pride of, don't need help or I shouldn't need help, then you're going to get in your own way all the way at the front of this funnel, right? Which is, how do you progress through this? You do it by working with somebody who can help you to find these beliefs and deconstruct them in productive ways. Is that fair to say?
speaker-1 (17:56.366)
Absolutely. I mean, it's absolutely, there are many, you know, many limiting beliefs. The pride is one of them. Another might be, well, who am I to spend money on this? That's too expensive. That's another one that we work with. And first and foremost, if you're a coach listening to this, you know, my advice is first and foremost, you know, don't make any assumptions about what someone can afford.
speaker-0 (18:09.582)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (18:23.402)
You know, I always say, out of everybody else's wallet. You don't know. So if you're, if you're a coach listening to this and you're going, I'm going to put a bigger number on my next contract, feel free to, to, you know, to lean into that and, and, and, and realize you might be having a limiting belief about what somebody's willing to pay, you know, for coaching. So I know that didn't answer your question. do. but I just popped in as, as another, something that can get in the way of.
of working with a coach can be, it's too expensive. But think about what the cost is if you continue to stay the same. If you continue to have communication failures, speaking gaps, leadership blind spots, you go on earnings to, you know, investor day and you don't sound confident. What's the cost of that? It's a lot more than the cost of a coach. I can say that.
speaker-0 (19:18.926)
Yeah, for sure. And you know, I just was saying to my team today in another conversation, I had a coach many years ago say to me, you can't be mad about the results that come from the effort you don't put in. And I think that's so true. Like if you're not willing to do the work, yeah, you're not willing to do the work, don't be mad about the results. So if you want to get better, but you're not willing to pony up for a coach and to actually show up for the sessions and do the hard work.
then you're not gonna get the outcomes that you want. And I think it's just important to remember that as you go forward.
speaker-1 (19:53.582)
Yes. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, there's some really good quotes out there, but I think that end of the day, I mean, that one's a really, really good one. And, but, but I mean, there, there actually is quite a lot of research out there about the ROI on coaching. I'm not going to go into it because people can do their own research on it. But I mean, I just know in my own life, that's why I sign a check to my coach and I just go, okay, I know it's a lot of money.
speaker-0 (19:55.318)
Steal that one with pride.
speaker-1 (20:22.52)
But I know I'm gonna get it back and guess what? It works and it works every time.
speaker-0 (20:28.62)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think if we come back to this idea of the failure gap and being aligned to the results that you want to see, I think a lot of people do hesitate for a lot of self-limiting reasons. This one that we're kind of keying in on right now around spending the money to do it does often go back to the belief that you mentioned earlier of I might not be worth it. Whether you're asking your company to spend it or for your spending it yourself.
that doubt around whether you're really worth it or whether it's really important, I think is one for everybody who's listening today to challenge for themselves. If you're thinking about working with a coach or if you haven't thought about it, but now you're thinking, really actually do need that, where I just know I could be better, but I'm not getting there. A coach is a tool that you can use and you are absolutely worth the investment.
speaker-1 (21:24.014)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's where I would start with that person right away. I mean, there are times where I'll say to somebody who is trying to sell coaching to their boss, let me help you with the script, what that's gonna sound like, how to address the pain points of where you are now, what you're struggling with, what are the really expensive problems that if you don't get a coach that it could really...
You know, it could really work against the company, work against your projects, work against this really important reorg we have coming up, this change management initiative. I mean, those are all really good times to get a coach. I mean, I think anytime you want to get, you know, you're trying to do anything exceptional or you want to even grow or scale, great times to get a coach. But for sure around change, reorgs, promotion, succession planning.
All of that, those are really important times to bring in a coach, get that extra advice. You want alignment because basically, when we don't improve ourselves naturally and we're not improving our courage, again, underpinning all of this conversation is you gotta be willing to be courageous because without courage, we don't have alignment, right? You know this better than anyone. mean, without courage, we...
You know, perhaps a leader will avoid a hard conversation, right? A team member's going to hold back some feedback. Delayed decisions because nobody wants conflict. Right? then everybody starts going into silos and like, you know, I don't need to share cause that didn't go well last time. Now we're not getting courage and you know, now we're not practicing courage and we're also not practicing our speaking skills. And so then we shrink.
speaker-0 (23:03.564)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (23:22.056)
and fade into the,
speaker-0 (23:27.212)
You know, I want to click down on courage a little bit because I think sometimes we relate it, particularly when it comes to speaking or presentation to the big stage and, you know, stage fright and all of those things. But actually, it sounds like what you work with people on is also those smaller stages. So the team meeting, the investor call, know, whatever that might be as well. And I think I'm really interested in how you see people struggle to have
in those moments. So maybe you can give us an example or two that we can work through and how you would help somebody to tap into that, courage that it takes to maybe I'll use the term take up space in those situations.
speaker-1 (24:13.102)
Yeah, I I can give you an example even just recently of where I've had to practice courage was a 360 process and a 360 assessment I did for one company recently. It was a couple months ago. And what happened is the person getting the feedback got a lot of feedback, but so did the whole C-level team. The 360 offered an opportunity for people to share
And they took that opportunity confidentially. And if you don't know what a 360 assessment is, if you're listening, just go ahead and Google that. It's super easy to get a good explainer on what that is. But it's feedback from all directions, right? Your boss, your peers, your direct reports, others, et cetera. And what happened is the C team wanted no feedback, but they wanted that person to get feedback.
And so I've been recently asked by a company to do now a 360 for 20 of their top leaders, which I absolutely love doing 360s. It's one of my favorite things to do. But I made a new contract in my clause that says, or new clause in my contract that says, I will only do this if any other feedback that comes forward is allowed to be shared with the C team that they will receive it.
Because what happened is this person, you know, got targeted and the C team that was also responsible for some of the results was not willing to get the feedback. So that took courage on my part to say I will do this, but only if this clause is in place because I'm not going to have this person take the brunt of the feedback when there are some processes in place that need to be improved. And whether you like it or not, we need to
revisit, recircle the processes that are actually failing this person and failing them miserably. And this person really shouldn't be the only person taking the brunt of this feedback. That's one example of where I was like, well, that's courageous. I'm saying no to a contract of 20. But that's how strongly I feel about it because it's really just a waste of resources at that point if you're not willing to take feedback up and down the whole system.
speaker-0 (26:36.652)
Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. What I'm hearing is that for you, sometimes it takes courage to be willing to say no or to put revenue at risk because you want to make sure that what you are convinced is the right path forward is held true to by the contract. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-1 (26:58.742)
Yeah, I mean, what are some ways that people could specifically tap into courage? Is that also what you're asking? in the meeting?
speaker-0 (27:05.582)
I'm wondering about, like for some of your clients maybe as they're working through how could I have a stronger voice in a meeting or how could I work better with my team as getting them inspired to follow my direction. As you think about some of those situations, how do you work with clients through those concerns that they might have?
speaker-1 (27:25.566)
Yeah, I mean, great question. And I think first and foremost is always to ask yourself, am I, if I'm trying to, let's take the example of trying to empower my team or motivate my team in a certain direction. First and foremost, I think we need to look at how much are you, how much trust is in the relationship already?
How much have you really shown that I care about you as a person on my team? You're not just, I'm not just delegating or I'm not just here. It's not transactional. It's truly like I'm a real person. You you're a real person. So trust, obviously, as we all know is the foundation of a great team. And so if somebody's not following you, you might want to look at first and foremost, am I staying in correction mode most of the time? Like here's your to-do list.
Here's where it failed, fix this, get it back to me. That's correction. That's not, what we wanna do is we wanna drop a level and go into teaching mode. If people are not following you, it's most likely they don't trust you 100%. They don't respect you and they are mad or frustrated that you're always in correction mode, which is a very natural place for problem solvers like most leaders wanna solve problems.
this report is a problem, fix it versus let's walk through how did you get there? First of all, are we aligned on purpose? I always like to start there. Are we aligned on the purpose of this report? Are we aligned on why it's important and what needs to be in this report? And then second of all, how easy, first again, going back to process.
What part of the process is creating errors in your report? Right? So these are ways you can go into teaching mode versus correction mode. And the more you stay in correction mode as a leader, more, honestly, nobody's really going to be committed. Everyone sort of nods in the meetings and they might be passive aggressive in their dialogue. So then that's your indicator. Okay, I'm not.
speaker-1 (29:39.02)
I've not built enough bonds. need to drop into teaching mode, go back to purpose and process first and build the relationship.
speaker-0 (29:49.07)
So if somebody wants to tackle this, right, they agree that it would be great if I was not always stuck in my correction mode and I know I need to get into this teaching mode, what are one or two things that they could do to help them move into alignment around that? Where would you start with somebody who takes it seriously, they agree with you, they need to do this? Now, what's the next step for them?
speaker-1 (30:13.198)
I mean, the next step would be to make sure that you are spending more time thinking about them than you are about your pain. So think about what their pain is. And this is where chat comes in really handy. You can say, my direct report isn't getting me my reports on time, even though I've put deadlines on their calendar.
So then you could drop in that into chat and get some amazing pain points of what might they be dealing with. Maybe they have competing priorities. Maybe they're not aware that their deadline is slipping. So get into their world versus your world. And what I call, and in coaching, obviously those coaches that are listening kind of understand that there are really those three different levels of awareness.
One is that eye level awareness, which is all about me. And in public speaking, this is where self-consciousness will show up. anybody, like right now, if I tapped on any of your listeners right now and said, hey, you're up next with Julie, right? That like gulp and my gosh, the stomach jitters and everything else. That's self-consciousness. And so that's normal. It's normal human function. But that means that you're in level one.
That means that you're thinking about it only from the, does this affect me? Why do they keep doing this to me? This is where triggers lie. This is where our blind spots lie. So we want to really elevate out of level one and into level two, which is now all about you, right? It's what's going on with my direct report?
One example, I had an assistant once who, if, you know, she was more of a feeler. Okay, I'll say that in the Myers-Briggs language. Like she was more of a feeler. I'm more of a thinker. I like to get a lot of stuff done. I'm okay with less chit chat, more stuff to do. And she was the opposite. She wanted to touch base. She liked to get be included. She liked a little bit of recognition. Well, that stuff I was not paying attention to.
speaker-1 (32:26.606)
So all of a sudden I realized, wait, she actually really, if I include her a little bit, or if I just say, hey, how was your weekend? Or I'm really glad to see you today. Little bit of connection first. Oh my gosh, she would run in between meetings. mean, she would go above and beyond if I just spent a little sprinkle of love and attention and really think about her. And so...
Versus if I didn't, if I was just like there, you know, Monday morning with here's your task list, you know, get it to me as fast as you can, no relationship. I mean, it was like pulling teeth, like resistance, right? Big time. And just that little tweak of finding out what somebody natural values are. can, you know, it doesn't have to be fancy. You could do a disc online.
speaker-0 (33:07.927)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (33:19.534)
You could do Myers-Briggs. You could even just ask them some questions about, hey, what are the top five values that really, when present, really have you show up at your best? It's a great question. You could even do a little mini questionnaire. You could reach out to me or Julie and get some tips on some questions you could ask your team and find out how to motivate them.
in a way that works for them. And so now we're moving into that level to, we're now being thoughtful. We're thinking about them. We're going, okay, this isn't about me. This is about them. And whether we like it or not as leaders, we need to meet people where they are and help them take the next step.
speaker-0 (34:06.606)
I like that whether we like it or not. We have to do that. yeah, yeah. And so then level three.
speaker-1 (34:14.582)
Yes, so yeah, so level three then, so if level two is really a focus on you, on a hard focus on you, Julie, level three, and this is for leaders and for speakers, but for the level three then is you're picking up everything. Think of like a giant satellite versus kind of like the old rabbit ears. You're picking up everything. You know how much time you have left, how much you've been talking. Have I gotten anyone else in the, you know?
in my team, has anyone else spoken? people over here haven't said anything about this idea. They're the ones that usually leave the room nodding, but then they don't follow up. Now you're paying attention to everything, and that's the level three. You're bringing yourself, you're bringing the other, but then you're also bringing in all other information.
speaker-0 (35:10.946)
Yeah. It seems like this idea of level one, level two, level three is a great way for people to try and bridge that gap between I'm in correction mode, but I want to be in teaching mode. That self-awareness of, this about me? In which case I'm going to be correcting people versus is it about you or about the whole environment? And you're kind of bringing in that satellite dish view. Then you start to be able to bring people along in a very different way. Is that fair to say?
speaker-1 (35:40.479)
Yes, yes, yes.
speaker-0 (35:42.636)
And I feel also like it leads us naturally into the third area that you said you wanted to focus on. We've talked about pride and how that can get in the way and some strategies for moving around that and the idea of needing to bring courage into your leadership and how you have courage in big spaces and small spaces. The last item that you had on your list was servant leadership. And it feels like...
this level three that you're talking about is also probably a component of servant leadership. And I'm curious how you really define that and what it looks like to you as you think about wanting to get people into alignment around the idea of showing up with the servant leadership mentality. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe give us an example of someone you've seen who really epitomizes that for you?
speaker-1 (36:32.278)
Servant leadership to me is, I feel like it is almost a true failure of us as a culture and as a society because we're not really taught to be oriented towards others. And I'm very grateful for my great grandfather who was truly a servant leader. He was a Senator from a great state of Montana. You can...
Watch a movie about him called Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was a movie that was made about him. And he taught me this idea of servant leadership, that those who are blessed have a duty and a responsibility to help others. And now that could be, okay, I get it, Kendall. I'd love to be more like that, but I can only work a full-time job. I get it. But we can show up with that servant heart where, again, we stay in the teaching mode.
We're here to serve and not be served. I mean, that is one of our core values as a company is that we are here to serve and not be served because that's literally our mission is to have a servant heart and to have that spread. And it just means, you know, really being aware that we're always, whether it's children or our employees or our customers or clients, we're always being judged on what we're doing.
How we talk to a waiter, how we talk to somebody, know, do we make room for people in the elevator? Do we open the door for people? Are we conscious? Are we aware? How we treat people in meetings? So now, this is, sadly, you can have the best servant heart in the world, but again, if you don't improve your speaking skills, it could come across incorrectly.
So what I mean by that is that if let's say your presentations lack structure and a clear message, you could be a great servant leader and you mean well and you're well intended. But people are leaving the meeting going, what? What was decided? Who's doing what? I have no idea. And now we just had an expensive meeting. Or maybe you're low energy. Somebody's never told you, hey, when you're on camera, you need to bring a lot more of your energy than you might think.
speaker-1 (38:51.616)
servant heart, but still those speaking skills need to be improved as well. And so unfortunately, if you don't improve speaking skills and you still have a servant heart, you know, it could really signal uncertainty to the people in your field.
speaker-0 (39:11.266)
Yeah, and almost that your impact is mismatched with your intention. Like you might have the best of intentions, but you don't have the impact that you would like to have because the way that you present is holding you back.
speaker-1 (39:24.492)
Yes, I mean, I just worked with a company last week where the woman could not, I mean, I literally took the contract so I could work with this woman and she's just amazing. And she has the biggest heart in the world, but yeah, there's a lot of transition words and the appearance of nervousness when on camera or in front of the room at our big fundraising events and that we need to, and so,
That was a courageous conversation we had after that. I love you. I will go to the end of the earth with you. And we're going to be able to really, you know, kick butt if we can just help tighten this up. And so that it doesn't come across as nervousness or rambling or having your credibility drop, even though you have the best intentions in the world.
speaker-0 (40:21.644)
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's so pertinent for people who want to be in service. And sometimes that desire just doesn't come through in how they speak or how they position themselves or how they orient towards others. And it has nothing to do with their heart. It has everything to do with the signals that they're putting out. And they don't even know it because it's very hard. You know, I don't know. I don't know about you, but I play golf.
And always when I go to get a lesson, because I do get coaching sometimes, the instructor will be like, only take a half swing. I'm like, OK. He's like, no, only take a half swing. I'm like, OK. No, Julie, I want you to only take a half swing. shows me a video, and I'm taking a big, huge full swing, right? But I'm sure I'm taking a half swing.
speaker-1 (41:07.854)
my god, that's such a great.
speaker-0 (41:09.93)
I don't believe it. Yeah, just because I'm so deeply habituated in that swing, right? So I think sometimes until we see it, until someone can hold a mirror up, it's really difficult to understand where we have that opportunity to improve, which by the way, loops us all the way back to our first conversation around pride. You can't let your pride get in the way of asking for help and genuinely wanting to be in pursuit of better.
for yourself as you think about what's the impact that I really want to have, not just what's my intention in terms of showing up in this space.
speaker-1 (41:47.086)
Right, I mean, imagine trying to have performance conversations. The case I said in the beginning, 1,200 employees, all those employees get performance evals. But if the top person isn't getting coached, how am I supposed to take coaching? And I'm three levels below you. And what he does is he puts me up upfront. He's like, oh, you know, I'm on his ops leadership calls. I'm on, you he's, he's,
showcasing that to show everybody I'm getting better too. And so we're all getting better together. And that takes a servant leader.
speaker-0 (42:23.852)
Yeah, and then the power of really modeling the way. Yeah,
speaker-1 (42:29.314)
Guess what? People love working for the guy and he has very low retention and it's incredible to be on his team because it really shows up in the results.
speaker-0 (42:41.046)
Yeah, think the results not only from a retention perspective, but also I'm sure from a business perspective.
speaker-1 (42:47.071)
Exactly. Yeah, right.
speaker-0 (42:48.28)
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for that example.
speaker-1 (42:51.118)
Yeah. mean, stock prices up, employees are happy. They just got best workplace of the year from Fortune. I mean, they're winning lots of awards. mean, the sky's the limit really, if you bring on people who can help you. And I mean, I'm such a passionate advocate for coaching, mentoring, and getting that support because...
It has truly transformed my life. And times are uncertain right now. People are looking for where can I really own my life? Where can I step into my own sovereignty about my choices, about how, because we still have free will. So while we do have our free will, we should maximize that and get as much help as we can from the people who do it all day, every day.
speaker-0 (43:47.138)
Yeah, for sure. And you know, I wanna just say Kendall, we've covered a lot of ground. So we started off with the idea that pride can get in the way when we talk about moving from agreement to alignment around whether it's getting a coach or being willing to get up on the big stage or being stronger on the small stages that we all are on every single day. There are a couple of things to really think about. One is you don't let your pride get in the way of getting help if that's what would best be in service to you and your development and.
I think you and I share a perspective that we could all use coaches. I know I have a coach, you have a coach. I really recommend it to people as a very healthy way to continue to be in pursuit of better. And then we talked a bit, a lot about courage and the fact that it takes courage to do these things. It also takes courage to ask for help and to work with somebody on it and to be open to the feedback. You know, don't say, well, other people can get feedback. I'm willing to give other people feedback, but not willing to get it myself.
that you've got to have the courage to stand in that space and get the feedback. And that idea of level one, level two, level three, if you can get to that level three and be that satellite dish who's just receiving all of that information and processing it and bringing it through into your leadership, then I think you do really naturally shift into that servant leadership mindset and approach where you are in service to the team getting the best possible outcomes or the company getting the best possible outcomes.
whatever it is that you are in service to as you go forward. And it's really important in that space to make sure that the signals that you're putting out there, the way that you're communicating matches the intention of the impact that you wanna have. again, sometimes an outside perspective can really go far in helping you to bring that impact and have the best possible results that you would like to have as a leader in an organization. So I think those are great things for people to be thinking about.
when it comes to the failure gap, particularly around how we present and how we engage with people. Before we sign off and close up here, there are two questions that we always ask people at the end. One is if there are two or three just really sharp tips or tricks that you have for people who want to show up either in a big space or a little space more strongly and really move from agreement to alignment that they are...
speaker-0 (46:04.846)
of being better presenters and of holding the space really strongly. Are there two or three things that you would just recommend to people or push people towards maybe besides getting a coach, which I think we believe in very strongly, but what else would you recommend to people that they take on coming out of this conversation?
speaker-1 (46:25.234)
Well, if you're finding that people, if there's a lot of errors or if there are things that are not going well for you on your team and there might be frustrations and you feel like, I've looked at myself, I'm bringing my best self, now what do do, Kendall? I would always, again, look at the three step process, the three P's, I call them, if things are to reduce blame inside your organization. And the first one is...
what I mentioned before, which is purpose. Are we aligned on purpose? And that might be what's our intention. That's another way of saying it. But what's the purpose of this project? What's the purpose of let's just take a reorganization. Great, okay, really be clear. Make sure that's said every time in a meeting that this is where we're going guys. Like always bringing that alignment, always bringing that one unifying purpose because as we all know in hospital settings,
What's the lowest amount of stress in, which department has the lowest amount of stress in a hospital?
speaker-0 (47:29.709)
I don't know.
speaker-1 (47:30.902)
It's the ER. Because why? You don't see a lot of infighting in ERs and that's because they have a unifying purpose. Everybody's got an urgent issue. So that purpose allows you to bring in a unifying purpose. So always start there if something's off track. The next place to look is on your process. What part of the process caused us this problem? Again, healthcare organization.
We did a lot in this area around reducing blame. Why is the surgeon, you know, working on the wrong thing and nobody's speaking up? Well, what part of the process is not having the nursing staff or surgical staff speaking up and saying, you know, you're about to do something that's not correct? True story, by the way, that has happened to many people. so. Yeah, yeah, right, so.
speaker-0 (48:24.174)
You've all heard the horror stories,
speaker-1 (48:27.468)
then the process, and then the last one is people. So people in the US, I would say like in our cultures in the US versus other countries, the focus is less on the people and how did people screw up. First, they focus on process and purpose, and then go to, now, all right, so this person didn't really do this well.
Now, how can I stay in that teaching mode and get to the bottom of why? Are they competent to do the job? Is that what's the problem? Do they not have the skills to do this? And we thought they did. Is it a performance issue? Are they unmotivated? Was I unclear? Right? And so take it out on, take it to people last, but do your work as a leader to first say, did I create a purpose that was compelling and understandable?
Are we looking at the processes and are the processes supporting us to be successful? And then third, do we have the right people on the bus and are they competent to do the job?
speaker-0 (49:30.446)
Yeah, yeah. I think that that's a great way for leaders who are, again, in pursuit of better for themselves to think about the problem solving piece of it. So when we know that things have gone wrong, how do we deconstruct that in an effective way so that we can be in service to the outcome that we want, which is for everyone to get better and to not have the situation play out the same way again.
speaker-1 (49:54.734)
Exactly.
speaker-0 (49:55.916)
All right, last question, which is if you could just sort of dream along with me and say you could have a big impact on the world, or on a small group of people actually, is there something you would love to get a group of people aligned to do, whether it's in your community, in your family, again, kind of this figuratively the whole world, leaders in general, but some group of people, if you want to get them to get aligned to do something differently, what would that something be?
speaker-1 (50:26.068)
For sure it would be to kick the can on stage fright of any kind, of every kind. So my goal in life really at this point is to eliminate public speaking fear for good so that people can speak up for the things that matter. There are so many things in our world that are worth speaking up about. I'm a huge proponent of human rights and that's what I speak up about because I believe in human rights.
And, what do you, what's important to you? And we just don't want to allow public speaking fear to stop you in your tracks because the impact of not getting public speaking training in particular out of all the coaching that you could get, public speaking coaching, I believe is one of the most important because of the fact that we naturally have a fear about it. And so that would be, my goal would be to get everybody
together to do one giant public speaking training to help everybody say, shall move forward with courage and raise my hand when needed because the topics out here that we're dealing with, they matter too much to be silent about.
speaker-0 (51:39.116)
Yeah, I really love that as a call to action. for anyone who's listening, if you do experience a stage fright, there is help. There are ways that you can conquer that and that you can be really comfortable and confident as we talked about earlier on the big stage, on the small stage, whatever it might be to really raise your hand and speak your mind and put your voice out there in support of the things that matter to you. So thank you, Kendall, for that call to action. And thank you for sharing your insights around
this idea of moving from agreement to alignment as a leader to be the really strongest leader that you can be, the best leader that you can be in your organization, for your team, and in service to the things that really matter the most to you in terms of purpose. So I really appreciate your time and your sharing today.
speaker-1 (52:26.126)
thank you so much. And just a reminder to everybody listening that just because you might get a great book on public speaking or you might use chat for public speaking or you might even go to a class, it is a muscle. It is different than every other leadership aspect that people are using every day. We don't always use public speaking. And so please remind yourself, be gentle on yourself, that it is a muscle. You got to use it regularly. Now sign up for podcasts, sign up for
facilitating meetings, stretch assignments are also great. Sign up, say yes. That's what my earliest mentor told me. Anytime anyone asks you to speak, say yes and keep that practice, get that muscle strong.
speaker-0 (53:12.654)
Yeah, I think it's very true. This doesn't happen in a catalytic moment. It's something you have to work at over time. So stick with it, everybody. It will come to you and the day will come when it feels really comfortable and easy for you. build the muscle and remember that you can't be mad about the results that come from the effort you don't put in. So it's up to you to do, you gotta do the work and then you will see the results. With that, I'm gonna go ahead and wrap us up Kendall.
At Kerrigan's group, always like to say to go fast, go alone, to go far, go together, to go far fast, get aligned. And I think to go together with a coach is a great way to accelerate your public speaking capabilities and strength and build that muscle as you go forward. I wanna say thanks to all of our listeners. Check out the show notes for links to Kendall's content and we will see you next time on the Failure Gap.