Nov 1, 2022
In this episode of the My Kinda Leader podcast, Anna is joined by Tara Nolan - a Master Certified Coach who works with C-Suite Executives and Senior Leadership Teams to disrupt thinking and invite change for a renewed sense of Purpose, Clarity & Ease.
Tara's extensive business experience includes investment banking, headhunting, and most recently coaching. She also hosts The Game of Teams Podcast, exploring the thoughts and thinking of others who have a role in making teams great.
Tara courageously shares her personal background as well as her life in the financial industry. She discovered from her hardship as a child that it had created a resilience and tenacity in her that she then developed into her coaching to support other people's growth. She also shares that deep experiences create deep sensitivities and these can be 'triggered', in other words; create emotional and behavioural responses in us that we often not in control of, and not proud of.
Tara goes on to share how becoming self-aware as a leader was important to her. She describes an event where she was triggered by someone's behaviour and she behaved in a way that she describes as volatile. She went on to de-sensitise some of these triggers and worked purposefully to discover the types of behaviours and types of environments that she found and still finds triggering.
Anna & Tara discuss how permitting and having one's emotions as a leader creates robustness and empathy for others. They discuss how thwarting our emotions doesn't make them disappear, it only squashes them down for a time. Hence leaders finding they may well 'boil over' with anger for example; particularly if they're unaware of how they feel and why they feel that way.
This discussion illuminates how contrary to popular opinion, squashing down emotions for too long doesn't create strong leadership, it inadvertently weakens the leader and deems them less able to control/choose their behaviours.
Tara rightly brings to the table the extraordinary challenges leaders have faced and still face bringing the unprecedented times of Covid19 Pandemic, Brexit, invasion of Ukraine, political extremes, the new workplace, hybrid working, mass resignation. The level of uncertainty is de-stabilising, and leaders face the demand to stabilise the people, the workplace whilst they face the same uncertainty themselves.
Thousands of leaders around the world faced the turmoil and torment of a pandemic with no rule book, no guide, each had to create their own. Many did this with ease, many did not and are not through to the other side of it as yet. Tara & Anna discuss the uncertainty this now requires where care, and trust will need to be built again, or perhaps for the first time.
Tara, as a team coach talks about her three C's of Collection, Context & Co-creation all keys to leading and building trust in teams. She talks frequently about this in her podcast The Games of Teams.
You can discover more about Tara Nolan through the following links:
To watch and listen to more episodes of the My Kinda Leader® podcast, and for more information on the MKL Methodology® books, trainings and workshops:
www.mykindalife.org