The Leader's Gift of Listening

What happens when a coaching conversation completely falls flat? In this episode, Zach Hensrude reflects on the worst coaching appointment he’s ever had—and the powerful leadership lesson it left behind.

Leaders often think they must say more, give more advice, or solve the problem. But real transformation happens when we learn to listen deeply.

Zach breaks down the 4 pillars of powerful leadership listening:

1. Be Present – Your focus is the gift.
2. Ask Clarifying Questions – Not to guide, but to understand.
3. Facilitate Self-Discovery – Help them find their own answers.
4. If They Can’t Self-Discover… Help them unpack what’s getting in the way.

If you’ve ever left a conversation wondering, “What just happened?”—this one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to the Different Thinking Podcast, where creativity is welcome, conventional wisdom is tried and tested, and growth and development are nourished so that someday you can help to change the world. Now here's your host, Zach Hensrood.

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

I had, hands down, the worst interaction with a coach ever. in my life. And this recently happened. And so I had to hop on the podcast because I know that there's an opportunity to learn here. Now, if you know me, you know that I am all about coaching. I think it is an important part of any personal development. If you're trying to develop yourself personally, you not only need mentors, you not only need people to train you, but you need someone to coach you. And that is someone to hold you accountable for the things that you want to do, not what someone else wants you to do. And I think that's the beautiful thing about coaching is when you're ready to make a change, when you're ready to do something, there are people that you can hire, that you can bring in your life that can hold you accountable to the things that you want to do. And when you want to do them, that's the motivator behind that. So I tell you, after being coached professionally for eight plus years and personally for the last five years and having some congruency between professional coaching and personal coaching, hands down, had the worst coaching call interaction being coached that I've ever had in my entire life. And it happened today. Because it was absent of something I'm going to discuss today. I knew it was bad because generally when I'm being coached and if there's a set time, whether it's 30 minutes, an hour, hour and a half, I will take up all of that time. And there's sometimes those coaches that I work with are very, very gracious and they go over time. And we have a, a, a, a sympathetical relationship where, where we're working together. And I have good relationships with my coaches, even when I miss on expectations, when I don't do what I say I want to do, even when they're giving me the, the medicine, the, the, the stuff that doesn't taste good, the, the things that I need to hear that I'm not very pleased about. I mean, I'm willing to accept that. because of my relationship with my coach. And I will tell you, this interaction with the coach was actually not my regular coach. It was somebody substituting for my regular coach. And I will tell you that this is not something that commonly happens because if it was, I wouldn't be working with that company at all. Actually, I believe that. If the coaching does... If it does not connect with you, then you should not be wasting your time or money. The coaching has to connect with you. You have to want to change. No one can force you to change. And if they do successfully force you to change, it's not going to stick. You are going to want to want this. You have to want to want this. So... If you've been listening to me for a short time or for since the beginning of the show, you probably can gather and I'll just say it out loud now. I don't just accept things the way that they are and just go, okay, moving on. I like to do something what I call triage. Some will call it debriefing or even autopsy. But what I like to do is I like to walk back through whatever that whatever that interaction was, whatever that event was. And I like to process it good, bad, the okay. And I like to understand the potential gifts, the lessons, the empowerments that can come from an interaction. And so just like I normally do, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. because of that interaction. So going back through it and doing my normal triage or debriefing of that coaching call, I do want to start off with this caveat or right out of the gate that I subscribe to what Jocko Wilnick and Leif Babin call extreme ownership. So I'm never wanting to ever level or lay blame on somebody else because I Really, you have that control over that entire process. And I'll show you in just a moment as I walk through this podcast episode and the one element that was missing from the coaching call that we as leaders, you and I as leaders can give to other people. So from the jump of it, while this was missing from the call, I'm never going to blame the coach. The coach was not at fault. I think if she was listening to this, I think there could be a lesson learned and she could probably get more from me of that call than what she did. And I hope if she's listening to this and she goes, ah, you know, I really felt like I helped him. I'm really sorry that he didn't feel that way. That's normal, by the way. That's totally normal when you miss on this one thing. But let's go ahead and get past that it's not the other person. It's not the coach. The coach was not the problem. Right off the bat, the problem really rested on my shoulders. I was the problem. Let me just right out, get out of the gate. I was not prepared for this call. I checked my calendar that day and go, oh, crap. I got a coaching call. And I knew it wasn't with my regular coach. I knew it was with the substitute coach. And so I, right out of the gate, wasn't necessarily prepared or here, let's just be honest. I wasn't prepared for the call. And as I started to try to prep for the call, I couldn't even remember what I wanted to be held accountable for. Like there was enough going on in my life and there still is, but there was enough going on in my life that really, I just was in a place where I I'm just trying to take it day by day. I really don't have these goals that are way out in front of me. It's how do I take one step at a time? And so when I got on the call, I didn't even remember prior to what I was being held accountable for, which this person really needed to know to properly coach me. I had what I like to call an Eeyore mentality. Eeyore is a character in Winnie the Pooh. He's the donkey that's, hey, you guys, right? Like he has always that downtrodden negative mindset that bad things happen to him. I was in that kind of mood and attitude. And so it's something where somebody that's meeting you for the first time and you come with that type of attitude, it also can be somewhat off-putting. And so going through this call, I started to do what I normally do in every coaching call. My coach taught me this, be open. No one can help you if you're not open. What do you need? What is going on? Open up. If you're just like, Oh, everything's all right. You know, it's just what it is. You're not going to get the most out of it. If you're, unless you are, Hey, this is what's happening. This is why it's happening. This is what's going on. And now I need to see around this corner to get to my goal. I mean, the more open you are, the better a coach can help you because they can't get in your mind and know what you're thinking. And so already we were heading towards disaster just from the start. Partway through the call, I realized where I was at. So I had a lack of preparation. I also had a lack of preparation when it came to the location of where I was going to be coached. This is a point that you should write down when you are going to be coached. Make sure you're in a place that you can be open, by the way, because if you're not open, the coach can't help you. And if you can't be open where you're at, then you're already, again, setting yourself up for failure. And so halfway through the call, I realized that I might not be alone in this conversation that actually where I was sitting and doing the conversation, the walls were extremely thin and somebody was in the next room. And so it was something where all of a sudden I started to shut down. And that's why I said this call, probably the coaching call could have ended 10 minutes early because I started to shut down. I started to just agree with everything the coach was saying and worked to try to get her off the phone as quickly as possible. So where's the lesson? Where's the empowerment? What was missing? And I know we're already well into this podcast and you might be wondering, okay, what was really missing and what was missing out of the entire coaching call that would have changed it from the worst of all time was the gift of listening. That's right. Listening. Now, We might have an understanding of what that is, but let me really break it down and define it of what I mean by listening. Because as leaders, we need to have this gift. We need to provide this gift to our people. And if we don't, they will not feel served. They will not feel valued. And while conventional wisdom is, We'll tell you that our people need to listen to us. They will not emulate unless they see it. We can't have them listen to us if they don't see it from us as leaders first. And so the first point of listening, the first definition point, and it's the most important. If you get nothing out of this podcast episode, here's the number one point that you need to to adhere to. There's no, there's no debate. If you do not have this, you are not giving the gift of listening. Now, the other ones, they will help you. They will take you to the next level, but they will not get you to the place of where people will actually feel like you're listening to them. If you don't have this one element, which is very simple, you need to be present in the conversation. It's really funny in this, era of life that we live in, the act of presence, which used to be commonplace, is actually becoming more and more unique. See, with the advent of technology, our attention can be robbed within a second. Our attention can be removed from a conversation within a moment. And how does that happen? With a simple notification. A simple ding, a ping, some sort of buzz, whether it's on your phone, your watch, your computer screen, there's all sorts of places where notifications can hit you. And it can be so easy as a leader to be present in a conversation one moment and gone the next, even though physically you're there, even though you're trying to listen. You can rob that person the gift of listening within a moment. Not a second, a moment. I mean, it is so quick how it can be robbed. But the non-negotiable is you have to be present. I have a hard and fast rule that whenever I'm training, I'm teaching, whenever I'm really consulting, my cell phone is always put away. And it's on do not disturb or work mode. So that way it doesn't bother me on my watch. It doesn't come up on my computer screen. I always want to put my cell phone away. I don't want it on the table. I don't want it on the desk. I don't want it in the room that I'm at. Really, honestly, I want my cell phone so far away from me. Now that can create some awkwardness when I have to look something up when I'm talking to somebody, but I've really learned that it might be worth just writing it down what I need to look up and getting back to them without having to go, Oh, let me grab my phone and we'll figure it out. Now there's times where I'll have to stop the meeting, grab my phone because I need to look something up or they've asked for me to pull up a text or something like that. And I could totally go do that and I will do that. But then I immediately put my phone away again. And so it's never sitting out front because again, any notification, it doesn't matter if it's my phone or their phone, it actually can rob your attention span. And the gift of listening actually requires attention because you can't, I mean, you can hear somebody, you can somewhat recognize that they're saying something, but you can't purely listen to somebody unless you give them your full and undivided attention. And so it's incredibly important to be present. Next, I think one of the other elements to truly listening is when you know the answer, not to answer the answer, but to answer it with a question. I always say ask clarifying questions to learn. So even though I may know the answer to their problem, or I may know the answer to what they're thinking. I always ask clarifying questions to get a little bit deeper. And I will tell you why I do that. Because when I think I know the answer, I'm assuming I know the answer. And we all know what assumptions do. Because let's say I'm wrong with that assumption. Now they don't feel like I'm listening. And so you rob them of the gift of listening. When you ask clarifying questions to learn, you can see with your idea of what you assume is correct, if it truly is correct or not. And so I always ask clarifying questions as answers. And when I say clarifying questions, it's, do you believe this? Or do you think this? Or do Share with me a little bit more why you think that way or why you think that this might be the answer. Or that's a really great question. Let me ask you, what is your thoughts on it? I'd be curious to see what you think. Because it's something where sometimes people are asking questions because they want to know something or they just want confirmation that they're right. I don't know how many times you've had a conversation like this. I've had a conversation multiple times like this where I'll say an answer and they'll go, that's exactly what I was thinking. Okay, perfect. That makes sense now. And so they already are thinking of something. So why not help them? By asking clarifying questions. Now, when I've been really wrong, by the way, with assumptions, that's when someone goes, you're not listening to me. I don't feel like I'm being I'm being heard. I feel like, you know, that you're not present. You're not connected. And so instead of trying to play defense, asking clarifying questions in a polite manner, by the way, not again, not like trying to do it in an aggressive way. I mean, don't do it in a defensive way. Especially if what the person's bringing forward is something where they have a problem with you, with conflict resolution. You don't want to ask clarifying questions in a way that feels like now they're being interrogated. I would always, when it comes to someone having an issue with me, going, oh, I really apologize that I made you feel that way. Or that what I did... came across that way. I just want to apologize that I said that because hearing it from you, I can understand or empathize what you're feeling. May I ask you this man may ask by saying this, how would you get this across to somebody else? Like if this was the desired result of, you know, you needed to, uh, make this change, or if you needed to, uh, do something differently, how would you like to get it across to somebody else and listen to what they say? Because within there, it doesn't sound like you're playing D you're playing defense, but you're there to learn. And then once people are, are understanding that you are giving them the gift of listening, the conflicts result resolved themselves. Yeah. Now, I think it's always important that by asking clarifying questions, you get them to a place where they're self-discovering the answers. But let's say in this coaching call, and I'll bring back up this coaching call because in it, I didn't actually have the answers. There was one point where the coach said, hey, what do you think you need to do? And I said, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know what the next steps are. The coach assumed what the next step should be. And that's what they ended the coaching call on is giving me action steps of what would fix my problems. But I don't think that's the way of going about it. Because again, I got off the call feeling like I wasn't listened to. And so if I wasn't getting into a place of self-discovery, getting to a place of understanding how to get to the solution, I think the next step is to try to get the person to unpack further. And I think you do that by clarifying a question of, hey, Zach, you know, I'm feeling like in this conversation, while I understand what the problem may be, I feel like I need to have a firmer grasp on that. So can you open up a little bit more? And in that moment, if I would have been asked that question, because I've been pondering about this, if I would have been asked that question, I would have been very honest. And I would have said, coach, I'm sorry, I cannot Because where I'm at right now would not allow me to be that open because I have other people that are listening that I don't want to be a part of this conversation. At that point, then I could, as a coach, respect that and go, well, it sounds like we're not quite prepared for this coaching call. And so here's what I would like for you to do on our next call is I would like for you to be better prepared. So I want you to think through what action steps did you commit to? Be in a place where you can be open so I can help you. And if you need be, please email me more specifics about your situation so therefore I can give you some more insights on potential action steps that can change the route that you're going. And in that, what you give that person is that gift of listening. Now again, I don't fault the coach. And maybe that last statement made it sound like I'm faulting the coach. I'm not, I'm not at all. I know because I've been coached for so long by multiple people in multiple different programs. I know what I needed to do to change that. And I did that through my process of triage. But what I learned from it as a leader is that there are times, and again, I don't have this all figured out. I'm going to be the first one to tell you. I don't got this all figured out. Actually, this podcast episode is for me to remember the next time I don't have it all figured out. And so with that being said, I need to give the gift of listening to others because once they feel listened, they'll feel served. See conventional wisdom as a leader says, Hey, I'm the leader. You must listen to me. But I would rather now flip that on the head and say, Hey, I'm going to listen to you. And because I listened to you, I expect the same respect back. And I know that if I show you the proper way of being a leader of, of being someone that listens, that connects, that cares that you will start to connect and care. This is one of the most powerful gifts that we can give somebody else. And I hope as a leader, this episode has been extremely helpful for you. I hope the next interaction with an employee, a client, whoever that might be, that you put this within practice. Because this is the way that you actually become a different leader. This is how you do things differently. This is how you create a different business. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

to the Different Thinking Podcast. Please follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Don't forget to rate and review us. And remember, today is a great day for you to apply different thinking. Thanks again for listening.