Melody Wilding: You’ll rise or fall to the level of belief you have about yourself. I know that sounds like something you’d maybe see on a motivational poster, but stick with me because when it comes to your career, this is exactly what happens. Let me paint you a picture. You know how you may have that one manager who insists on being copied on every single email, the one who can’t seem to let their team make a decision without checking in with them first.

You see them as micromanaging. Under the surface, they’re operating from a deep belief that says, I need to be involved in everything, or it won’t get done correctly. Or what about the colleague who works 70 hour weeks, never says no to anything and seems to be drowning, but they won’t ask for help?

There’s probably this voice in their head that’s saying, I can’t say no, because then people won’t think I’m valuable. This is the power of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, what we’re capable of, what we’re allowed to do or not to do. It’s quietly running the show behind the scenes, and if you are in leadership or you want to be, then this all becomes amplified.

The good news is that beliefs can change. You just have to know how to spot them first. Today I am talking with someone who has spent the last 20 years helping leaders figure out exactly what’s been holding them back. Muriel Wilkins is the founder of Parvis Partners. She coaches C-suite executives, and she hosts one of my favorite Harvard Business Review Show Coaching Real Leaders.

I never miss an episode of it. I absolutely love. Lemme do that again. I’m gonna start from the beginning of that paragraph. The good news is that beliefs can change. You just have to know how to spot them first. Today I am talking with someone who has spent the last 20 years helping leaders figure out exactly what’s been holding them back.

Muriel Wilkins is the founder of Power. This partners, she coaches C-Suite executives worldwide, and she hosts the Harvard business for, wow, I can’t say Harvard Business Review. One more time. The good news is that beliefs can change. You just have to know how to spot them first. Today I am talking with someone who has spent the last 20 years helping leaders figure out exactly what’s been holding them back.

Muriel Wilkins is the founder of Parvis Partners. She coaches C-Suite executives worldwide, and she hosts the Harvard Business for View Podcast Coaching Real Leaders, which is a show I personally love. Hmm. One more time.

The good news is that beliefs can change. You just have to know how to spot them first. Today I’m talking with someone who has spent the last 20 years helping leaders figure out exactly what’s been holding them back. Muriel Wilkins is the founder of Parvis Partners. She coaches C-Suite executives worldwide, and she hosts the Harvard Business Review Podcast Coaching Real Leaders, which is a show I personally never miss an episode of.

She’s also written a brand new book called The Leadership Unblocked, and it gets into the seven most common beliefs that sabotage even the smartest, most capable people, which is exactly what we’re going to talk about with her today. So let’s dive in.

Melody Wilding: Muriel, thank you so much for joining me. I’m absolutely thrilled and honored to have you here on the show.

Muriel M. Wilkins: I’m delighted to be here. I have been waiting with anticipation for our conversation.

Melody Wilding: Well, you are the host of one of my favorite podcast, coaching Real Leaders, which if people are not subscribed to that, they really need to because it’s so different than any show that is out there. You are, as the name suggests. You are coaching real leaders in real time on these calls. It’s so insightful.

It’s so cool as a coach to, to hear where you take people. You also do breakdowns of why you go certain directions or ask certain questions, so I’m putting that plug in there. But the, well, we’ll talk about the, your podcast in a little bit. But where I was going with that is, the other side of your work and how you got to even hosting the podcast is because for years now, you have been an advisor to many executives. And you have this wonderful new book, and you start that book with your own leadership story about how you were navigating some of your own biggest blocks.

So take us back there and then we’ll get into the rest of it.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I mean, we’ll, we’ll go back in time for a little bit. So as you shared, I have spent the past 20 ish years, um, coaching executives, uh, at the C-suite level primarily, but also, uh, high potentials, aspiring leaders. And prior to that I had myself reached a pretty senior level position at an organization.

And while I had done well, my whole career really been on the fast track, performed really well. Um, I hit some bumps when I got there and they mainly had to do with how I was trying to get results done. Uh, I needed, my peers to also come along for the ride. And the more that I pushed, the more they pushed back.

I was facing a lot of resistance, um, that just caused a tremendous amount of frustration for me. And I remember, uh, one evening going home and telling my partner really complaining, quite frankly, about everybody who I was working with. And, you know, why couldn’t they just do what they were supposed to do and I knew what the strategy needed to be and what needed to get done and they were the issue.

And he said to me, did you ever think that maybe you’re the issue and not them? Which of course, Melody, at the time, I was like, absolutely not. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And I kept on doing what I was doing, which lo and behold, um, I ended up getting the business results. So much so that my boss gave me another large scope of work and I kept hitting the same types of obstacles and at some point I just couldn’t do it anymore.

And I ended up resigning from that job. Right, and it left me with this question of, did leadership really have to be as challenging as it had been for me, which then led me to the question that my partner had asked, which was. Was part of the issue, me and not those around me. and it led me eventually into executive coaching and exploring in what ways are we responsible for many of the obstacles and difficulties and the pains and the frustrations that we experience as leaders, and what would it look like if we really worked on what we had most in control, which is ourselves rather than trying to change the other.

Melody Wilding: And that’s the real key there, right? Is that this is something we can have an effect on that. We have agency over. I I would love to hear though, how did you, how did you really come around to being accepting or open-minded of even seeing maybe this, maybe this is me and getting out of that defensive, why can’t everybody else get it together?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah, I mean, look, I think it comes back to the, the quintessential situation that most people find themselves in, in when they are ready for change, as they get tired of being tired. Right. And they’ve tried all the things, you know, repeatedly, and they’re still tired and they’re still hitting the wall and they think there must be a different way.

Right. Uh, and that’s where I was and I think I was very good, actually quite skilled at getting everything outside of me. You know, whether it was the situation or people or processes to change in a way that I really didn’t have to, until that didn’t work anymore. And so that is really what led me to look at that question.

And I can’t sit here and tell you, you know, 20 something years later, that I’m all the way there. But what I can say is that it is now a practice for me on a day-to-day basis, moment to moment, to look at me first and to look at what’s within my control, and as you said, to for it to then allow me and enable me to have agency around how I respond to any given situation, and more importantly, to help me determine how I want to experience that particular situation regardless of the challenges that are presented.

Melody Wilding: Mm. That’s such a good way to put it, because I remember when someone gave me this example really changed things for me, which is that in any relationship or dynamic, we each have our own side of the street

Muriel M. Wilkins: Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding: you wanna make sure you’re keeping your 50% of the of the street as clean as possible, right.

You can’t, you can’t affect somebody else’s side of the street, but at least you can sleep well at night knowing I’ve done what I can on my part.

Muriel M. Wilkins: That’s right. That’s right. And, and look, and it’s not to say, um, that that guarantees that then the other person or the other people will also clean up their side. Like, that’s not, that’s not what it’s about. I think it is way more about the minute that you can, uh, change the way that you are operating, right?

You, you know, you think about it the way you said, like the street. You know, if you’ve ever been in a city where you go block to block and one block is like disastrous, and then you go to the next block and it’s like, oh my gosh, it’s clean and sparkly, et cetera, it automatically shifts to energy of the whole place.

And so this is really about shifting, you know, every dynamic is co-created. Every organization is created by all the elements that are in it, and one shift in your own dynamic can change a little bit of the, the overall dynamic. So overall, you know, my, my, my wish would be that if all leaders, you know, looked at their side of the street collectively, then we could really shift the whole leadership culture and way of leading out there.

Melody Wilding: It’s a great way to think about it and I, I do wanna circle back to your story. We’ll do that in a minute or two. In your book, you call some of these self-imposed blockers that we come up against, you call them limiting beliefs. And being someone who’s very much in the personal development coaching world, I’m very familiar with the term limiting beliefs to, to someone else that may sound a little fluffy it, it may sound a little life coachy.

So how do you define limiting beliefs and what’s the actual evidence or psychology behind, behind them?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah, I mean, look, I am as concrete as they come. You know, I was the one who used to roll her eyes whenever I sat in any type of like development training back in the day, which is why it’s. You know, very curious that I ended up in this field. Um, but part of it was because I wanted to make it pragmatic for me.

You know, I had looked, when I was having these challenges, I had looked for an executive coach and I couldn’t find one who was pragmatic, who spoke in the business language that made sense to me. And so when I think about limiting beliefs, you know it, it’s no similar than, I mean, it’s very similar to assumptions.

They’re the assumptions we make and we make assumptions all the time. You know, think about when you’re putting together a budget for your department or your team for next year, you’re putting in assumptions and depending on what the assumptions are that you put in. It’s gonna very much determine what the outcome of that budget looks like.

And, and so when we talk about limiting beliefs, they are the assumptions that may not be supporting you or helping you reach the outcomes that you desire in the situation you’re in. So in my example where what I was trying to do was get alignment with my peers so that we could move these. Projects forward because I could not do it alone.

Uh, ’cause I did not have authority over everything. I, I, I had, uh, the assumption that I was carrying, or the belief that I was carrying was very limited because I was driven by this, I know I’m right. Right. Which inherently said nobody else knows what’s right. And if I was, being driven, which I was by that belief, guess what then happened?

I acted in that way. I communicated in that way. I behaved in that way. I would go over their heads, I would circumvent there, I would interrupt in meetings. I would say, no, that doesn’t make any sense. Versus having a belief or an assumption that was more supportive of my goal, which the goal was to get buy-in, right?

And so there maybe it would’ve helped me to then be supported by a belief that was more around, everyone here has some value that they can bring to the table, and let’s include them and understand that the answer is in all of us rather than just with me.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. So interesting to think about how beliefs have this cascading

Muriel M. Wilkins: Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding: It’s almost like when you drop a stone in a pond and you have those ripples, as you were saying. And

Muriel M. Wilkins: That’s right.

Melody Wilding: I can also see how, in your case, having that belief of I’m right, right. And I think the, the tricky part is you’re not even always conscious.

I’m sure at the time you wouldn’t, you weren’t totally conscious, you were thinking or fixated on I’m right.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, and that’s the thing. That’s probably the trickiest part is that they are so, uh, they’re so embedded in us, uh, because at some point or another they have served us well. Right. So they’ve become habitual. And, you know, I know you asked about some, some evidence behind this, like, I didn’t make any of this up by the way.

Right? Like, I mean, you know, you, this is your, your domain as well. There’s so many schools of thoughts that have contributed to this. There’s one study in particular that really kind of put this in a concrete way for me. It’s the study that Aaliyah Crumb did, uh, where she looked at and, and I believe she’s outta Stanford.

Um, she looked at hotel attendance, right? And the work that they do. They’re cleaning rooms all day. They’re lifting things, they’re moving things. They’re on their feet, they’re pushing things. And the question that was asked of these hotel attendants was, do you consider your work, exercise? And they said, no. So then their assignment was they split the group, I believe, and they, they told some, we want you for the next couple of weeks to consider your work as exercise. Okay. There’s movement involved pushing all these things. Work is exercise. What they found over four weeks, only four weeks, is that those who, who define their work as also being exercise.

Okay. Just a shift in that definition saw significant enough. Improvements in key health metrics versus those who didn’t. And so the conclusion that Aaliyah Creme did, uh, gave is that not only are beliefs important and the assumptions you make important it be because they not only, it’s not only about what you do, but it’s about what you think about what you do that really drives to outcomes.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Muriel M. Wilkins: so my thinking around this is, well, doesn’t that translate to everything else, right? Including how you lead, including how you work. And that is where I became curious about, well, what are the belief? How do we think about how we work, how we lead, and how can we shift that thinking in a way that would lead to better outcomes?

Melody Wilding: Yes. That is so fascinating and it, it reminds me of, there’s, there’s a part of the brain called the reticular activating system. It’s fancy, fancy name for, it’s basically your brain’s filtering system, and so your beliefs are programming that. If you, if you believe everyone is against me, that’s a common one.

I see. I don’t know about you, but it’s a common one. I see. And if you believe everyone’s against me, well then guess what? Your, your RAS is filtering all of the evidence, mostly only that evidence. So when people do agree with you, it’s like that doesn’t stick, but everything, the slight in the email or in the meeting or whatever it is that sticks and then you, it just becomes this, uh.

Echo chamber,

Muriel M. Wilkins: Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding: okay. We were, and I had asked you or alluded to before, the fact that in your situation you probably weren’t even aware consciously at that time, that you were stuck in this belief of I am right. So how do you know when you’re up against a limiting belief? Are there, are there signs?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah. So I mean, one of the things that I’m trying to do and why I wrote the book is to kind of help short circuit that, right? Like, if I could bring some to light, um, around some of the common beliefs that I’ve seen, maybe you would recognize yourself in them in lieu of that. Uh, I think it starts with a basic, very simple question that’s grounded in curiosity, is that whenever you feel a certain level of dissonance, meaning.

You are not getting the outcomes that you want. Right? And you can feel that at different ways. Either you see it, you are not getting the outcome or you feel it. For me, it’s usually a tightness in the chest. It’s asking it’s, it’s a first looking at the situation and saying, oh my gosh, yes, I’m not getting the results that I want.

Or, I don’t like the way that went down. Or, I’m nervous about what’s about to happen. I’m not sure. And then asking this very simple question, which is. What is it that I am thinking or believing or assuming about myself or the other people involved, or the situation that is leading me to feel this way or leading me to act this way?

And so it’s first taking hold of what is it that I’m even thinking about what I’m doing right back to that study, not just going straight to, well, what should I do differently? Let’s first sort of dig in and understand what’s driving the behavior. We try to change the behavior and, and, and so the awareness needs to start with a place of curiosity, not about what the other person is doing, right, which is so seducing to do, but rather about what I’m thinking and what narrative am I telling myself?

What is my interpretation of what’s happening so that maybe there’s a possibility of changing that, that would then lead to something different.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. We talked about the belief of, I need to be right. There’s seven most common limiting beliefs that you identify in the book. Can you walk us through those?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Absolutely. And let me caveat by saying what these seven are, right? So as I got more and more curious about, um, the fact that there were beliefs that were driving us, I wondered, hmm, I wonder if there are some that are very much shared. Right? Um, and I looked across, uh, over 300 of my clients that I had coached.

So it’s, and it’s, that’s still a subset, that I had coached over the past 20 years, making sure that there was some diversity across the demographics and levels and sectors, et cetera. And lo and behold, there were these seven that sort of came to the top. That does not mean these are the only beliefs out there.

There are just a starting point. So my goal is also to. Help individuals understand that if they walk through the process, they can discover what their own beliefs might be if it doesn’t fit in one of these seven. So the seven are, in no particular order. somebody wanna ask me that, but up to seven, which one really?

And I’m like, actually they’re pretty much equal cousins, right? but they are, I need to be involved. I know I’m right. I don’t belong here. I need it done now. I can’t make a mistake. If I can do it, so can you. And the last one being, I can’t say no. And so these are very short, small, often quiet, sometimes loud voices that we are so used to in our head. We sometimes don’t even necessarily know that they’re there. But boy are they driving us particularly when we’re under stress.

Melody Wilding: Yes, I feel called out right now.

Muriel M. Wilkins: You know, the funny thing, Melody, it says, as I set out to write this book, I, um, was like, oh, I know which ones are mine, right? I’m like, I have two of them. I know. Ha ha, ha. And every chapter, I would finish the chapter, and I know you know this, you’ve written books, you know, you finish the chapter and you’re like, damnit, I have this one too. So it was a very cathartic process to write this out because, I had to recognize that I carried each one, which in and of itself is interesting because it’s not that any of them are bad, or good, it’s just more around, they come up at different times and different degrees depending on the situation and context.

But having more agency, as you said, is being able to pick and choose which ones you really wanna be, the CEO of your mind on that in that particular moment.

Melody Wilding: Yes, and what struck me is that. Two common ones I see go together are, I need to be involved and I can’t say no. And sometimes those play off of each other to make the other one worse. Especially with people who are high performing, who are very dedicated in their roles. Have you seen that connection as well?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think the, the difference between the two is what drives it. the, I need to be involved off. so let me back up a little bit. if you really drill down on all of these beliefs, which are, which tend to have led to our success up until now. And so they’re, they have a protective mechanism.

They wanna keep you successful. And so the story is, it’s worked for you up until now, so keep using it. Like, why would you want to fail in any way? The failure that they’re ultimately saving you from are grounded in three things that we all fundamentally look for as human beings, whether we are in the workplace or not.

It’s the, we wanna be, uh, we wanna feel safe. We wanna feel connected and we wanna feel valued. Okay. And so when you think about the, I need to be involved, it typically is driven primarily from the need to feel valued and safe. Why if you, you know, if you can even take it out of the workplace. Think about like the helicopter parent. Okay, which is what I need to be involved is basically same belief. It’s just driven a personal life rather than work. but the helicopter parent is like, at the end of the day, you know, and I can share this, like my kids just went off to college and I’m seeing many of my fellow parents who are like, well, what do I do now?

Like. How am I worthy if I’m not here to be involved in my kids’ life? You know? And so it comes down to this assumption that I am not valuable unless I’m in that meeting, unless I’m weighing in on that email, unless I’m, doing the all the things. and there’s also a place of safety because underlying it is if I’m not involved, all hell’s gonna break loose and I’m gonna have to deal with it. And I don’t believe I have the capacity to deal with it.

The, I need to, oh, I can’t say no, has a little bit of a nuance to it in that it is primarily driven from the, this need to feel connected. And so there’s, if I don’t, if I don’t say yes, it will create a chasm between me and the other.

Melody Wilding: Hmm.

Muriel M. Wilkins: I don’t want to risk the relationship.

I don’t want to feel as though there is no connection. I don’t wanna feel like I’m not part of the the tribe, the community, right? So it comes back to these fundamental survival instincts that we all have, that we then transpose in situations that really aren’t about survival. But they’re so habitual, we still use them.

So they are very close. In fact, I’d say many of these seven are very close, which is why I call them close cousins. and yet they have each have a little bit of a different DNA within them.

Melody Wilding: For the person who is feeling, oh my gosh, I am that, I need to be involved and, and thinking it comes from a good place for me. How, how do you unblock yourself from that?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah. and by the way, they all come from a, they all come from a good place. That’s what’s beautiful. So there’s a bit of, with all of them, my hope is that people don’t like, beat themselves up and say, oh my God, why, why do I have this? No, no, no, no. It’s actually a like, oh, well I get it.

Oh, I understand. Thank you. for helping me all this time. And now this might not be your assignment, but, and it’s interesting. I was just on a call with a coaching client earlier where he’s facing this exact one and. Where, um, you, you have to first understand why it’s not serving you. And where I see that the I need to be involved really gets in the way for a leader is in two ways.

First, it impedes their ability to scale. So if they now have increasing levels of scope or they need to be able to manage a lot more than what they needed to manage before, and they cannot, they physically do not have the capacity to be involved in all the things, it creates a real issue. So that’s number one.

I think the second is when they start getting blowback that they’re micromanaging. And that they are invol, the employee engagement scores show it, or the 360 feedback scores show it, or people leave and there’s an attrition. Why are you losing good people? And so those external circumstances are usually what drives them to say.

Something needs to be done about this. Nobody ever comes to me and say, you know what, Muriel, I think I like, have this belief that I need to be involved too much and I need to work on that. Never, ever, ever has that happened, but these external circumstances is what they present with. And again, we go back to, well, what’s in your control?

So what can you do about it? Once you understand that, yeah, maybe your need to be, you don’t need to be involved as much as you are. There’s a reframing of the belief, right? And that reframing can look different for everyone. It’s important that you own what that reframing looks like. But in my client’s situation, where we got to this morning is he said, I need to be involved in the things that are at the highest level of risk, combined with the highest level of urgency. And so then the question was, okay, if that’s the filter, let’s look at what’s on deck this week. If that’s the filter. What do you need to not be involved in and what do you need to be involved in? And he was able to go through and check off the boxes and color code it. So that was one.

And, and then I think in particular situations, it is the definition of where you add value. In his case it was understanding that where he adds value is in articulating the what, but not necessarily articulating the how and being involved in the how with levels of gradients. So we actually had a really.

Fun conversation where I said, it’s like everybody has a love hate relationship with Chat GPT. I said, but one of the things that I think Chat GPT is really teaching us is to be really clear about what the conditions of satisfaction are. We don’t really care. We do a little bit how chat GPT does it, but we don’t tell chat GPT how to do it.

We just say, here’s what we want done, and the clearer we are about those conditions of satisfaction, we then say, Chad, I don’t need to be involved in how you do it. Just do it. And that is the metaphor I used with him. And it completely clicked. And he was like, okay, I need to be really clear about expectations and what the conditions of satisfaction are, and then I need to let them do it and just make sure there are milestones so I could check in and make sure they’re, they’re on the right path.

I said, exactly. So we’ll see. He’s gonna report back in two weeks. But that is a way that you can translate this shift. Reframing the belief to action, to get it done. ‘Cause it’s not just about keeping it up here in your mind, it’s also about doing differently as well.

Melody Wilding: I, I love that, uh, connection between Chat GPT, thinking how are you prompt engineering your team when you’re

Muriel M. Wilkins: That’s right. That’s right.

Melody Wilding: It’s such a funny way to think. A very modern way to think about it now. so going back to your story that you shared at the beginning, that the, I know I’m right,

limiting belief. What were some sneaky ways you saw it showing up for yourself, or now that you’ve been coaching for so many years, you’ve seen it show up for others. And how do you shift past that one? Because I could see that the, I know I’m right, being very fixated because by virtue of that limiting belief, you’re not necessarily open

Muriel M. Wilkins: Mm-hmm.

Melody Wilding: to other, to other viewpoints or interpretations.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah. so I think the first thing is I really needed to scratch the surface to kind of understand where it came from, right? And so I think a big piece of this is understanding even the origin of your beliefs. the fact of the matter is I had been valued for a very, very long time. Like my currency was being right.

I’m the last of four kids in my family and my, one of my parents was very intellectually driven. And, unbeknownst to me, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t know I was doing this when I was eight years old, but like, the way you got attention was by being smart and being right. you didn’t get attention by not having the right answer.

You didn’t get attention by, actually even being curious. You just got attention by saying, here’s what it is, and like advocating for your point. And guess what? It got reinforced in school. I, I got valued at school for having the right answers. It got reinforced when I went in the workplace.

My bosses loved that I came with the right answer, and that I would push and advocate and be able to debate my way into being right. And it did not serve me well when others also needed to feel like they were right or they had some skin in the game, which is where I hit some challenges. And so I had to understand that there was a whole,

fabrication in a learned behavior that I was using, a learned belief, quite frankly, that I was using to then pave my way to success in a very different context. so that’s number one, is understand the origin of what your belief is, so that you can recognize it when it comes out, which for me, it still comes up.

And so once you can understand that it’s there, you become much more aware of when you’re doing it. I, for me, even though I may not. Present my, I may not, do what I used to do, which is, I would interrupt people or I would say things like, um, well that doesn’t make any sense.

or I would ask questions that would really not be questions. They would be questions to try to be gotcha questions. You’re wrong. and but now I can even still sometimes hear as somebody is sharing what they’re sharing, an inter just an internal voice, like I don’t know about that.

so on the days where I can really put that belief to not be driving me, the antidote is to be curious, is to ask questions. And the goal has changed. So the belief now is not so much around pinning my success and my currency on being right. My, my desire or my goal in, in, in most, interactions is to, let’s either co-create the response or what’s more important to me is that we have an effective outcome rather than me being right.

it’s, I think it’s a kind of a cliche saying, you’ll hear what’s more important to you right now, being effective or being right. and so it all depends. Now, are there certain situations where it is important for me to be right, and I know I’m right. Absolutely. The difference is I’m not gonna use that a hundred percent of the time across the board, and I think that’s what’s key here, is to recognize that you don’t have to be driven by the same assumptions in every given situation.

You would not do that in the way you run your business. You would not want your doctor treating you that way. So why are you treating yourself that way and then eventually treating others in that way as well?

Melody Wilding: Hmm. That’s such a important point to drive home, that that level of discernment of what lens to apply when that’s the sign of leadership maturity is to have that situational awareness of what is the goal here. How do I need to adapt to what’s needed to achieve that? And I, and I think, yeah, I don’t think enough people realize that because we, we always hear leadership is about consistency, right?

And have conviction in your beliefs, but that doesn’t mean rigidity in how you approach something. So that’s just such an important takeaway for everyone having that situational awareness.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah, and I mean, when you look at, adult development theory, which underlies this as well, what it shows is that true leadership maturity, as you said, is the ability for your mindset to expand so that it can meet the complexity of what’s in front of you. And so if you have a rigid mindset, it’s no different than even what you know.

Carol Dweck with all her work around fixed mindset versus growth mindset. You know, if you have a narrow mindset or rigid mindset where you’re only operating on one set of assumptions, there’s no way you can deal with complexity. And what are leaders called to do? They are called to deal with complexity, deal with change, deal with ambiguity, which requires having a more adaptable, agile mindset.

Um, and so if we refuse or are not even aware that our mind can be nimble, that that is actually, in my opinion, the last frontier in terms of being able to meet potential is working on that particular muscle. Then we are wasting a lot of energy.

Melody Wilding: Hmm. My last question for you is I wanna talk a little bit about your podcast because as I said, you’re on season, what now?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Oh gosh. Season 10.

Melody Wilding: Oh my gosh.

Muriel M. Wilkins: I know. Unbelievable.

Melody Wilding: Wow. Congratulations. So you have

Muriel M. Wilkins: Thank you.

Melody Wilding: dozens, if not hundreds of conversations just on that show up until now. Is there one you still remember to this day and why does it stick out to you?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Um, there’s so many, it’s like I am, every episode that I, or conversation that I leave at the end, I, we have, I have a little debrief with my producer and I’m like, oh, that one was good, wasn’t it?

Melody Wilding: Mm-hmm.

Muriel M. Wilkins: And so, it’s so hard to discern. There’s one in particular. Gosh, I’d have to think about there, there’s one, I can’t remember the exact title, but it’s something like, how do I, it’s like how do I overcome or how do I break through my disillusionment with the leadership team or with the executive team?

And it was, a leader. You know, he was pretty high up in his organization who just became very disillusioned with the folks above him. and he was feeling some frustration, some dissonance, and very challenge because he was at this point where he felt like his values did not align with what he was seeing in terms or, or in terms of the values that the leadership team was make, uh, had based on the decisions that he was, they were making.

And so why did this one, um, strike me? Number one is this happens all the time Where the question really is here are people who are in positions of authority and who I’m supposed to look up to, and I’m realizing I don’t know if I can. And what was, really compelling for me is I think when I say it happens all the time, it doesn’t just happen in the workplace.

I think this is what kids go through when they become teenagers. You know, they look at their parents and they’re like, oh, you are not who I thought you were. So that I, it just had so many connotations. So I think the second piece is, it was, it’s so relevant, particularly in the times that we’re in now where, um.

The disillusionment happens, right? Which was the crux of this episode and why I loved it so much. The disillusion only happens if we had an illusion to begin with. And the illusion is around who these leaders are in our minds. I use quotes supposed to be, versus facing the reality of what they are, who they are, the decisions that they’re making.

And that is where we got to in that episode is recognizing that he had contributed to his disillusionment by having an illusion to start with around the expectations that he had set. So it just went deeper than I thought that I think either one of us thought it would go. I never expected it to be about that.

Um, and um, but we walked away with some really concrete actions around what was in his control, around how he could deal with this dynamic rather than, being frustrated that these leaders weren’t making the decisions that he thought they should be making.

Melody Wilding: Yes, and that’s something I love about the way you coach is you, you don’t believe the surface level story. You don’t coach on the surface level story, which the client came to you and said, I’m frustrated by the leadership team. And you could have gone right into, okay, how do you have a conversation to express your concerns to them, but you didn’t.

And that I, I find, again, to me as a coach, it’s really fascinating and just, you are such an excellent, coach. Like at the craft of coaching. You

Muriel M. Wilkins: Oh, thank

Melody Wilding: one of the best I have ever heard or seen. So I mean that, and that’s why I really enjoy listening to the episodes.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Oh my gosh.

Melody Wilding: and there’re just so interesting how you get layers deeper.

On what’s happening on the surface to really understand the dynamics involved, the person’s thoughts and reactions that are involved, but not at all in a fluffy way.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah.

Melody Wilding: if anybody is listening and they really want a nuanced understanding of, how your mind and your perception, how you’re just operating at more of the leadership level that is tactical, but it’s fantastic.

So can’t, can’t recommend

Muriel M. Wilkins: Melody. Thank you so, so much.

Melody Wilding: My pleasure. My pleasure. Uh, any final words, tell folks where they can find the book, why they should get the book,

Muriel M. Wilkins: Yeah.

Melody Wilding: yes, where they can connect with you further?

Muriel M. Wilkins: Absolutely. So you can find the book at any of your favorite booksellers. And if you don’t know where to go, you can just go to leadershipunblocked.com. And you know, my hope in reading this book, and quite frankly in any of the work that I do, is really to help leaders lead with a little more ease.

life is challenging enough, leadership is challenging enough. If you could experience it a little bit differently, maybe it would allow you to lead with more ease and therefore make everybody’s life, uh, others’ life a little easier as well. and you can find any of my information@murielwilkins.com.

I’m on LinkedIn at Muriel Wilkins and on Instagram at Coach Muriel Wilkins.

Melody Wilding: Thank you so much for joining me today.

Muriel M. Wilkins: Thank you, Melody for having me.