Let's Think About It Podcast

Episode 51: Leadership at the Breaking Point - Coaching Through Fear, Feedback, and Growth

• Morice Mabry • Season 2 • Episode 51

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Tom Emery joins Coach Mo to explore how leadership coaching helps executives and entrepreneurs overcome the discomfort that holds them back from reaching their full potential. As a People Performance Consultant with 20+ years of HR and leadership development experience, Tom blends executive coaching, leadership consulting, and business coaching strategies to help leaders navigate difficult conversations and build resilience.

The conversation unpacks how our natural tendency to avoid discomfort creates barriers to effective leadership. Tom shares his OI4C framework — Observe, Impact, and one of four C’s (Curious, Change, Continue, or Challenge) — a powerful leadership coaching tool used by leadership consultants and executive coaches to transform confrontation into constructive dialogue. This approach is critical in cultures where politeness often overshadows direct feedback.

Coach Mo and Tom dive deep into mindset coaching concepts, distinguishing between the limiting inner critic and the empowering inner coach. Leaders operating from fear, frustration, or depletion often lead reactively instead of intentionally — an issue that leadership coaching programs directly address. Tom offers a compassionate yet practical approach to managing your protective inner voice while pushing for necessary personal and professional growth.

Drawing from the aviation principle “put your own mask on first,” Tom reinforces that leadership development isn’t optional; it’s essential. Leaders must prioritize their own professional development to sustain the energy, vision, and decision-making power needed to lead others effectively.

If you’re serious about executive leadership coaching, personal development, and growing through discomfort, this episode is packed with real-world coaching strategies for leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives. Learn how coaching leadership practices and leadership development programs can help you improve feedback skills, overcome limiting beliefs, and get out of your own way to lead with greater purpose and impact.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the let's Think About it podcast, where we embark on a journey of thoughtfulness and personal growth. I'm your host, coach Mo, and I'm here to guide you through thought-promoting discussions that will inspire you to unlock your full potential. In each episode, we'll explore a wide range of topics, from self-discovery and mindfulness to goal-setting and achieving success. Together, we'll challenge conventional thinking and dive deep into the realms of possibility. Whether you're looking to find clarity in your personal or professional life, or seeking strategies to overcome obstacles, this podcast is your go-to source for insightful conversations and practical advice. So find a comfortable spot, chill and let's embark on this journey of self-improvement together. Remember, the power of transformation lies within you, and together we'll uncover the tools and insights you need to make it happen. So let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of the let's Think About it podcast. I'm your host, coach Mo, and I'm here with another amazing guest. His name is Tom Emery. Tom, what's good, brother? Hey Mo, how are you?

Speaker 2:

It's good to be here, I'm awesome man, I'm awesome.

Speaker 1:

First question where are you checking in from?

Speaker 2:

I'm checking in from a place called Litchfield. It's a little town in the Midlands of the UK. It's not far from Birmingham. What's? One great thing about the area and region of the UK that you live in got a Roman settlement quite near the ruins of a Roman settlement. So what's that? 2,000 years old, we have an incredible cathedral, massive cathedral that was started in the 12th century, but it's pretty much bang in the middle of the UK, so it's one of the furthest places from the sea from the ocean that you can be in the UK, but it means you can get anywhere within a couple of hours.

Speaker 2:

So tell my audience who you are, what you do and the type of value you bring. I am a people performance consultant. I do a little bit of lots of different things, but I'm basically about helping people to reach their full potential in life and work, so my background is in human resources. I worked in human resources for about 20 odd years before I started my own business, helping other people do a mix of coaching some team coaching, some team effectiveness work and some broader leadership development and I'm really passionate about that. I'm passionate about helping people to lean into some of the discomfort of trying new things and making brave change so that they can make the most of themselves. I love what I do.

Speaker 1:

Take me through your process of like how did you arrive into consulting? What Was it something that triggered you in your life, that propelled you into leadership and consulting? What was that?

Speaker 2:

I come from a family, quite a big family, and my mom in particular has a real passion for helping people and she was a role model for me as I grew up and I watched her put herself out, you know, really go out of her way to help people. So if you do a psychometric on me, you'll find that I'm very strong on altruism, very strong on that sort of affiliation and wanting to yeah, to support other people. And I went into my career in human resources because, like lots of people who go into human resources, I went into it because I wanted to work with people. I liked people.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, sometimes when you're in human resources people, when they're not at their best, you might be in a process where they're getting maybe redundant or they're getting fired or they're in a disciplinary situation.

Speaker 2:

And I suppose I spent a long time working with different people and I realized after a bit that the bits that I really enjoyed were the bits where I was helping people and I was passionate about and not so much the sitting in long meetings talking about people risk or sitting in those restructure meetings where we were thinking about how many people we were going to lay off. So I thought I would follow my passions, and that's where the idea for the business came from. And yeah, it's gone from strength to strength. I've been able to work with lots of different people from lots of different walks of life and different organizations, not only to help them practically through coaching or through team development, but also through coming up with my own insights and my own frameworks. I also recently published a book as well, called People Reach your Full Potential as a Chief HR Officer, which is really to help people who are in senior HR jobs to do the job really well and be really maximum in terms of their impact.

Speaker 1:

That's great, man. Before we tap into your book, let's talk about your methodological approach to helping people. You focus on leadership. Is that correct? Yeah, okay, and what's your typical approach and your methodology approach to helping these leaders?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I think it starts from a place of curiosity really, and really meeting leaders where they are.

Speaker 2:

So when I observe leaders, lots of leaders know what to do, like they know how to lead well, but something stops them from leaning into some of the discomfort and the difficult bits of leadership, and that might be around.

Speaker 2:

They might struggle with conflict or they might struggle with relationships, and my methodology really is to first of all really get to know them and go deep with them in terms of where they are, what their challenges are and what might be stopping them, what the barriers might be, and then we really get into what's going on.

Speaker 2:

I challenge them on where they can do things different, and one of the things that I always talk on I challenge them on where they can do things different and one of the things that I always talk about when I meet with leaders, when I'm getting to know new clients and when clients are deciding whether we're a good fit to work together, is that I can do the soft stuff, I can create the safe space, but I'm really all about results at the end of the day and I will challenge and I will call things out that perhaps feel a bit crunchy and a bit uncomfortable, but that's all in service of the client, getting what they need and being able to make real tangible process. So I always think, yeah, don't come to me if you just want someone to tell you what you want to hear.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna give you the hard message to help you make some positive change, help my audience understand this right because I'm going to give you the hard message to help you make some positive change, Help my audience understand this right Because I'm a coach. And then you said you have a consultancy practice. What's the difference? Why would someone see a consultant over a coach or vice versa? Or can you do both simultaneously?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question, mo, because I think when you're training to be a coach, you are trained to not give advice, you're trained to listen, you're trained to encourage the client to come up with their own solutions and to really build those solutions themselves. For me, the way I work with clients is it's a bit more situational. So I think, in answer to your question, I think you can be both, but I think you have to be very clear when you are one or the other. I would say when I'm working with clients, I'm probably 50, 60% of the time I am a pure coach, in that I'm listening to them, I'm asking them curious questions, I'm challenging back, I'm playing back what I'm hearing, I'm asking about their assumptions and whether what they're saying is true.

Speaker 2:

But the other probably 40 percent, I might be bringing in some of my expertise, because usually that's what the client is asking for from me. They're not coming to me as a pure. They're coming to me because I've got a slightly different take on things. Maybe I've got an executive background, I've done some of the big jobs in organizations which mean that perhaps I can give a bit of context. But I think there's a danger there right, there's a risk, and so if that's happening, then that's always done very purposefully and make it clear to the client that this might be a bit of direction, a bit of training, a bit of advice and not just pure coaching.

Speaker 1:

So what I hear is from a consultancy standpoint. You're more of an advisor. You're giving them specific direction of how to overcome or move towards a specific outcome that they need help in, Whereas coaching the client is the driver of that and you're asking questions, or we're asking questions because I'm a coach to help guide them through their own self-discovery to make that, to reach that desired outcome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I wouldn't say I was that directional. So I think where the advice comes in is offering up frameworks for the client to then use to implement themselves. For example, a framework that I developed that I use a lot is called the OI4C framework, and this is really a framework for having lots of different conversations that might feel a little bit difficult. I give them a framework that they can make their own. So if you take the OI4C framework, the O stands for observe, so it's really what are you observing in this situation? The I stands for impact what's the impact? And then you choose one of the four c's, and the first c is curious. So what questions have you got about the situation? And the next one is change. So what would you like to change about the situation? The third one is continue what might you like to continue? And the fourth one is challenge. What do you want to challenge the person?

Speaker 2:

That's a really useful framework for people, say, when they want to give a bit of feedback about something that they're observing, so say they're noticing that somebody talks over them all the time in a meeting, then they can use the framework to say this is what I'm observing. I observe that when we're in meetings together, sometimes you seem to jump in and you talk over me. The impact of that is that I find it quite difficult to get my point across, and so the curiosity then is what do you think is going on? Have you noticed that? And instead of saying, why are you interrupting me all the time, mo, I'm able to say, to just say what I'm observing and what the impact is. So it makes it less confrontational, it makes it less emotional. So that's an example of where, yeah, I might give someone a framework, but I wouldn't necessarily go and tell them how to use it and when to use.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's great, and the aspect that I bring into it is helping them zoom in on what their energy is in that moment Understanding, because when there are certain avoidance present or hesitancy that's present, I help them create awareness around. Why are you hesitant? What are we really avoiding? And when you can create awareness around there, then we find out. We usually come to a conclusion that there's some sort of limiting belief that's present, some sort of assumption that's present, and when you can overcome that, then you gain your power of choice so that you can start to move forward more confidently. But I do have another question for you. Tell me about Hex. What is that?

Speaker 2:

Well, so Hex is my company and, yeah, we call ourselves People Performance Consultants. Hex was started by me when it was just me to start with, but now there are five of us who work in the company, either permanently, like me, or on an associate basis, and hex is the brand that I use as a vehicle for all the different things that I'm privileged to um to get involved in, and I suppose that the great thing that I found about starting this business is that I've been able to try lots and lots of different things and really work out what are the bits that I really enjoy doing and really exciting times. We just relaunched our website, so we've got a brand new website that's gone up. We're now sponsoring big events, sponsored our first big HR event in London last year and we're going to do that again this year as well, so the business is going from strength to strength and we're getting to work with some really great clients.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's great. What do you find working with your clients and hacks to be the common barrier that leaders embark on?

Speaker 2:

I think that as human beings we're really hardwired to avoid uncomfortable situations. When I was listening to what you were saying about how you work with your clients, I was thinking about some of the things that we do to recognize discomfort and recognize it in the body and recognize physiologically what's happening so that to your point you can get to, to that why, like what is really going on here and what is stopping us from taking action. So I think that whole sort of level of discomfort, and I think particularly around relationships, british people we're quite reserved. We don't we're not always as direct as perhaps some other cultures are, and I think British people often are so concerned about being polite, looking after that relationship, that sometimes it stops them really saying the thing that they need to say. For example, like the talking about the OI4C framework, that really is a, it's a vehicle, if you like, to be able to have some of those difficult conversations that often leaders are holding back and it's really holding back the progress and it's holding back their organizations as well.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I had this thought that just came to my mind. I'm thinking to myself yeah, man, how do I really tap into clients to get them out of their own way? Because that's my model right Help you get out of your own way, get them out of their own way, because that's my model right help you get out of your own way. And the thing that comes up to me that I just realized listening to you talk, that I consistently do with clients is I ask them what is their relationship like with themselves? Right, what?

Speaker 1:

What is that thought process when shit is all calm, nothing's nothing, there's no chaos? What's that relationship with yourself like? What thoughts do you have about yourself? What is that inner voice saying to you? Is it something positive or negative? And then I look at it from the standpoint of if it's the negative voice, that's the inner critic trying to keep you small. If it's always something positive, that's your inner coach trying to elevate you.

Speaker 1:

What is that relationship with yourself? And how do you navigate that conversation within yourself? And that's a powerful question because it for me. It helps me get to the root of where people's energy is right, because with the voice, the verbiage is consistently. I can't this, I shouldn't this, and they're triggered through frustration, fear, I don't know, hopelessness, guilt, any of that stuff. More than likely, in those moments, their energy is just draining them and they're not productive in that moment, which causes them to be reactive in all that they do. And if we can shift to a more intentional being in that space, you have power of choice totally when when you were talking, I was thinking about.

Speaker 2:

There are often, like, several versions of us inside us and none of them are bad, like none of them are there to make us feel bad or make us feel small. Protect us. So if part of you is saying you can't do something, it's basically saying don't take a risk. You might look stupid if you fail and it's not helpful, is it? But at the same time, it's a part of you that's trying to look after your welfare, your wellbeing.

Speaker 2:

So I always think I've had to learn when I've been pushing myself to do new things and I've got that voice in my head saying you can't do it, I've had to learn to be kind to that person and say thank you for trying to protect me, but I don't need it now. You go and concentrate on something else at the moment. So I'm totally with you and I think lots of people out there are really struggling with that, really struggling. Whatever you want to call it. A lot of people call it imposter syndrome and things like that. But whatever you call it, there's a lot going on inside us, whoever we are.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so tell me about the book what's the name of it and does it address some of the things that we're talking about right now?

Speaker 2:

in her job, and so she goes to work with a coach and a mentor and works through the framework that I've developed for how to be a really great senior HR leader. One of the parts of the framework is about the mindset of a great HR leader. It's the mindset of a great leader, which is to be very intentional or purposeful and to make sure that they're always on the edge of their learning. A lot of that section of the book is about the main character's confidence to play in the space in their role where they're going to add the most value and not constantly get dragged into the drama of other people's problems or getting dumped on by with things that they shouldn't really be getting involved in. The main character goes and works through the framework with the coach and goes back into her role and tries new things and really pushes herself to make some behavioral change. Hopefully there's a happy ending to it, because I won't give it away, but she has a happy ending and she becomes much more successful in her role, and so it was quite an interesting process for me.

Speaker 2:

I've never written a book before. I'm now writing the second one because I think once you've done one, you get a bit of confidence, get your mojo about it. And yeah, it was a really interesting process and it was an interesting learning process for me, reflecting on me and perhaps some of the things that I did well and some of the things that I think, in hindsight, I could have done a lot better but that's the benefit of hindsight and time.

Speaker 1:

That's what I was going to ask you what propelled you to want to write a book, and what was that experience like and what was the feeling after completing it and launching it to the world?

Speaker 2:

I had a business coach he's a guy called Robin White. He's a brilliant guy and launching it to the world. I had a business coach and he's a guy called Robin White, he's a brilliant guy. And he said to me he said, why don't you write a book? It'd be a good thing for you to be able to give to your clients, get on a few podcasts and things like that and build your presence and build your personal brand. And I was like, yeah, I'm not sure I've got a book, but I'll give it a go. I wrote the first draft of it. It was about 18,000 words.

Speaker 2:

I went to a publisher and I said, yeah, I've got this idea and done this book and I don't really want anyone to read it. I just want something to give out to people. And she said you need to go to a different publisher then, because we don't publish books that people don't want to read. We only publish books that people do. So I had to go away and work harder on it and make it something that actually I was proud of, which wasn't always easy, but it got there and it was published on March, the 11th this year, so just a few weeks ago. Okay, congratulations, thank you. Yeah, and it got to. It was an Amazon bestseller in three categories on the first day. That was really great achievement. So I've got a little sticker on the books now that says I'm an Amazon bestseller and the official launch party is on May 1st in London. So I'm looking forward to that. But yeah, it's just. It's a really great feeling to say that I'm an author Wasn't something that I ever thought I would be. So, yeah, it's really lovely.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. One thing I remember you saying as we were talking a little bit about your book you mentioned the mindset of great leaders. Right, yeah, I'm going to put myself in the audience standpoint shoes right now. I'm a leader, I'm very busy, I'm feeling burned out, I don't have the bandwidth, I don't have time to go to another training out, I don't have the bandwidth, I don't have time to go to another training, and it's difficult right now to free up time to invest in coaching for myself. What's one practical thing? You can give me more if you like, but what's one practical thing that I can do to develop my mindset as a great leader when I don't have time to do these other things?

Speaker 2:

As I mentioned, so I would say that the first thing you've got to do is look at where you're spending your time and look at your priorities, because if you're not spending time looking after your development and looking after your leadership and making sure that you're the best leader that you can be, then you're going to be wasting a hell of a lot of time doing other things that add a lot less value. So lots of the leaders that I talk to, mo and, to be honest, it's particularly common in HR leaders, I think as well because HR always feel like HR leaders feel like they've got to give the learning budget to the rest of the business and not they feel guilty spending it on themselves. Lots of leaders do not take care of their own development and don't prioritize their own development. Now I can look at some of the best leaders that I've ever worked with and a hundred percent of them they prioritized their development.

Speaker 1:

So it was at the top of their priority list.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't somewhere down here behind messing about sending emails at nine o'clock at night or whatever, that just caused more emails to come back. So that that would be this tip is you find some time for your development, prioritize it because there is time, there is time. It's just you're wasting time somewhere else that you don't need to waste.

Speaker 1:

I'm 1000% there with you, brother. 1000% Because I think a lot of when they're coming from that mindset of I don't have the time, I got to do this, I'm burnt out here, how do you, how do I fix myself to get this time? And in that case there's a leader of self-issue. That's my framework of it. There's a leader of self-issue and when you don't have a foundation to lead yourself, there's no power of choice. With no power of choice, you're consistently reacting to everything that comes into your consciousness, everything but the things that you perceive to be priority, and your self-development is put on a backburner. We lose our power of choice, because that's the one thing that sharpens our saw to be effective is the personal development, the leadership development, whatever development that's really important, and positioning yourself to get out of your own head.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's so important. I do quite a lot of work in the aviation industry and it's a very trodden path in terms of cliched sayings. We always start with put your own mask on before helping others. When you get on the flight and they do the safety demonstration, they always say put your own mask on for helping others. And it's true. You've got to look after yourself as a leader if you want to be able to lead effectively, and so I'm with you a thousand percent, mo as well. You've got to do this stuff, get out of your way. You've got to get out of your own way. You've got to reflect on this stuff and work out what you're doing well and what you can do better. It's important right to build your effectiveness.

Speaker 1:

And it goes with everything in life, right. If you're trying to improve better health, if you're trying to get a promotion, whatever it is, whatever area of your life it is that you're trying to improve upon, it takes repetition, it takes practice, it takes consistency Right. And if you're not willing to put that in for yourself, you're going to continue to run into the barriers. But the barriers that we run into makes it easier to quit. At the end of the day, it makes it easier to quit. And then you're in that cycle of starting something and not necessarily finishing it, because you're not willing to put the reps in to overcome it. And the reps, though, are the learning opportunities, because each experience is an opportunity to learn something new, to elevate you one step higher, and if you come at it from that viewpoint, you're always naturally growing, and with that growth, yeah, there's power of choice yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:

It's at your most vulnerable and the most uncomfortable times where you are being truly innovative and you really grow, so you've got to push yourself into these, into doing things that are difficult yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

That's what I love about the work that you do right, because I'm sure a lot of your clients they have this comfort zone and as a consultant you can help them see the vision, whatever that is that they're trying to do. But then you have the credibility to push them out of that comfort zone to see the results that they can't necessarily see in that moment of where they currently are, and that's a powerful place to be able to help people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah definitely it's a privilege to be working with people in those moments where, quite often, they're making some really profound change and some profound breakthroughs to get better.

Speaker 1:

Any final thoughts that you would like to share before we sign off today?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I think if anybody who's listening to this and they're thinking, yeah, I really haven't got time, I really haven't got time to do development, I'm up to here, it's all too difficult, I would just say, just look again, just look again and push yourself. And don't forget that that is part of the discomfort of change is moving out of the things that you think that you've got to do and moving out of sometimes maybe challenging people's assumptions around what you're there for and what you're there to deliver. And it's tough because it moves away from your identity of who you are and what you do. But please just give it a try. I promise you it will feel good when you start to make really, really change thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

How can my audience find you?

Speaker 2:

so they can find me on linkedin, where I post a lot of my insights and a lot of my thoughts. I also have a blog on there that I linkedin newsletter apologies that I publish every month. You can find my book People on Amazon, so you can buy it on there. It's available all over the world. My website is wwwhex-developmentcom and all my resources and insights are there as well.

Speaker 1:

There it is, mr Tom Emery. I appreciate you, sir. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your wisdom today. Thank you, I've really enjoyed it, your knowledge and your wisdom today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, I've really enjoyed it. It's been great spending some time with you, absolutely Till next time, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining me in this episode of let's Think About it. Your time and attention are greatly appreciated. If you found value in today's discussion, I encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, the journey of self-improvement is ongoing and I'm here to support you every step of the way. Connect with me on social media for updates and insights. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Coach Mo Coaching, or LinkedIn at Maurice Mabry, at Coach Mo Coaching or LinkedIn at Maurice Mabry, or visit my website at mauricemabrycom for exclusive content. Until next time, keep reflecting, keep growing and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Remember, the most effective way to do it is to do it Together. We're making incredible strides toward a better and more empowered you, so thank you, and I'll see you in our next episode.