Kate Rooney 0:01
I would love leaders, just to take the mask of go into the room and accept that you don't know everything. How could you it's too big and ask, ask the questions that you're frightened or ask and ask the questions that you don't know the answers to, and see what comes up.
Finola Howard 0:20
That's Kate Rooney, leadership coach, team, coach and speaker. I asked Kate to join me on the podcast because I wanted to open up a conversation about the state of leadership in the world today, and why we have so many dinosaur leaders, Kate has a unique ability to call out the elephant in the room. So I knew she'd have a frank conversation with me that would prove insightful and useful. She didn't disappoint. I'm Finola Howard, intuitive marketer, your host and founder of how great marketing works, I believe that every business has a story to tell, because that's how the market decides whether to buy or not. And your story has to resonate with who you are, and with the people you want to serve. And this podcast is about helping you reach the market in a way that feels right to you. So if you're an entrepreneur with a dream you want to make real, then this is the podcast for you. Because great marketing is your truth share. There's been something really kind of bugging me for the last while and it made me reach out to somebody to talk about in the podcast, I find myself having these conversations about leadership. And, you know, the rise of coaching, the rise of mentoring and support for leaders and support for teams. And it seems like I'm having the same conversation all the time about what's happening with leadership. And that's actually what I'm asking about today. What's going on with leadership? I mean, we've known about this stuff for ages. But how people should treat their people better. How if we lots of stuff, lots of questions I have for you here, and I want to talk about it with the amazing Kate Rooney, who is a leadership and team development coach from the on legs agency. Welcome, Kate.
Kate Rooney 2:14
Thank you very much for having me. Delighted to be on the show. And I'm delighted
Finola Howard 2:18
to have you we had this amazing conversation just chatting about this whole issue because I kept finding myself going. I'm really bored having this conversation. Why do corporates not know what's going on now. So hold that thought for a moment. And what I'd like to do is actually get into your background because you have this amazing background. And I love the piece that you said to me when we had original conversation, which is good coaches have always been coaches but you have a background of working with several retail brands like best menswear promo, JD sports champion sports, next, tennis, this journey that took you from leadership positions yourself, and moving into a role where you decided to go out on your own. And I'm really interested. And
Kate Rooney 3:04
I think yes, that the point that you've made, the coaches are always coaches. So regardless of which role I was in whether it was next, which was way, way back in the day, 20 plus years ago now. And right up to present day, regardless of the role I was in, I was always coaching the people that I was with. So I've read, you know, from a very young age around a books around leadership, you know, kind of comes up within leadership, dysfunctional teams, team dynamics. So as a leader within a retail business, which is very KPI focused. Most managers and leaders in that place are I wouldn't say they're one dimensional, but they're very focused on the KPI piece. Whereas I was hugely focused on the leadership, the teams, the team dynamic. And that delivered KPIs for me the whole way through my career. So I suppose I tapped into that if you treat teams well, and if you work with team dynamics, you can still reach the KPIs without that forced, you know, sales driven culture being as heavy as what it is, with regards to moving that into what I wanted to do by myself. And I think we talked about this very, very briefly. And anyone that knows me will know what I mean. I never wanted my wings clipped, I could never see myself working for somebody long term. I was always going to go out by myself. But it took me a while to get the confidence up to take that step, you know, as it does for most people. And I suppose I took that step five years ago, and haven't regretted it, thankfully.
Finola Howard 4:29
I love it. And let's ask let's talk about this. I mean, when we were originally discussing yours in your reading leadership stuff when you were 17 years of age, I mean, it's it's prevalent everywhere. How do we still have one dimensional leaders like what are they afraid of, or what's going on here in the world?
Kate Rooney 4:49
I am in these conversations every single day, and even as early as two hours ago, I've just left a client and we were just having conversations around leadership. So I rarely go through a day where I don't talk about leadership, what's happening and leadership, how are we managing teams, et cetera, et cetera. And without going into detail about specific teams, that the common themes that come up are very basic stuff. Communication, are we communicating? And when I say, Are we communicating? I'm not even asking, Are we communicating? Effectively? I'm asking, Are we communicating full stop? So it goes back as basic as that. And I think if you're working with teams, you can't make any assumptions. And I've learned that the hard way you assume, yep, you're communicating with your team? Yes, we'll be checking in with your team, you're probably doing one to ones, I'm assuming that we're, you know, have a nice open dialogue. I learned very early on, make no assumptions about leadership. And that was my big learning curve. So no, they start right at the beginning and ask very basic questions. And you'd be surprised how many of those basic questions the answer is no, we're not. We're not doing that yet. That's pretty common.
Finola Howard 6:05
The thing that I'm really curious about is even more basic than that, individual leaders who are hearing as leaders in organizations, they are hearing all of the talk about diversity, quality, inclusion, communication, individuality, allowing people to bring their whole selves to the to the workplace, all of these things. Can we named what's going on here? I mean, really, name is like, some of the things that we talked about was that we're actually not knowing what EQ is, they've ticked a box of saying, Yeah, know what emotional intelligence is. But if you actually really grilled them, they actually don't know. And the other ones that was interesting is, and I really want to know, what are they afraid of? Why do we have dinosaur leaders in the marketplace?
Kate Rooney 6:55
So I think the answer to the question is, if you have to kneel it in one word, can't What is that, and it's fear, it's fear, and lots of different levels. It's fear of not knowing it's fear of being exposed, it's fear of letting go of that control. So when we talk about dinosaur leadership, and I'm working with the company at the minute, where we've got dinosaur leadership, a very, very, very present. And that is absolutely going to if I relinquish control, then I'm not going to be able to manage this because I haven't developed my people skills that adequately. So fear, right across levels, fear of fear of exposure, I think is the biggest one. If I if I if you pushed me against the wall, I think that fear of exposure is probably the most
Finola Howard 7:39
the most prevalent, exposed of what are we exposing smoke as
Kate Rooney 7:44
exposing the lack of my skills, exposing the lack of my growth, exposing the lack of my knowledge and my ability to probably lead this team effectively.
Finola Howard 7:54
But even like, it's even basic personal development stuff here,
Kate Rooney 7:57
but you know what? Vanilla, it's tick the box, I so many courses happening, and we go and we do them and we tick the box, and we say we've done them, but the learning. And the practice of that is not really happening. You know, I did a I did a one day event with a client. And I said to the leader, the leader, I said, Okay, we're going to do EQ, emotional intelligence. And he kind of went, Yeah, I know how it was nearly like, dismiss 1000 You're doing that. I know that I've done that. And I said, Well, we're doing no harm to sit in the room anyway. Because my thought was you don't, you're not practicing it. So I said, sit in the room, we all learn something, even if it's a topic that you've been to before we come out of that room, and he said, I've never done that. And I said, Brett, you said you did EQ, well, I did empathy. I did a session on empathy. And I said, but that's really one part of it. So he believed he had done a course on EQ, he'd believed he knew everything about EQ, yet, he'd gone to some session at some stage. And it was about empathy and intertwined. You know, that's one of the characteristics of EQ. And he thought he knew what he was, and he didn't. That's a very, that's only one example. But I come up against that a lot. That's not a rare, rare example. It's not a one off, I would say it's more of the norm, with the leaders that I see and meet with.
Finola Howard 9:16
So they don't know what they don't know. Don't
Kate Rooney 9:19
know what we don't know. And let's not ask, you know, because let the fears at play, you know, and, and all the good stuff you mentioned, you know, equality and inclusion and, you know, bring your whole self I'm finding more and more that's ticked the box. It's, it's, it's lip service. It's not being practiced, as posters on walls.
Finola Howard 9:42
But what you've opened up for me is when I hear the words lip service, I think about what they're just wanting to tick the box and then avoid it. But actually, they're ticking the box because I use this in this truest sense that they're ignorant of what they're taking the box off. It's not from a calculated manipulation of ticking the box. It's actually they're just ignorant
Kate Rooney 10:06
without Case in point that I mentioned about the EQ and the empathy that was, I believe I know this. And so another coach may have said, Oh, well, no need to come into the room then. But I insisted that they came into the room, because I just had a sense that they maybe didn't. And having not taken that person into the room, they wouldn't have realized that they didn't know what they didn't know.
Finola Howard 10:28
Would you say there would have been many coaches who had left him would have left that person outside the room?
Kate Rooney 10:32
I said, there's probably lots of coaches would have left that person outside the room. Yes. And again, not not, not for anything, because they would have taken the person that their words, you know, and thought, Okay, this is, this is what they're this is what they know, they don't need to come in for another session. I suppose. We've all got different skills. And we all kind of, you know, we all say, we all we're all great at something Jennifer on created something, I believe that wholeheartedly. And I believe one of my skills is the ability to read the room, is the ability to read the people in the room and pick up on the nonverbals. And I think that's what's stood me Well, in my leadership throughout the 20 plus years and and the coaching. And in that stance, I read that person that said, You're not displaying EQ to me, I didn't say that to them. And I thought I need you in this room. I need you to experience this. And if you tell me at the end of it, you've done it before, well, then we'll have a discussion around why it's not being practiced. But at least we'll be having a discussion from a place of where I know what you know. You know, we're not we're not we're at some sort of grind level at that stage.
Finola Howard 11:33
You have a lot of power here. Okay. And
Kate Rooney 11:37
I think you have to be really careful of that. I think you have to be really careful of that. Because I think that can be used a I think that can be used wrongly.
Finola Howard 11:45
Yeah. You also give me an example. And I'd love you to share with people, which is when you didn't want the leader in the room. And it was because the team requested that the leader not be in a room. And yeah, okay. Something else I want to ask you later. But let's go with that. What? Can you share that story?
Kate Rooney 12:03
Yeah. So that would be again, that would be quite common, you know, sometimes I would say, you know, we're gonna have, you know, yourself and your four members of teams, I do want to ones before I bring anyone into a room, when you're in the room, and you've brought the leader into the room. And you sense at that stage, we have a problem with the leader in the room, then you're in deep water. So I hold a one to one with everyone that's going to be in the room. And I check in to see is there. How are we feeling about the leader being in the room? Is that okay? Will you be able to speak freely? Or will you hold back, and if I get a sense that something's going on, or that they're going to hold back, I request that the leader doesn't be in the room for the first, you know, one or two sessions so that I can get the team to a place where we can invite them in. And that certainly happened to me and occasions. And again, we talked about being burned. One of the one of my early leadership kind of team sessions, I invited the leader and said, Yep, you can come in, and that's great. Then I did the one to ones and realized, Oh, my goodness, I can't have this leader in the room. And then I had to go back to the leader and say you can't come into the room for the first session, and then you're backpedaling. So we learn as we go along. Do you know when the roll and we figure out what works? And certainly I make no promises to the leader, I say you may you may not come into the room session one, I will know after I've done the one two ones, and I will inform you then I will let you know at what stage in the process we can invite you in. And so I don't make the mistake anymore of saying,
Finola Howard 13:25
Yeah, well, we have all learned stuff like this. The really interesting thing as well was we talked about psychological safety. And you're wanting those teams to be psychologically safe in their space with you. So can you share with everybody what you shared with me, which is how do you make sure there is psychological safety in a situation like this? Yep. So
Kate Rooney 13:46
I take every step within my part and make sure that there's confidentiality because I think psychological safety starts with, that's not going to be repeated what I say. So we're in the one to ones with confidentiality discussed in the one to one right from the beginning, everyone signs a confidentiality agreement. And when we're in the meeting, we then set up a group contract, which is about confidentiality in the room, nothing leaves the room, I then also a contact anyone that's not in the room that might fit into that team. Please do not ask this team details of the session. Please do not ask even a simple question. How did it go? Because as their leader, they may feel compelled to have to answer that question. And I don't want them put on under the spot. So I really try my best to make sure that that team know that what was said in that room stairs in that room. And I think that's really important. And I would say as a result of those extra measures, I tend to get by in pretty quickly. You know, we're not intercession three before we have people open up we have people opening up pretty quickly. And I think it's time to that creating that psychological safety within the room. And we do that with a charter as well. We'll set up a charter to say what's acceptable conduct in the room, what's not accept Trouble conduct. And that allows me as the coach to step in to say, I felt there was a bit of judgment happening there when Mary said, and we'd agreed in the charter, that that really wasn't the kind of behavior we were going to have. How do we feel about that? So we're keeping everyone safe in the room at all times,
Finola Howard 15:15
you're really getting people to grow in a space like that?
Kate Rooney 15:20
Absolutely. Because you're, you can't shy away from behaviors in the room that are being displayed. Because what's the point of having a coach in the room, if we're just going to say everything's perfect? You know, I'm there. Because obviously, there's an issue, there's a challenge. So we say in the room, it would be wrong for me to send something and not be able to bring it in. But we agree with the team, how they would like me to bring it in general and and and what that would look like, all the time building psychological safety, it's not about pointing out your behavior in front of the group, and embarrassing you in front of the group. We've already agreed that we all believe that that should happen. And then I do that very, very tentatively, to know and very, you know, slowly, and I'm hoping that the group might pick up at first pick up on it first, before I ever have to say it. And that happens a lot, which is a nicer way for it to enter the
Finola Howard 16:10
room, so that somebody else raises it. Yes. So
Kate Rooney 16:14
I might say, Listen, something's just happened in the room. I don't know if anyone else has felt a bit of a shift. Does anyone want to jump in? And somebody might say, actually, I felt a bit uncomfortable when Mary said that, and that's a lesson that's pure, I'm even getting like hairs on my arm rise. That's magic. Because I'm not having to do the work. I can just raise Something's here. Has anyone spotted it, and then I can step back. Another thing that I do is I bring an empty chair in and you know, a Mary's usually the nearby us I've been looking up to now you have no Hubbard had Mary's in the group. I do have on Jimmy's the meal name that I use. And I had a Jimmy and a group a couple of weeks ago. So that had to change. But I bring an empty chair in and we call it the elephant in the room chair. And we say it's Mary. And we say, you know, if something comes into the room, would it be okay, if I put that out in the chair so that everyone can see it? You know, and it's a wee bit playful? You know, it's not too serious. But it allows me to say with a bit of an elephant in the room a moment, does somebody want to put it on the chair, you know, and people sometimes people play with me, and sometimes I have to, you know, coerce it a wee bit, but we get it out. So that can be a bit fun.
Finola Howard 17:22
Here's another one or to ask you. So say you're, you're invited into an organization. And so and they say, Well, we have a challenge with our I don't know what they say to you. And you have these charters in place, and everything about confidentiality in place. And what's the result? If the team doesn't want anything fed back to management? What happens like, so you're hired to go fix this inverted commas? And then you can't tell them what happened.
Kate Rooney 17:57
So I again, put this back to contracting, I think everything falls apart if the contract is not right. So day one, I will say if I'm working with this team, you have to understand that the team's confidentiality and trust is number one above all other aspects of the business. But and some people get that, and some people don't some people say yeah, yeah, that's okay. But obviously, you're telling us what happens. And then you have to go back a second time and say, No, I won't tell you what happened. So that requires pretty straight talk. And you can't beat about the bush or so. And I give an example, I say, if I go into the room with the team, and the team, tell me on the last session, that they don't want anything shares, no detailed shares, I am telling you as the hiring person, I will not share the details. Now, if you're not okay with that, I'm probably not the right coach for you. So there's no so there's no kind of surprise halfway through the session, and then you find out as the person that hired me, I'm not going to give you information. I will say I will agree who turned up, I will agree when they turned up the length of the session. And if the the team is really locked down, then I can say to them, would you be happy for me to say that we still feel under challenge? Or we feel that we've got to a good solution? Would you be happy with that being shared? And the team will say yes, and that could be what I deliver. You know, most of the time the team will agree and they agree what shared not me, and then I nearly write that down so that I'm not putting my bias on it. Are you happy for me to say the following? Yes, we are. And then they know when I leave, they're not wondering what has cleared said did should give some of that away. There's none of that fear when I leave around what I said because I will tell them word for word, exactly what I'm going to say. So again, psychological safety is being protected and confidentiality is being protected the entire process. And that's really important.
Finola Howard 19:53
Yeah, completely. I mean, I know this from doing employee surveys, and talking to people to get If that kind of inside review of a, of an offering, or how an organization works from that perspective, but here's my question for you. Are the management teams satisfied? When you come to the end of this process? And you go, we dealt with that scenario? Or whatever the words, do you like? How do you have satisfied customers, when they just have to blindly inverted commas? trust you, that you did what you said you would do? Talk to me about that.
Kate Rooney 20:30
So as I said, it's very rare that a team will say, I don't want you to say anything keeps general. So they might say, yeah, we'd be happy for you to say that during the session. So that was conflict. And we've been able to resolve that conflict. And we believe that communication is going to be more effective going forward. So it will be but it's quite generic. But you know, that's quite generic, there's no individual input to it. I've never, in all of the feedback I've delivered, ever mentioned, anyone individually, ever said anything that could get back to an individual within the team, the feedback is always generic, and quite, you know, short. And I suppose it goes back to Are they satisfied, it comes back to the first meeting that you've had with them. It is building that trust with the you know, the leader, that you know, what you're doing, if you've been around the block, you've got, you know, a lots of, you know, feedback from other clients, and the right go into the room. And I say to you, I think that was pretty successful. There's an element of trust that you have to lean into. I'll also be sucks I love to be honest and say, they were difficult. We did five sessions. And and I don't know, if we've got to a solution that we'd be absolutely satisfied with. I don't know of another session is going to do that. And sometimes I've gone back and said, We'll do five and said, I think we need the six, I think the six is going to be the one to get us there. And you know what? Well, you just know that you're on the cusp on five. And you need that one more. So I suppose my, my attitude to it is to be very straight and very honest, you know, I'm not going in promising to change their worlds. I'm saying, you know, coaching doesn't we have a magic wand, it builds awareness, you know, it creates better empathy. It creates better behaviors amongst the team, we should see a happier team, we should see a team that work better together, you know, but are they going to go to plus 20% figures next next year? I can guarantee you that. And any coach that does well, I would say caution, beware. Just very honest.
Finola Howard 22:30
So here's another question for you. So say, you have a couple of sessions, and the team has gone yeah, yeah, we're okay. You can bring the leader in now. But you also, in our conversation, I thought this was really interesting that, you know, this idea of not getting found out of leaders not getting found out. And we had a quick conversation around. Sometimes those leaders who are afraid of being found out, use you, as that bridge, as that kind of way a stop gap to get them to where they need to be without losing face. Yes.
Kate Rooney 23:04
And that can happen, you know, some and again, if I'm bringing a leader in, let's say, third session, I have to do a separate session with that leader to help them come into the room, I'm not prepping them to come into the room and said, This is what you should say, and this is what you should do. I'm not telling them what was said in the room, because that's no private. But I'm saying listen, and again, that will be agreed with the team, what I can say to the leader, so at every stage, I'm constantly come back to the team, what are we agreeing, and the team feel you know that there's conflict, the team feels that maybe your management style is a bit dictatorial, the team feel that that might be a bit hard. That's what we've been discussing. In general, we don't say Mary and Jimmy said, that's what you're coming into, because it's only fair that the leader has some sense of what they're coming in to because their psychological safety is important as well. And I would feel that we're in a position to take you in and for that to work quite well. Otherwise, I wouldn't be taking you in at this stage. So can we have a wee bit of trust that if I'm taking you in, it's because I feel we're ready to take you in, I'm not going to walk you into the you know, the lion's den so to speak. And then in that I'm aware of some of the leaders, I suppose, fears or areas that they're challenged by. And I'm able to throw that into conversation, as opposed to say the leader doesn't know where the leader is having difficulty, if that makes sense. You know, so we might say something like, you know, confrontation can be really, really scary. It's a it's a scary place for some people. And sometimes we assume that leaders are okay in that space. So not all leaders are, could we have a conversation around that? So I can drop something in that I know is a hot topic, and we've got empathy and we've got understanding. And we're talking about the you know, how it works and how it makes people fear without saying the leader is really bad at confrontation, and that's why they're not holding, you know, conversations with you. Does that make sense?
Finola Howard 24:55
Yeah, love it. Here's what if the leader is tighter?
Kate Rooney 25:03
That's that's very, yeah, yeah, you're trying, you're hoping that during the process, and you have to manage that very, very tentatively, because if they're a dictator, and they're hard dictators are risks that dictation may come into the room. So you take them back to the charter. As a leader, you are not in charge of this team in this room today, there is nobody in charge, including myself, everyone is equal. So we start in that space, and you hope that most people get that. We revisit the charter from the beginning, what's acceptable behaviors, what's not acceptable if behaviors, and if I see behaviors that are unacceptable, I'm going to address them. So if the behavior from a leader became very dictatorial, I would say, Okay, I think it might be helpful, just to remind everyone, that we don't have anyone in charge here. And most of the time, what I find is that aside, it's a bit of a habit. And actually, there's something in your behavior there that I think might be really interesting thrown into the room, would you play with me on it? Do you mind? You know? And if they say, No, I'm not comfortable? You know, I don't go there. But I remind them about the charter review. And remember, we said we were going to have opened an honest conversation, some of it might be uncomfortable. But if they still say, No, I can't force that, that that doesn't happen like that, that I'm gonna say, That rarely happens, that's never happened to me, would have said, I'm not going there. And I think, again, it's down to the setting, how you've built it up, you know, you're not going to say something like that, without the chance of a comeback. You know,
Finola Howard 26:36
two things come to me that leader. One is that leader who's potentially a dictator, right, or an old dinosaur leader, as we've been calling them, is either is, is a couple of things one possibly would have required a lot of mentoring, in order to even start having team dynamics coming into play, like should have been doing really should be doing lots of work on from a mentoring capacity or their own personal coaching capacity. But the second thing that comes to me is, wow, how brave they would be to come into the room when they know they're out of date, they presumably would be self aware enough to know they're out of date. But how brave to go in? Do you see brave dinosaurs?
Kate Rooney 27:18
I absolutely do. And I was working with a team where the manager was aware that they were doing it, but was less aware of the impact it was having, if that makes sense. And when we made that manager aware, the change that, like very quickly had to be applauded. And I would bring that into the record. So you know, that, you know, Jimmy has been managing like this for a very long time. And the changes that you're discussing with me between this session and the last session are quite phenomenal. What's your thoughts on that? There's always somebody in the room will say, fairplay? No, I've seen a massive difference. And then you get the the camaraderie and the welds on your How do you feel here and that, and they say, you know, that feels really good. So that the vibe and the energy that can come into a room, when you go through the tough issues can be quite, quite amazing.
Finola Howard 28:13
When someone is brave enough to be vulnerable. Yeah,
Kate Rooney 28:16
vulnerability is huge. And we talk about that there's always tissues on the table. And we talk about this is this can be a very vulnerable place, we're talking about open, honest conversation, and have an open, honest conversation without vulnerability, I don't know if it's possible to do I don't know if the two can, can sit side by side and not sit side by side. So it's a very vulnerable place at times. And that has to be treated really, really tentatively. And that's why the confidentiality, and the appropriate behaviors and the charter, and all of those aspects to tie the stone and keep this CF are absolutely critical. You're dealing with people's vulnerability. And that has to be dealt with very, very respectfully, just
Finola Howard 28:57
a thought that comes to me, you know, because we're all we're on. So many of us are big fans of the lovely Brene. Brown. And the the speaking about vulnerability, but what comes to me is, you know, entrepreneurs are being advised to be vulnerable and how to communicate leaders are being advised to be vulnerable and how they communicate. And yet we live in a very unsafe world. And that so these two opposing ideas are having to live side by side with each other. Do you see that a lot?
Kate Rooney 29:30
Not in the room. I think the room and I talked about the room before the room it can be in different as in different organizations and depending on where I am, I think the setup creates it's nearly immediately as soon as you are in, everyone knows what's happening. Nobody's question and how's this going to go? I don't think confidentiality is questioned for a second because I've made such a massive song and dance around it. And I say things like you know, I'm associated with the you know, the year peon mentoring and coaching Council, if I was to break confidentiality, that would be seen as highly unethical in my role, nevermind the fact that it's against my moral code. So I also tie in, it's morally me, but who made to them, they don't trust me. So I think sometimes when you bring in the professional, but you say, you know, that was, that could never happen, I'm trying to at all costs combined that when I say this is confidential, I mean, it's, and I think that allows vulnerability into the room very quickly. And that allows us to move through challenges at PS. Because if you don't have that, you know, vulnerability, it's, there's always there's always an elephant in the room there. You know, there's always something not being said. But I
Finola Howard 30:47
want to, I would like to poke with you a little bit is this idea that the world that we live in, is quite crazy, for the last number of years, so many changes politically, so many changes in so many aspects of our lives. And yet, and we're, we're trying to protect ourselves, and we're trying to in our own personal lives, and in our, in our minds, to protect ourselves in our own minds. And, and there's a lot of fear going around. And yet, then we go into organizations, and even from an entrepreneurial perspective, this idea of vulnerability also, of being vulnerable. And it seems to me to be that we're being asked, in how we evolve as leaders or in our own organizations to be vulnerable, yet we live in a world that that vulnerability is completely unsafe. So in the mind, in our minds, there is these two opposing ideas of the crazy world, and yet in our profession, crazy worlds, which requires us to protect ourselves and not be vulnerable. And the world in where we work is to be vulnerable in order to be safe. Do you see stress ever coming because of these two opposing ideas? Or do you see anything in this space,
Kate Rooney 32:05
outside of the room, rarely in the room? And and if I'm really honest, I think the fact that we're saying you're allowed to be vulnerable, and this is locked down safe space, it's nearly a relief, there's nearly a sometimes it's nearly gosh, okay, the vulnerability startup or 10 minutes in I, I have rarely been in a session where it doesn't show up. And I think that's good, because that shows that there's a safety in the room of people are willing to be vulnerable. And that comes down to, you know, very high level professionals that outside of the room would never show vulnerability to each other would never show the real person to each other. Because they may be in you know, conflict, they may be in competition, yet, somehow, some way when we get into the room, the cloak of armor comes off. I'm working with another manager not in a team session. So it's one to one. And we talked about vulnerability. And their reply back was I couldn't be vulnerable, that would show weakness. That's, that's not going to be shown kh when I discussed, what about the vulnerability? That's a one to one. So we're now working through that. But in the room, you're nearly see physically see people throw it off, you know, they're literally gone home. And it's a release nearly at times.
Finola Howard 33:17
So a release even from real world concerns? Absolutely. Yeah, there's
Kate Rooney 33:20
a, there's, I just find that when we get into the room, and I get this back all the time, you're gone. I don't know what happened in there. But I felt more free, I felt less restricted, it felt easier, you can see people's shoulders come and dine and I'm working with another group of, you know, it's a difficult group, they're a beautiful group, but they've got huge difficulties, all highly, you know, in, definitely, there's grips of them in direct competition with each other, and with the tissues out in that room, and those tissues are not outside of that room, but they're right in that room, and they're used, but
Finola Howard 33:57
it makes me think that in this in this world, we're living in that we should perhaps be providing safe spaces for people to be vulnerable so that they they can deal with everyday life. A question for you, the person who's or someone like this person who's saying I can't be vulnerable, that's weakness, and talk to me about this, you know, contradiction of vulnerability and weakness like that. Again, opposing ideas.
Kate Rooney 34:26
I see that coming up a lot maybe not said like that, but elements of that and I think you used the dinosaur analogy. I see that a lot in old school leadership thinking so when people say something like that to me there's usually also a connection with a dictatorial you know, way of being, it's usually old school. So I find old school leaders and that doesn't mean they're old. It just means of an old school style off. You know, you do what I say and don't ask any questions and you know, just get on with the job. I find that those types tend to be frightened of of vulnerability, and I see a direct correlation there.
Finola Howard 35:04
And is that because they've not done any, like, is self awareness low? Is that because they haven't done a personal development?
Kate Rooney 35:11
I think it depends on the part like, I've got three people that are physically thinking about my head and I, and it will be different for all three to no one would definitely be just charged through. Don't ask any questions. Don't ask for cooperate collaboration, because I don't want to be dealing with that. I just want to get the job done. And you know, so that's that very old school, let's just charge down the walls. And another the other two, I would say, I'd say we'd be very frightened of what might come up. And how that might be viewed, because they would have come from a background of don't show any weakness.
Finola Howard 35:46
Okay, like what could come up,
Kate Rooney 35:50
but they'd be seen as weak.
Finola Howard 35:53
What's the youngest dinosaur that you've ever come across?
Kate Rooney 35:58
I'm working with probably early 30s at the minute,
Finola Howard 36:05
early 30s. Dinosaur? And I'm
Kate Rooney 36:07
working with a, probably a 5655 56. Two, that would definitely fit that market, you know, but 30? Yeah.
Finola Howard 36:16
Like I'd even be, I'd be horrified by the 56 year old, but I'm really gobsmacked by the 30s. How, why is that happening? Why have we got 30 year olds that are dinosaurs?
Kate Rooney 36:27
I think that Stein to be important to move through systems far too quickly, being over promoted, and then getting into positions gone, I don't really know what I'm doing. So I'm going to know really well. Yeah, you must do, you must obey. Because that's kind of the probably the safest place for me to be in, I'm not able or capable to open this up to the room, because I'm not able to handle that room. So I'm just going to tell them what they need to do. So I think that and again, it comes back to the word we use right at the very beginning, which is fear, fear, fear on lots of different levels, fear of being exposed, oh, my gosh, I've got this job and don't know if I should have it. If I open the room, and my managers there and I can't handle the room, I'm gonna get exposed. So instead, I'm gonna do this. So I think everything comes back to fear. from a leadership perspective, when we see power over here versus back to their sphere somewhere. The
Finola Howard 37:19
reality then is when they're showing those tendencies towards dinosaur style leadership is they're exposing themselves.
Kate Rooney 37:26
That's it, they don't realize that, you know, and I suppose you know, it's it's that kind of survival mode that we kick into in the here. And now we're not thinking long term. We're just thinking right now, today, this meeting that I'm in general, the scenario that I'm in right now, I need to kind of survive that. I need to look good in that to whoever's looking or feeling into it. And I'll worry about the, you know, the aftermath of that later. So I think it's short term thinking as well.
Finola Howard 37:52
So makes me want to ask the question about leader use talks about over promotion of getting to a position too fast. Why is that happening? Surely common sense would dictate that there should be a leadership track, that perhaps if somebody is promoting that person, that they mentor them along to this, because you can't have you have to be taught these things. Like, it's not we don't come out of the womb, like being leaders like could be great, but we don't. So what's happening there? Yeah, I
Kate Rooney 38:27
think it depends on the industry. So if we're looking at, you know, some of the, you know, the kind of service industry, some of the retail industries, it's purely down to that they don't have people that they're having staff retention issues, the position needs to be filled, Mary's willing to do it. And we don't have a lot of choice. So I think in some cases, it's down to, they don't have a nice pool of people to be able to do it. And they have no choice but to take people up through the ranks, even if they're not ready and ahead of time. So I think that's happening certainly within, you know, the hospitality, the retail area. I think, whenever we look at some of the corporates, I think they are getting a lot of a mentoring, they are getting a lot of coaching. But it depends who the mentor and the mentoring and coaching as we know, are very, very different. It depends where that mentoring is coming from. So I've worked with a lot of, you know, people that are moving into higher level roles within the corporate, but they're later their mentor has poor behaviors. And we're learning from that, you know, so that span can be I'm not ready technically, I know how to do the job, but I've not been shown correctly with the right leadership, how to do that job and now I find myself in hot water even though I knew that behavior is bad in the waist and complaining about it. What else do I am yet to do? You know, what else do I know? So there's,
Finola Howard 39:44
if I was in my 30s, right, so long ago would not be googling what makes a great leader if I was on a track and I felt out of my depth. You know, like,
Kate Rooney 39:58
what you're talking about? Common Sense. Like a conversation last week about common sense, and and I don't know, any training a, you know, organizations that do a course on it. If they do let me know, because I think there'll be bucks on it. But we do have a lot of people that just that aren't doing that, like, Yes, I was sent, I was reading leadership books at 17. My first debt, the first step I got into was probably around 16, I was a forgery, my mom and dad signature to get books, you know, a through the post, and it was getting to the postman before he delivered them. So they couldn't see. There's different personalities as well, that will go and be, you know, want to learn want to Kenickie and extra knowledge. And then there's other people that say, Well, you're the company, you've hired me. So you show me you train me? And if you don't, then I don't you know, so it really comes down to personnel.
Finola Howard 40:47
But in this day and age, how can that person exist? Yes, they do. Yeah, no.
Kate Rooney 40:55
Welcome to you go into a room. And I go into rooms all the time, and say, hands up? Who knows what EQ is? Hands? You know, you see them? And Okay, listen, you might not be able to explain it. Exactly. But has anyone got a rough, rough notion as to what is emotional intelligence? You'd be amazed at how many hands don't go up. You know, and then you say, Okay, maybe they're not putting their hands up. But the naive keeps up, they're not putting their hands up, because they're frightened of getting it wrong, but they do know what it is. And then you start talking about it, and you see panties drop around the room and you go, Oh, pay, they don't actually know what this is. This is new. And this is a subject, as I said, we've been talking about for what Coleman took it out what 30 years ago, do you know and you're gone? Hold on a minute, people don't know this. We're making too many assumptions, which is what I said at the start to know I made too many assumptions as a coach in the early days, too many assumptions as a leader in my early days that people kind of got it, they understood team dynamics. You know, that's not always the case. Yeah.
Finola Howard 41:58
But here's the other interesting thing, case, you made assumptions. And you come from 20, or however many years of working in leadership. So you actually had some perspective. But are there coaches in organizations that don't have that real world expertise? I
Kate Rooney 42:15
think the coaching worlds are the minutes absolutely saturated, you know, we've gotten a massive influx of coaches into the coaching arena, some have done courses, some have, you don't have to be accredited as a coach to practice coaching. So we have a lot of coaches practicing that haven't been, you know, accredited, that haven't maybe moved through, you know, proper courses that haven't been, you know, tested, et cetera. And I think that's very, very dangerous. And I, I don't hate my opinions on that. I'm all for accreditation, I think you need it to say whether you're doing it right, you know, and are you following the right code of ethics, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we're at high risk of a coach's not doing it badly. Because they they mean bad, but doing a poorly because they don't have the necessary skills.
Finola Howard 42:58
I also think what's dangerous is you can have people in the space where intellectual advisors, mentors, coaches, and not pragmatic.
Kate Rooney 43:07
Yeah, yeah, I'm not picking up on you know, all those nonverbals. And all those, like
Finola Howard 43:12
you said, reading the room. Yeah.
Kate Rooney 43:14
Yeah. Reading the room. Yeah.
Finola Howard 43:17
What would you like to leave? Beautiful up and coming Nando, dinosaur related coaches, with our leaders with today? What would you like? What would you like to see happen in this space now? From a coaching perspective, from a leadership perspective, because we need greater leaders in the world, we need greater leaders in organizations so that we don't have these conversations anymore. And it seems to be an epidemic.
Kate Rooney 43:42
Yeah, I would love leaders, just to take off the mask. You know, take the mask of go into the room and accept that you don't know everything. How could you It's too big. You know, it's too big and ask and see what comes up, ask the questions that you're frightened, ask and ask the questions that you don't know the answers to, and see what comes up and spend some time in a vulnerable place in a vulnerable state and see what's in the room. And I think leaders would be amazed at the magic and the experience and the answers and the solutions that are in the room. If they just sat in the room long enough to hear it. I think I think it could be amazing.
Finola Howard 44:26
I think you're right. Thank you so much case. You're
Kate Rooney 44:30
very, very welcome an absolute joy.
Finola Howard 44:34
I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you'd like to find out more about Kate, then connect with her on LinkedIn and check out her website at the odd legs agency.co.uk. And if you'd like to support the show, please follow or subscribe on your chosen platform. It makes all the difference to the impact that I'd love this podcast to have on the world. deeper conversations that allow us to grow to celebrate each other's truths and to Know that there are many who are working with a greater purpose in the world
