Lessons from the World's #1 Executive Coach

Mentorship is something many of us seek. Perhaps it is because we know it to be critical for us to develop personally and professionally. And mentors around the world show their generosity by investing countless hours in helping people achieve their dreams.

One such mentor who is leading by example is bestselling author and #1 Executive Coach, Marshall Goldsmith. Recently, I have had the pleasure of joining the first cohort of MG100, an initiative by Marshall, to give back by teaching a select group everything he knows. He launched the process globally and received 12,000 applications for 25 spots (now expanded to 100). In being selected in the first group of 25, I have had the chance to meet some absolutely incredible people from all walks of life.                

Our first meeting entailed learning from Marshall and his close friend and one of the greatest CEOs of our time, Alan Mulally. Entering the weekend, I was eager to learn from these two, and upon completion of the weekend, I not only felt enlightened by Marshall and Alan, but equally so from the other participants in the group.

As a participant and mentee, I wanted to reflect on my experience and share my gratitude with Marshall and the example he is setting with this effort. I gained expected leadership lessons, but also countless life lessons - I’d love to share 3 of each in case they may help others.

Some key life lessons I took away were:

Success is a habit, not an outcome

Marshall has an interesting daily practice. He has a colleague call him daily for 5 minutes to ask the same set of questions and act as an accountability partner. They are questions as simple as monitoring fitness goals, or as deep as “Did I do my best to be happy.” He has the humility to recognize that his happiness can manifest daily, and that his success is not a specific outcome. Rather, it is based on a set of certain fulfilling habits and staying accountable to them. We often look for desired outcomes, most that we cannot control, to make us happy. However, if we can understand fulfilling habits that are within our control and hold ourselves accountable, we can lead lives with more power and influence. Think of building the right habits (the things within your control), and consider them your benchmarks for success.

How can you reframe success to focus on achievable habits vs. outcomes?

Understanding Your Needs Is As Important as Understanding Others’ Needs

I found my cohort to be an incredible group of people who consistently looked to help others - helping small businesses become successful, enabling people to find what they love, educating people around leadership, and empowering youth to become entrepreneurs. In learning about their broad impact and hearing from Marshall, I came away with the knowledge that while helping people is an incredible task, it can often come at the expense of our own well-being. And over time, operating without balanced resources and objectives can stunt our ability to have broader and sustainable impact. It is not only okay, but essential, to take care of yourself along the way.

Do you take care of yourself as well as you take care of others?

You Are Who You Surround Yourself With

This is not a new idea, but Marshall and Alan like to say it is “common sense, yet uncommon practice.” I had the privilege to be around the first 25 of the MG100 cohort. These are wonderful people who are generous, kind, and made me better with every interaction, and I can’t wait to spend more time with them. We all have a choice in who we want to be around and it feels significantly better to be around genuine encouragement rather than low energy and apathy. And this doesn’t mean the latter group is filled with bad people. It just acts as a reminder of the importance of our limited time in this world. Seek out those people who ignite passion and help you be your best self. Maybe even make a list of your friends and family you’d like to reconnect with for this reason.

Who would be the first person you spend time with?

While there was so much more I learned personally, there was also a lot I learned about leadership from Alan and Marshall:

A Leader’s Job is to Facilitate

Often as a leader you're not the expert in the room. At times, a leader can damper the team’s motivation and feeling of ownership largely because they are "adding too much value," as Marshall puts it in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Alan spoke about this upon his start as CEO of Ford. While he was in seemingly parallel industries coming from Boeing, he did not know a lot about building cars. So he recognized that his success was not in being more knowledgeable about specifics, but rather it was being a facilitator and enabler of his team’s success. Stop adding so much value and seek ways in which you can facilitate for your team.

Compassion and Zero Tolerance Can Go Together

Being compassionate is the opposite of being lenient or weak. Alan tells a wonderful story about how he operated as a CEO, creating expectations and processes for success. After creating these expectations he exhibited zero tolerance for violations of those expectations. He did this not because he was trying to wield power. Rather, he did it because he knew that the mission of the organization was at stake and the minute he allowed one exception, it broke the trust of the broader team.

So when somebody failed to meet the expectation he kindly would go to them and let them know that it was absolutely okay that they did what they were doing. It simply wasn't okay on that team and in this organization. He genuinely meant that it was okay for that person to do that because they have free will to make a conscious decision. But given the culture that Alan was trying to create and the mission that he was trying to serve in order to build the best cars and trucks in the world, he recognized that a violation of those expectations would only hurt the chances of creating that culture and achieving that mission. Ultimately this would only hurt people. So as Alan shows, one can have zero tolerance and still be compassionate.

No Solution To A Problem is Okay

We often hear the famous phrase “Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions.” And while I can understand that in context, Alan showed that often the pressure to have a solution to a problem can only encourage someone to hide the problem itself. What would you rather have - someone who doesn't surface a serious problem until they have a solution, or someone who surfaces a serious problem immediately upon identifying it in the hope to immediately collaborate? Would the people in your organization surface more of the real issues if they wouldn't be penalized for not also coming with a solution?

I am grateful to Marshall for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful community, and to my friends in the group for sharing their experiences with me. It was inspiring to see how much the group wanted to impact others, and reminded me that we all want to contribute to our society and our communities in some way. Hopefully the subset of lessons I learned from the weekend are things you can use to help you in your journey to continue contributing to collective success.

* As always, a big thanks to Max Hogan for his generous time and help!