That leadership coaching program I laughed at actually fixed my team's turnover problem

My VP made our whole executive team do this 12 week coaching program from some guy named Dave in Austin. I thought it was total fluff, like $8,000 worth of motivational posters. But after 3 sessions where he had us map out communication styles, I realized I was the bottleneck. 6 months later and our annual turnover dropped from 35% to 12%. Has anyone else had a leadership course that surprised them?

2 comments

2 Comments

claire_fisher4127d ago

Jumped right into that exercise and wow, it hits different when you actually see it written down like that. The interrupting thing is huge, I had a similar wake up call when I realized my "efficiency" was just me steamrolling people. Once I started letting silence hang in the air during meetings, people actually started speaking up and sharing ideas they'd been holding back for months. It's wild how a small change like not cutting people off can shift the whole vibe of a team. Your senior engineers sticking around is proof that stuff works way better than any fancy program.

elizabetht5627d ago

My HR director brought in this lady named Karen who did something called "reality based feedback" and I was SO sure it was just a way for people to air grievances. But the first exercise was literally writing down what we thought our direct reports would say about us behind our backs. It was BRUTAL. I found out I had this habit of interrupting people in meetings to "save time" but it just made everyone feel unheard. Once I started actually letting people finish their sentences, three of my senior engineers who were close to quitting told me they felt way more respected. The whole thing cost maybe $4,000 and I swear it saved my team from completely falling apart.