Sam Donaghey
Welcome to the Fast Slow Motion podcast where we teach you how to build a business you love while enjoying your life. I’m your host, Sam Donaghy and joining me today is Fast Slow Motion’s Director of People, Michael Smith. Michael, it’s good to have you here today.

Michael Smith
Great to be here, Sam. I love this topic we’re going to jump into.

Sam Donaghey
Looking forward to today as well. ⁓ guest today is Phil Sineath. Phil is a leadership coach, advisor, and mentor who works with founders, executives, and senior leaders as they navigate growth, complexity, and high stakes decision making. His work focuses on helping leaders develop clarity, cut through the noise, and grow both personally and professionally.

so today,

we’re gonna explore why the coaching industry has exploded, where leaders should be cautious, and how to think clearly

the coaching is right for you, and if so, what kind of coach you actually need. So Phil, welcome to the show today.

Phil Sineath
Sam, Michael, great to be with you guys. Thanks for the opportunity.

Michael Smith
Well, let’s start at the beginning here. And what is executive coaching? And in your opinion, why would a leader need an executive coach?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, it’s a great place to start, Michael. You know, it’s important to understand what coaching isn’t, particularly executive coaching. It’s often misunderstood. So before we understand what it is, we got to talk about what it isn’t. And then we can talk about why a leader might need one. What it’s not, it’s not counseling. It’s not consulting. It’s not mentoring, you know, counseling that’s about healing from past trauma and requires a licensed therapist, uh, consulting. That’s about prescribing solutions for particular problems. And that requires like a subject matter expert or industry expert. It’s not mentoring that.

You know, that’s about emulating someone’s character and learning from their lived experience. And that requires someone who has stages and seasons ahead of you coaching. In contrast, the coach creates a space that is action oriented and future focused. And inside of that space, they help the leader explore tough questions, get honest feedback, think through decisions, whether there’s a strategy decisions or leadership decisions, and then also grow personally and professionally. So.

The coach really creates that space for the leader to do those things and to work through those issues themselves. And a great coach, they combine the emotional intelligence of a counselor, the practicality of a consultant, the wisdom of a mentor, but they bring a fourth component. They design a tailored process to guide the leader through their season of growth and help them stay accountable along the way. So that’s a bit about what coaching is not and also a bit about what it is. Now, why would a leader hire a coach?

Brent Beshore, he’s the CEO of Permanent Equity. They’re a holding company. They’re also the group that hosts the Main Street Summit in Columbia, Missouri every year. I don’t know if you guys are involved in that at all, but he just released his annual letters, 2025 annual letter just earlier this week. And he had a piece in there about what CEOs are and what CEOs are not. And one of the last lines in that piece, he said that the first job of a CEO is to make themselves better first, and then only secondly, to make everyone and everything around them better.

I think really the point he was getting at is he’s prompting every leader reading to ask the question, do I want to get better as the leader, as the owner, as the managing partner, as the company president, the CEO, do I want to get better? Am I committed to that? And I think you just compare that question to other high stakes domains where performance really matters like medicine or professional sports, the military, know, LeBron James is known to spend over $1.5 million a year on his professional development.

his performance development. Tom Brady, he hired quarterback coaches, mindset coaches, pliability coaches, and he’s famous for saying that all his Super Bowl rings are because of preparation and feedback, not from his talent. In the military, every senior officer and senior commander has a coach. And then in the medical world, particularly surgeons, they get coaching through peer reviews as well as simulation coaching. So you just think about all these other high stakes arenas, it would be unthinkable for a top performer.

to say, I’m good. I don’t need any feedback. I’ll just figure it out myself. I’ll figure it out as I go. But in the very large kind of middle market or even into the small business world, which I assume is a large percentage of the audience, coaching is just not as commonplace yet. And I think what people need to understand is that coaching is not a sign of weakness. It’s actually investment required to be elite. And it’s the gap between hoping you get better and making sure that you do get better. So that’s a bit of why someone might consider an executive coach.

Sam Donaghey
So Phil, coaching feels like it’s been exploding. So from your perspective, what’s driving that explosion and why is that a good thing and a risky thing for leaders?

Phil Sineath
Yes, Sam, that’s good. You know, I did just say that it’s not as commonplace in some sides of the market. In general, the industry has exploded. It’s exploded faster, maybe in publicly traded firms or in private equity backed firms in the middle market and in small business world. It’s growing at a rapid rate, but maybe not. It’s not exploded in the same way as it has in other places. But in general, the industry has grown significantly in the last 10 to 15 years. There are some contributing factors and then, you know, why it’s good, why it’s risky for leaders. I think the rate of change.

the global instability and then the cultural tension that we’ve all been navigating the last five to 10 years. So first, the rate of change in the market. Technology has compressed both geography and time. We no longer have periods of market stability where leaders can just figure things out as they go. Mistakes travel further and faster and you know, the strategy playbook from even two or three years ago doesn’t work today. So just the rate of change that’s accelerated. Cultural tension.

know, leaders are being asked to navigate politically and socially charged issues like DEI, immigration, workforce expectations inside of companies that don’t yet have the capacity to digest and metabolize those issues at the rate at which they’re coming. And that just creates pressure for leaders where any single decision can alienate anyone inside the organization or outside the organization. And then third, global instability, know, pandemics, wars, supply chain disruptions, all these things have just fundamentally changed how work happens.

and leaders are having to make high stakes decisions in conditions that they’ve not been trained or prepared for. So the net effect is that leadership has always been lonely, but it’s just more amplified now. And a single decision can derail not just a firm, but a leader’s entire career and reputation. So what leaders are doing is they’re looking for a third party, someone who’s confidential, someone who’s objective to ride in the co-pilot seat with them for a season to help them navigate this world.

And this world that I just described, you the military, the U S war college long time ago, they defined the world that we’re living in. It’s called a VUCA world, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. That’s the world that we’re operating in today. ⁓ and that’s why the coaching industry has exploded and really coaches have flooded the market. So why that’s a good thing. And then also why it’s a risky thing. It’s good because the coaching supply is rising to meet the demand that leaders have leaders have said, Hey, we need this. We want this. And coaches have.

flooded the market to trying to help the leaders that have that need. It’s also risky because there’s a significant variance, both in the type of coaching and the quality of coaching. There’s executive coaches, life coaches, performance coaches, mindset coaches, sales coaches, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. And it’s incredibly hard for a leader to know both what type of coach that they need, but also the quality of any coach that they’re talking to. You know, a leader is having to answer a question with seemingly very little data.

Sam Donaghey
Hmm.

Phil Sineath
What does this coach offer and can they deliver on what I uniquely need? You know, I say it’s kind of like shopping on Amazon’s third party marketplace where there’s a thousand versions of every single product and you can’t always tell what’s legit and then what’s a knockoff. So just a quick example, I was meeting with a potential client just, you know, 10 days or two weeks ago. And as we got into the conversation, I was understanding his needs, understanding what his problems were. And I said, after about 30 minutes, I said, Hey man,

I’d love to work with you and I think I could really help you. But what I want you to do is I want you to go call these other two coaches and here are their phone numbers, go have conversations with them, see if they are a better fit. And he did that and he went and hired one of those other guys. And I think that’s where most leaders are, is they know they have this need, they know they have this desire for help for third party outside perspective, but they don’t exactly know how to navigate the market and they don’t know how to find the right solution for them.

Sam Donaghey
Bye.

Michael Smith
Phil, as a follow-up question to that, so why do you think leaders are, where do think they’re choosing well and where do think they’re making mistakes as they look for that executive coach to help

Phil Sineath
Yeah, that’s a great question. ⁓ The reality is that as they’re entering into the coaching market, they have to realize that they’re buying a specific solution to a specific problem and they can get stuck at three steps in the buying process. The first step is they have to more fully understand their own problem and their own need. And the first mark of a good coach is they’ll help you clarify what you actually need and they’ll be honest with you if they’re not the right fit.

You know, if you’re in a networking conversation or discovery conversation with a coach, a good coach will spend 30 minutes, they will spend 30 minutes explaining to you what their offer is. They’ll spend 30 minutes just coaching you. And then at the end, they’ll say, Hey, this is about a bit about what I do, how that works. And I’m either a good fit or I’m not a good fit. So that’s the first step is the leader. have to accurately understand what their problem is. And a good coach will help them do that even free of charge.

The second step is the leader, they have to understand the coach’s model or the offer and know if that can deliver against their specific need as a leader. You know, some models are more prescriptive, they’re more playbook or operating system based like EOS. Some models are more custom or bespoke. Neither is inherently better. What matters is can the coach articulate concretely how their approach will deliver against the leader’s specific needs? So the leader has to understand their need, they have to understand the model. And then third,

They have to understand the pricing and the structure of the engagement. You know, is this a high volume coaching model where this coach is carrying 20, 30, 40 clients at a time, or is it a high touch coaching model? How often are you going to meet for how long and over what time horizon is the value delivered exclusively inside the coaching session? Or is there preparation and follow-up in between sessions, either by the coach or the leader or both? So any of these are work, any of these can work. They’re all value neutral.

but it’s important for the leader to understand what the actual offer is, what the structure is, and what the engagement’s like. So those are three steps. One more thing I’ll say, if it’s okay, just give me 60 more seconds. About those first two steps, the leader understanding their need and the leader understanding the coaching model or offering, it’s important for the leader to think through whether they need more push coaching or more pull coaching. And the Harvard Business Review just published an article about this back in March of this year, it was really helpful.

A push coach gives clear direction, instruction, guidance, and feedback. They’re much more hands-on and they’re more willing to tell the leader both what to do and how to do it. It feels a bit more like a consultant, but it’s not all the way over there yet. So that’s a push coach. Pull coaching is when the coach takes a more facilitative approach. They’re more aiming to guide and support the leader rather than provide direct instruction.

They ask open-ended questions and they encourage self-reflection so the leader can discover their own solutions. Neither is better or worse, but it’s important for the leader to know both what they prefer, but also what they need. Because as a leader, you might prefer someone to just create the space for you to discover your own solutions, but you might be so underwater right now that you need someone to tell you, do this and do it this way. And then conversely,

You might have thrived coming up through your organizational life on just following the direction you’re their superiors, doing what you’re told, following instruction. But now you find yourself in the CEO seat where no one’s telling you what to do. You have to make your own decisions. You have to craft your own strategy. You have to have your own opinions. So what you prefer is someone to tell you what to do, but what you need is someone who’s going to create space for you to discover and craft those things for yourself. So push coaching and pull coaching is important to understand and navigate as well.

Sam Donaghey
Mm.

Michael Smith
I have a

follow up question with you Phil. ⁓ As you meet with your client, do you sit on both sides of that fence? you pull or push depending on what client you’re working with?

Phil Sineath
We do, we do. And we attempt to be intentionally ambidextrous in that sense. And different coaching models either allow for that flexibility or they don’t. Some of the more prescriptive models are a bit more push oriented. ⁓ Some of the bit more open-ended models are obviously more pull oriented. But in our practice, we have a model that allows us to be flexible and we have tools that exist on both sides of that fence.

Sam Donaghey
Hey Phil, you know, in your experience, when you’re working with leaders, right? When they first start exploring coaching, what do you tend to see that’s happening for them? Is it something internally that they’re looking for, for you to solve? Or is it something on the business or is there a bit of a mix of both?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, it’s definitely a mix of both. Most leaders don’t pursue coaching because something is broken. They come to coaching because the next season is demanding more of them than the previous season did. And that usually shows up as a combination of both external indicators as well as internal intuition. And those patterns, they kind of manifest in three ways, both externally and internally. We say that it manifests as a plateau, as a performance concern, or as a productivity moment.

So maybe the leader is hitting a growth plateau. They’ve outgrown their existing skillset and everyone around them sees it and feels it. So externally, there’s indicators that the organization has outgrown their skills, but then internally, the leader has this growing sense like what got me here is insufficient to take me forward. My instincts, my tools, my leadership style is maybe stale or a bit outdated. So there’s a plateau perhaps, there’s external internal component to that, but also there’s a performance concern. Like they have.

just gone through or they’re about to go through a step change in their responsibility. So there’s a new assignment externally. They just received a promotion. They just took on a new project. They either made an acquisition or they were acquired, or maybe they’re the first time in the CEO seat. Just the complexity and visibility of their new role has jumped dramatically and they have concerns about their performance. But then internally, there’s this quiet realization, holy cow, this assignment is bigger than me in my current capacity.

Like I know I’m competent for a portion of this new job, but I also know viscerally in my bones that I’m also, I’m an unfamiliar territory. So step change in performance is the second one, but then third, there’s a change in company productivity, whether that’s a negative change or a positive change on the negative side, like maybe revenue is flat or in decline, the business is in a critical season or positively, maybe productivity is skyrocketing and the leader needs help navigating the season of scale and growth.

I got one client right now, he’s running a $75 million company and their rate of growth in a couple of years, he’s gonna be running $150 million company. And that’s just a completely different animal. And internally that productivity change, whether good or bad, it leads to this realization like, I feel the weight of responsibility and the potential consequences of failure. And I know I need help navigating this critical next season. So it’s usually a combination of external indicators as well as internal intuition.

Michael Smith
stick a little deeper there as you’ve worked with leaders across different organizations and stages of growth and then are there patterns or the same topics that kind of seem to show up over and over again, no matter where you are and a person is in that leadership journey?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, Michael, obviously every leader, every company, every industry is different, but there are three common patterns and you’re getting a sense here. I think in alliteration, I think in outline. So these are the three D’s. Leaders are often facing issues of direction, decisions or distraction. So, you know, when you’re the senior leader or you’re responsible for a business unit or responsible for an entire market, everyone is looking to you, but maybe you’re a first time CEO and you’ve never done this before.

Or maybe you’re a veteran CEO, but you’ve never led in this market with these headwinds with this generation of employees. And yet you’re the one who’s endowed with the task of seeing into the future, articulating a picture of the world as it could be, and then designing a coherent strategy, structure and process to take your team there. And it’s like, Michael, you know, who was worthy of these things, right? So I have a former client, he was a first time CEO.

He was given the responsibility by the chairman of his board to develop a three-year plan for his firm. He was part of a holding company, a family office holding company that owns several companies. And he was given the responsibility to develop a direction, a strategy over the next three years for his firm. And he had no idea how to do it. Setting a direction, setting a strategy was not something he’d ever done as he came up through the ranks. So setting direction is one common thing leaders face. Decisions is the second one.

You know, as the leader, you’re facing so many inputs, you’re listening to so many voices, you’re managing so many interests, your board, your employees, your customers, et cetera. And is there anyone available to you as the leader that will actually slow down with you to think through the implications of this decision or that decision, and then to help you design a strategy, an application process in terms of capital and time and labor and process. I have a current client.

is considering expanding into a new line of business. And he’s really asking the question, do we deploy the human and financial capital towards this new expansion? And what are the risks and what are the potential returns of that decision? And everyone, Michael, on his executive team has a different opinion, and they’re all competing for his ⁓ favor, in a sense. And does he have an objective space to actually process the decision or not? So it’s direction, it’s decisions, it’s also distraction.

There’s so much noise. There’s so many squirrels to chase in our world today, not only in your firm, but also in your life. And distraction could just lead to sideways energy and fracture focus. And is there anyone in your world that can create that space for you that we talked about a few minutes ago to help you define what’s most important, create a process by which you can consistently work on those things over a defined period of time. ⁓ Just last week, I had a call with a client that lives in England.

And we have a tool called Composite Scorecard. And we did an audit of his priorities and his time allocation over the previous period of time. And then we sought to recalibrate those things, his energy, his attention, his resources, both at home and at work over this next season. And could he have done that exercise himself? Yes. But would he have done it? Probably not. So those are really some common patterns we’re facing, know, direction decisions and distractions that leaders face when they’re leading these companies.

Sam Donaghey
Phil, how does a leader’s thinking tend to differ then when they’re working through decisions alone versus when they have an outside perspective?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, so that is one of the biggest brand promises and kind of the value drivers that any executive coach should be just, you know, shouting from the rooftops in terms of what they offer a leader is the value of outside perspective. When a leader makes decisions alone, their thinking usually narrows around their natural defaults, how they’re wired, what worked in the past, where they feel most gifted or competent. And the beauty of outside perspective is a coach can offer two things at once.

They can be a counterbalance to your weaknesses as well as a leverage function for your strengths. So on the first side of that being a counterbalance to your weaknesses, know, take a leader who is highly tactical. They’re real strong on details, they’re really good on process and execution. A coach can counterbalance against this. They can pull the leader back up to a high altitude and keep the big picture, keep the future front and center and say, hey man, we got to remember like where’s your firm headed?

Why does that matter? And then what role does every single team member have to play in building that future together? Because that’s what your people need. They have to be reminded and reoriented to where you’re going as a firm and their role in that story. Or take a leader who’s exceptional at growth, sales, marketing, business development, innovation, product. A coach can help that leader remember that growth has to be stewarded and managed. You have to manage the money. You have to ship the product. You have to invest in the professional development of your people.

You have to reinforce your values and culture. know, these these are not the things that create growth, but these are the things that sustain growth. And obviously you can staff for that. You can hire for that, but you as the leader, have to give leadership energy and management attention to those things. So that’s the first thing about outside perspective, what it can do. can be, it can counterbalance your weaknesses. The second thing is a leader, a coach can also be a, a leverage point for your strengths. So just one example here, take a leader who’s charismatic, they’re relational, they’re inspirational.

A coach can help that person, that leader design systems and rhythms and environments where those strengths can be amplified and multiplied beyond just one-to-one interactions. So I have a client right now. He got a call from one of his market leaders that they have a business that operates in several markets. And he got a call from one of his market leaders where on the phone is his leader said, Hey man, look, every time you come to town for the next month, our team floats through the air. Like we have got to have more of you in person with us.

And that phone call was a leverage point. It identified a leverage point, the personal presence and the relational impact of the CEO. So what did we do? We went and designed some mechanisms for that. We built a stump speech that he gives every time he goes to a different market. We built a state of the union speech that he’s giving to his executive team in three weeks. They drafted, they started a monthly newsletter that goes to all employees once a month. And then once a year, they do an all hands overnight getaway for their entire company where he gets face to face with every single employee. So.

we identified that leverage point and we designed a mechanism to multiply and amplify it. So that’s a bit of what the value of outside perspective can do. It can counterbalance your weaknesses and also leverage your strengths.

Michael Smith
So if I’m a leader and I’m looking for an executive coach, let’s just get real basic here. What are the three to five things I need to be looking for as I’m interviewing prospective executive coaches for me?

Phil Sineath
Yeah. So it’s four core attributes that I would literally just make a checklist of this. If you’re actually in the market for an executive coach, it’s four P’s presence process, professional experience and purpose. So the first is presence. Like a great coach knows how to truly listen. They can make space for you. They can pay attention to the nuances and the tones of what you’re saying, what you’re not saying. They ask really thoughtful questions and they don’t rush to give advice.

And you can feel when someone is actually holding presence with you and making space for you rather than just waiting for their turn to talk. So first is presence. Second is process. Coaching is not just about good conversations and being listened to. It’s also about forward movement and action. And a strong coach either has or can design a clear process that moves from insight to action and helps you as the leader move the needle on the things that are most important. So presence process and then professional experience.

A leader should look for a coach who has carried real responsibility. That doesn’t mean they have to be, that come from your industry, they don’t have to know your market or your business necessarily, but they should have led something or built something or been entrusted with some meaningful scope and weight at some point. Maybe that is building their own coaching practice or maybe that is doing something in a different industry at some point in the past. But there’s a difference between understanding leadership conceptually and then having lived it personally.

And the fourth is just the purpose. What is the purpose? Why is this coach doing what they’re doing? Why are they doing this work? Because the best coaches see coaching not as a fallback because they couldn’t cut it somewhere else or as a lifestyle play, but really as a calling of sorts. They see it as their highest and best use in the professional space. They view their role as a sense of stewardship responsibility for the leaders that they’re serving. So I’d really, I’d make a checklist if you’re on the market for those four things.

Real presence, clear process, professional experience, and the sense of purpose that the coach has for their.

Sam Donaghey
What about the red flags then, Phil, for when folks are evaluating coaching options?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, I’d say three come to mind. One, ⁓ credibility more than certifications. Look for credibility more than certifications. Look for a process guide rather than a solution prescriber. And then look for tools and frameworks, not just recycled experience. So first look for credibility more than certifications. Don’t get me wrong, like certifications can be helpful, but they are not a substitute for coaching acumen.

And I would really encourage leaders to be cautious of what I call certification stacking, where coaches are just taking a class, getting a certification or a badge. Instead, look for a coach who has real credible experience working with the type of leaders that you want to become. And, you know, because of confidentiality, some coaches, our firm does this, some coaches may not be able to name the leaders and the orgs that they work with.

but they should be able to tell you the revenue size, the headcount, the industry, and the growth stage of the leaders and firms that they’re working with. So credibility more than certification, process guide, not solution prescriber. With the growth of the industry, as we talked about a few minutes ago, some consultants have simply rebranded themselves as coaches. And a simple test is to ask the person you’re talking to, or to notice when you’re in conversation with them, how do they respond when you’re describing your problem?

Do they immediately start telling you what to do or do they slow things down? Do they ask questions? Do they help you understand your problem better before they would move towards a process of how you could think about approaching that problem? You the best coaches, they don’t rush to answers. They first help you improve your thinking. So process guide, not just solution prescriber. And then finally tools and frameworks more than recycled experience.

And what I mean by that is there’s a growing trend of retired executives or executives who has made it or owners who have made an exit that are moving into coaching as their next professional season. And it could be done, but I’ll just say it can be a difficult transition to move from the operator owner chair to the coach chair, because the trap that a retired exec or retired owner turned coach can fall into and the trap that they can pull you down into with them.

is they can assume that what worked for them at that time, in that market, in that industry will also work for you too. And I would just encourage any leader, instead of looking for a coach who just has an experience, look for a coach who has adaptable tools and frameworks and processes that can help you navigate your current moment, not just recycle or repeat somebody else’s playbook. So those will be three things that I would encourage leaders to think through.

Michael Smith
So when this coaching relationship is working well, what does it feel like for the leader? How do they think differently, decide differently? What shows up differently and how they lead?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, Michael, it’s not meant to be a cop-out answer, but in short, it feels good. When coaching is working well, ⁓ the leader, they’re more present with themselves, they’re more present with their team. They’re more confident around the direction they’re taking the firm. They have more courage around the decisions they’re making. They’re seeing clear progress in their skills and their performance. So it just feels good. ⁓ Simply put, a couple of examples of that here. A client of our firm several years ago,

took his second company public. And now after having taken his second company public, he’s taking it private again. And he recently told our team, know, guys, because of my work with you guys, I know why I’m doing this. I know what it will lead to. I know what it’s going to make possible for the future of our company, for our shareholders and our customers. And it was only through coaching that he was able to get the outside perspective, the guidance, the accountability and the hope to launch into the project of taking his second company private again.

Another example, another client of our firm, this leader, they are an amazing tactician, building the business, selling the work, fulfilling jobs in their market. But in the last couple of years, this leader, he has bought the entire company and now he’s responsible for leading the business across multiple markets and multiple states. And he’s found out real quick that being a tactician, it don’t work anymore. And he’s got to evolve and grow into a strategic leader.

He’s got to have clear patterns, habits, skills, mechanisms, and tools to do the new job and keep from reverting back to the old job. And it’s really been through coaching. He’s become more confident in where he’s taking the company, more courageous in the decisions he’s making around people and capital investment. And he just feels more competent with his newly acquired skills and mindsets and perspectives. So, you know, that’s not a cop-out answer, but when coaching is going well, it just feels good for the leader. They enjoy it. They want to be a part of that relationship.

Sam Donaghey
Phil, for a leader who’s out there listening and they might be on the fence, what is one thing that you’d encourage them to pay attention to in themselves before deciding whether coaching is the next right step?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, this is not meant to be too sarcastic, but slightly sarcastic. think it’s just important for the leader to genuinely ask themselves the question, do I really believe that I have everything that I need to navigate this next leg of the journey? Or am I willing to choose humility and be teachable for a season? And I would just take us back to those three P’s that we talked about earlier. You know, the conditions where coaching makes sense for a leader. Maybe you’re hitting a growth plateau and you feel it and your team feels it.

Maybe you’re facing a step change in your professional responsibility and the assignment in front of you just feels bigger than you. Or maybe your company productivity is either in skyrocket mode or decline mode and you just need help navigating either of those situations. You know, the question for a leader isn’t, I figure this out on my own? Most smart leaders probably can. The real question is, do I have the capacity, the time, the discipline and the margin to do this alone?

And the answer often there is probably not. And a leader can often benefit from a guide, a co-pilot, a strategy and thought partner that can journey with them for a season. So just one more example. We have a client of our firm. He just ⁓ exited his business, sold a private equity. This guy is brilliant. He is accomplished. He is financially secure. And he is completely unsure how to navigate his next season. He doesn’t need any money. He has got plenty of time.

But he doesn’t have any answers. And so he needs a guide. So what we’ve done, we’ve built an 18 month roadmap for him. And that clarity and that process has just changed everything because now we are executing on that roadmap for him. And it’s just making things possible that he never could have done by himself. So it’s not about if you can do it alone, it’s about whether that’s the wisest thing in this season.

Michael Smith
You’ve kind of touched on this and some of your other answers, but just get more specific about this. If someone is already working with ⁓ a coach, how can they tell that this relationship is really working for them?

Phil Sineath
Yeah. So, ⁓ Harvard Business Review, they published an article on this actually two days ago this week, titled the five filters to know if you’ve reached a plateau with your executive coach. I’m not going to rehearse that now. Leaders can go Google that on their own time. I would just simply add a couple of comments to that. We have a hiring assessment tool that we use. called the three C’s of hiring. And that can be kind of retrofitted to speak to what you’re talking about here. can evaluate your coaching relationship, chemistry, competence, and character.

So first is chemistry. Like just ask yourself the question, if you’re in a coaching relationship, do you genuinely enjoy working with your coach? Coaching, it’s a professional relationship that sits somewhere between a business partnership and a trusted friendship. So like, do you look forward to those conversations or do you find yourself dreading them and just kind of going through the motions? So

Just an example here, we build language into all our coaching engagements where both client and coach have a no questions asked, a jet button for personal relational reasons. Like even if we’re moving the ball forward and getting the work done on the dashboard, if one of us is not enjoying it, like why are we doing it? They should find somebody else if the chemistry is not there. Second is competence. Is the engagement actually producing the progress that you signed up and paid for?

like our insight and clarity leading to action and results. Now, to be fair, if you’re not doing your homework or following up on the agreed upon action items, like that’s on you as the client, as the leader. But if the coaching is not consistently moving from analysis to action and forward movement, then that’s a signal worth paying attention to. In our work with clients, we say explicitly like from the jump, we as the coach are on the hook to move the engagement forward.

It’s my job to drive outcomes on the progress on the things that we agree to work on together. Like I don’t just show up and ask some open ended questions and slap you on the back until you’re doing a great job. I’m on the hook to drive our engagement against the things that we have agreed to on what we call the dashboard. So you can evaluate it against chemistry and competence. the third is character. Like just ask yourself the question, do you have a deep and intuitive sense that your coaches, they truly have your best interest in.

When was the last time they paused a session to give you hard and uncomfortable feedback that you didn’t want to hear and maybe create a bit of tension in y’all’s relationship? When was the last time that they admitted a limit to their expertise and offered to connect you with someone else who could help you in that domain or on that problem? And then finally, when was the last time that you viscerally felt the reality that your coach, they’re a person of character, they’re a person of wisdom.

and integrity and that you personally were better for having been in their presence. So I think any one of those threes, you know, if it’s been missing for a while, it’s not an automatic failure, but it is a signal that’s worth taking seriously.

Sam Donaghey
Phil, this has been great. What a really thoughtful conversation. Thanks for joining us. And before we close, there a guiding principle or a piece of wisdom you believe every leader should carry as they grow into greater responsibility?

Phil Sineath
Yeah, one thought or principle I’d share is pay attention to if your personal capacity and your professional capacity are in balance. We have a tool, it’s a simple visual. We call it the leadership capacity balance loop. It’s basically the number eight, it’s an infinity symbol turned on its side. And it represents these two realities that every leader is caring at the same time, both their personal capacity and their professional capacity.

core idea is that leadership requires a continual investment on both sides of that loop. You have to always be adding energy and capacity to keep those things in balance. And just a couple of examples, if the professional side of that loop feels heavier, like your role feels too big, your job feels too complex, too weighty, that’s a signal that your personal capacity needs to grow. You might need coaching, you might need counseling, you might need consulting.

You know, you might need emotional healing, self leadership, better thinking tools, stronger management skills, but whatever it is, your work is to grow yourself in order to meet the current professional assignment. But then on the other side, if your personal capacity feels bigger than your role, like you feel underutilized, restless, or constrained, that’s often a sign that your professional responsibility needs to expand. That might be a new project, a broader scope of responsibility, a different role in the firm.

potentially even a new venture to match your ambition, your vision, your drive. And in that case, the work is to find or create an assignment that has the appropriate scope and weight to be worthy of who you’ve become. So I think problems tend to show up when that those two sides of things, personal and professional capacity get out of balance and health shows up when we are always adding energy and capacity to both sides of that. you know, selfless plug coaching can help you evaluate where you are and that capacity.

Sam Donaghey
Phil, ⁓ if people want to, how can they get connected with you and learn more about what you do?

Phil Sineath
Yeah. So three areas really easy. LinkedIn connected with me there. Phil Sineath, S-I-N-E-A-T-H. I regularly share both written and video content and our firm does as well that we take from real coaching conversations with leaders. Our website, CornerstoneCo, CornerstoneCo.com. Learn more about our work there, get to know our coaches. And finally, if anyone wants to connect directly, just email me. Phil at CornerstoneCo.com. Would love to engage with anyone that’s interested.

Sam Donaghey
Well, that’s a wrap on today’s episode of the Fast Slow Motion podcast. A massive thank you to Phil Sineath for joining us and sharing his insights on leadership and coaching. And if you want to learn more about Phil and his work, we’re going to include links and resources mentioned in the show notes. And as always, you can catch past episodes at fastslowmotion.com slash podcast, or you can subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, if you have any questions or topics that you’d like us to cover,

You can drop us a note at fastslowmotion.com slash podcast feedback. We’ll see you again next time.