559: Marshall Goldsmith - The Power of Executive Coaching, How To Give & Receive Feedback, & Attributes of The Best Leaders (What Got You Here Won't Get You There)

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Notes from my conversation with Marshall Goldsmith:

• Attributes of the best leaders he's worked with:
  • They are courageous, they have humility, and they are disciplined.
• Do we all need a coach?
  • "I don't know, but if we're honest with ourselves, we all need help. And a coach can be someone to help…"
• Happiness and achievement are independent variables.
  • I felt we kept going around in circles because I'm a prescriptive thinker and like actionable takeaways. And I feel like Marshall was helping me understand it's more of a mindset.
• With a PhD from UCLA, Marshall is a pioneer of 360-degree feedback as a leadership development tool. His early efforts in providing feedback and then following-up with executives to measure changes in behavior were precursors to what eventually evolved as the field of executive coaching.
• "Fate is the hand of cards we've been dealt. The choice is how we play the hand."
• "Getting mad at people for being who they are makes as much sense as getting mad at a chair for being a chair."
• "Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others."
• "People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats."
• "If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us."
• "A leader who cannot shoulder the blame is not someone we will follow blindly into battle. We instinctively question that individual's character, dependability, and loyalty to us. And so we hold back on our loyalty to him or her."
• "Peter Drucker, who said, "Our mission in life should be to make a positive difference, not to prove how smart or right we are."
• "People will do something—including changing their behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interests as defined by their own values."