Hi, everyone. Kumar Dattatreyan here with the Meridian Point. And today we're joined by Holly Golebiowski. I hope I said that right. I meant to ask before I did the intro, but I failed to do that. So hopefully I got it right. Anyway, she's the Lead Facilitator at LeaderSkills and an executive coach who helps transform struggling leaders into high performers. Her journey is fascinating - from being a successful manager who hit her own leadership crisis to becoming a coach who helps others navigate similar challenges. Drawing from over twenty-five years of business experience, including roles as COO and VP of Operations, Holly now runs both a thriving real estate company and helps deliver what she playfully calls "no BS leadership training." So I love that. And with that, I'm going to invite her on stage. Tell me about this no BS leadership training.
Yeah. You know, it's funny. I always question if we should say that or not, because, you know, it could rub some people the wrong way. But it really is what it is at the end of the day. It's called LeaderSkills. And it's pretty much a company that my coach, who led me through a lot of tumultuous time in my career, created this program that is called LeaderSkills. And it's pretty much a ninety-day program where every two weeks you deal with a new course, and it takes about, I would say, thirty minutes to sixty minutes max every two weeks where you're learning a new tool or a new concept. It's kind of interesting because, you know, when you do training, it's either like pie in the sky, like big concepts, or like just so dumbed down that it's not really useful. And our program really is focused on, you know, getting to what you need to do and creating real tools that you can implement right away. So it's pretty much right to the point, no BS.
That's fantastic. I love that you call it that. I don't know if you call that in your marketing.
Yes, we have started using it a lot more. Everybody seems to really enjoy it.
Yeah, I mean, I think it conveys the sense of what you offer, right? It's no BS. It's no fluff. It's just the stuff. And you're right. A lot of training out there is very theoretical and it's hard to put to practice. And the fact that you do this over a period of time, I think it's how adults learn anyway better. They learn better. Learn a little thing, go practice a little thing, come back, talk about it, learn another little thing, go practice it, come back, talk about it.
Exactly. And that's the whole goal is to make it something that you not only read, but you learn, you practice. And then we come back at the end and talk about, okay, what can we do different? How can I help you do it better? So it's really great for retaining the skills too.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of times I'm sure you'll find this true as well - people are in leadership positions, either for a long time, for a little time that have no business being in leadership positions there. They lead because they've been promoted into that position, and they don't know how to be an effective leader of people. How would you differentiate, or how do you differentiate or define a manager from a leader?
Well, I would say a manager manages tasks. They're more like a project manager, probably trying to get all their team to do things and crossing them off their list. A leader is someone who does still do that because you have to, but also is improving the team, improving the communication, getting them motivated and making them better at what they do too, along the way. You know, it's involved so many things that's above and beyond just that task completion.
Yeah. I'm a proponent of that for sure. And also, I don't know if you're familiar with John Maxwell, John Maxwell coaching books. And one of the models that he promotes is called the five levels of leadership. It slipped my mind for a second. Five levels of leadership. So the first level, level one leader is what I was describing. You get promoted into the position. You may have some skill in what you used to do, and that gets you this promotion, and so people follow you because they have to - they have no choice, you're their manager, right? And then level two is people follow you because they want to. You provide some accountability on them and you yourself are accountable for their growth, and they like you, they want to follow you. And level three is all of the things below it are true, but you set clear goals and the team is becoming more productive and they are excelling in their roles and things like that. And level four is you develop other leaders. And level five sort of transcends all those things. They're sort of seen by the public eye as leaders. You know, people like, you know, both polarizing figures, of course, in today's politics like Elon Musk or Trump. Right. Love them or hate them. You know, people have an opinion.
Yes. Yes.
Do you sort of in your training, do you help people see the difference in these? Again, these are the levels that John Maxwell came up with, but I'm sure you've experienced them yourself.
Absolutely. I mean, it's interesting, because what you say there, I mean, our favorite thing to do, and this is in coaching or LeaderSkills, is when I have someone I'm working with or watch a client get to that point where they're really elevating their team, you know, when they have someone promoted from below them to a leadership role, that's like the ultimate goal, you know, that means you're doing it right, you're doing it well. Now, sometimes that can happen even if you're just a manager and not a leader, but that's more sheer luck than it is... You know, there's people I've worked with over the years who are just, you know, complete, like factories producing these great people to be promoted constantly. And they were like, truly good leaders that were doing that for their team to make them better. And everybody wants to work for people like that. So it definitely is beneficial, not only for you, but for your company in the future.
Yeah, absolutely. So tell us a little bit about yourself. From our past conversations, you mentioned you had your own leadership crisis eight years ago. Talk about that a little bit.
Yeah. So if you think of the Peter Principle, I like to bring this up a lot. People get promoted to pretty much a job they can't do or don't have the skills to do, and I pretty much was in that place, and I had skills that made me successful before and I was on this promotion path. I was used to being the, you know, cool kid that always was up and coming and doing well and lots of promotions. And I made the jump from being a manager at a location to a regional manager that had, you know, teams all over the country. And now I suddenly have to manage them. And it's so different. It's just so different. Not just the interpersonal skills, dealing with everyone at that corporate level. But the hardest part for me was getting those people on my team, getting them on my bus. And I just, I did not know what I was doing wrong. Like I probably for about almost a year struggled where numbers didn't look good, my portfolio was one of the worst, and I was just so frustrated because I was spinning my wheels like working eighty hours and actually it was - it created the snowball effect of all my team ended up stressed out because I was stressed out. I was making them work more, not less, and probably on really dumb things in hindsight because I was just trying to make sure they were doing what they needed to do - get the task done, right?
So I had someone that I thought very highly of just kind of nicely mention things aren't going good for you. And he had no direct - he wasn't over me, but he was high in the company. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if this man is saying this, this is bad. I need to really, I need to do something. And I kept going to my boss at the time who was a regional vice president. And I just kept saying, I don't... what can I do? Help me. How can I... I know I'm not doing well. And I would get this response like, I just think you need to dig in. You know, I think your managers, you know, you really need them on your bus, you know, not what to do about the problem but more like all the symptoms. Like she was telling me, well that's not working. I'm like, yeah, I know that's what I'm talking to you, right?
And I've seen this happen since then time and time again where someone in a manager role doesn't really know what to do to help that person. So I was lucky back then and I had heard different people mention coaches in my peer group outside of work. And so I begged for one pretty much. I actually ended up going above my boss at the time. And the COO of that company said, you know what? Let's try it. We've never done it. We'll try it. And that's how I ended up with Nan O'Connor, who is the creator of LeaderSkills. And she's a certified master coach. She's been doing it, I think, for probably over thirty years. And she's worked with some amazing high level people. And in her prior life, had a great career on her own. She had a marketing firm - marketing media marketing firm - and I mean they had clients like Coca-Cola, so like it was not a small company by any means. They sold it for successfully. So she has a great track record and she worked with me on lots of different topics over six months. Most of it, actually all of it's in LeaderSkills now, but LeaderSkills is plus some stuff as well. And I went from being - it was crazy - like I went from being the bad kid, you know, that everybody's like "oh god Holly's always below the line" to being back at the top of my peer group. Like I was training other people at my level at that point.
So it was just amazing and it really opened my eyes. And I would say self-awareness was a huge part of that, but also just the tools. If there is conflict, how do you have that without emotion? How do you do it in a way to make your team better? When things go wrong, there shouldn't be an automatic punitive response. There should be a growing discussion, just all kinds of things like that. It was definitely the hardest time I've ever had in my career, but the most rewarding when I came out the other side. And that company ended up paying Nan to create what became LeaderSkills because they're like, "the transformation of Holly has been," that's what they called it, "crazy. And we want to do this again. We want to do this with all of our managers." And like, go buy something off the shelf. There's plenty. And they're like, no, we've looked. And again, it's pie in the sky or so dumbed down it's not useful. And it's actually been a great program. And it's just been blowing up since then. I mean, we don't even advertise. Podcasts are the first thing I've really done that I talk about it outside of work at our office. So it's pretty amazing.
So that is a really good story of sort of awareness, self-awareness, and this want, need, desire to change your approach, change your mindset. So you can feel like you're providing value to all these people that report to you, right, and for them to do better. I mean, that takes a certain amount of self awareness, not that - not everyone's going to do that. Not every manager is gonna be like, oh, my God, I'm not doing my job. They may not even be aware that they're not doing their job as a manager. So kudos to you for that. But how do you help people sort of build the awareness that maybe they're not leading, they're just managing tasks?
I would say that the first step that I find the most useful is having them take the DISC. I'm not, are you familiar with the DISC? There's tons of things out there like Myers-Briggs. But DISC is different in that it is a behavioral profile. It's how you solve the problems around you. And there's four main types of how we do that. None of them are right or wrong, but it's a very amazing tool. I mean it spits out like thirty pages about all the different things - how to be better, strong points, weak points, all these things. And for me that was the first thing Nan did with me and I looked at it. I'm like, oh my gosh, I railroad everybody. I'm aggressive and I don't mean to be, you know. It really, when you see it on the page like that, unemotional, right? It's just a piece of paper. It's not a person you can get mad at. And it's a report that has ninety-five percent accuracy since it's been around since I think the nineteen-fifties. So I couldn't deny it. And I use it with my clients. Everyone that goes through LeaderSkills takes it. And we get people from time to time that look at it like, that's just not me. And yeah, five percent error. OK, fine. Maybe every now and then that's true. But ninety-nine percent of the time when I talk to people that say that, they realize a few weeks into this training that, oh, my God, that is me.
So I wouldn't say it's an easy thing to get people to do. I think if you have a manager who is not self-aware and not doing well, and you present them with something like that and they don't respond, then that person probably is not going to be self-aware or care enough to realize what they need to do to be a good manager. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes you promote people that, like, okay, this isn't for them, and you have to work out another strategy with where to put them. If they were good at their last job, you don't want to get rid of them, right? But you have to change direction of it.
No, it makes a lot of sense. I do like the DISC a lot. I have used it quite a bit along with some other assessment tools and I like it because of its comprehensiveness to your point, right? It gives you kind of a full picture. And also to your point, when you first see it, especially for someone that's developing self-awareness and that the emotional intelligence needed to be a strong leader, they may not see themselves in that report fully. I find most people haven't seen themselves that way.
Yeah.
But as they start to develop their EQ, then they start to see, oh, okay, this is how this shows up. And I'm sure that's what your training does too, right? Is to help them develop the antenna, if you will, the radar to pick up on their own behaviors in a way.
Yeah, that's a great way to put it, actually. I like that, their antenna.
You can use it.
Yes, it exists.
Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the no BS part. Just an example. You don't have to open the kimono. Sure. Just an example of something that's tangible, that's no BS that someone can go use.
Absolutely. So we talk about, one of the courses is conflict management. Everyone loves that one. They get a lot out of it. And I want to say like two or three five-minute videos you watch. And we have a reference manual for people who prefer to learn by reading and seeing, but I'm gonna guess it takes probably fifteen minutes for people to read through that. So let's say fifteen minutes and then there's a tool which we reference non-violent communication. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the book about that - most people are. And we pretty much, we present that principle in there. We talk about all right - and it's just a piece of paper they print off after those fifteen minutes where it says - and if you're familiar with the concept you know - number one, state the problem unemotionally, right?
Okay.
I'll give you an example. The first one I ever did, I was like, sir, you are always late to meetings. And then you state your emotion about it. And I feel unimportant. I feel like... You state true emotions like I feel like I don't matter to you. I feel completely irrelevant. And most people, by the way, when you do that, step number two are like floored. They have no idea the consequences of their actions from your point of view because they're thinking about them, right?
Sure.
And usually they're like, oh, my gosh. And then they listen. When you say three, I'm going to make a request. Can you please come to meetings on time? If you can't, let me know at least fifteen minutes prior to when that meeting is. So I'm not moving to the conference room or wherever I need to be for this meeting. And then four, can you commit to it? And that simple formula, I mean, the book's huge and it's a great book - not huge, but it's a lot. It'd take a lot longer to read it - but that's, you know, in a nutshell, the concept. And people are blown away by it because it takes all these "me, you," you know, "us against them," like all the anger and the emotion out of it because it's very specific: here's the problem, it makes me feel this way, and you know, can we do this and can you commit to that? And then you walk away and if they don't commit, at least you had the conversation so now you can go to their boss if it's not fixed. Now granted, I'd say try it a few times. People that are late to meetings tend to take a few reminders before they really get it right. But that's an example of what we teach and what we provide to people with tools.
That sounds quite a bit like just providing feedback to someone, right? In a way that is constructive. And again, even just providing feedback can be difficult for people, right? It's difficult for the person giving it and difficult for the person receiving it. And I suppose that the format you described works better when both people have been through the training at least some parts of the training so that they both have some skills in that. Would you agree or do you think it works regardless?
I actually would say I think it works regardless, only because in my experience with that, I learned this way back when I was going through that struggle in my career and nobody at that company knew anything about this. They had no clue what non-violent communication was. And I'm a high D on the DISC which pretty much in a nutshell means as high as I am, I see red, I get angry. Yeah, I'm very pushy and aggressive and I didn't know it. So when I started approaching people that I had conflict with with this formula, it was - they were just happy I was actually approaching them in that kind of way, you know? Okay, so I think it kind of depends but even if they don't realize you're using that formula, it's a very easy conversation. So whether they're familiar with it or not, it's still effective because like, oh Holly just asked me for this commitment now that I know I'm upsetting Holly. Yeah, I'll do it, you know, because I didn't realize that's what I was doing.
Yeah, maybe it's because of the clean language that you're using. You're not using any threatening words or phrases. You're presenting in this format, like stating the problem and this is how you feel about it. And so on, then asking for their commitment to do something different. Right. So I like that a lot.
It's really cool. And there's other things in there way beyond that, just with like that course, you know, we talk about how conflict is good and bad. It's not all bad, you know, and just different ways to see conflict as well. So there's a lot of things like that in our no BS training.
I love it. Yeah. It sounds very, very practical, very down to earth, very actionable and no BS, right? You just sort of start to practice these tools. Do you have in your live sessions, do you mock practice them in session or...?
Typically, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there, but yeah, they typically have practiced it for two weeks. So by time we get to that live session we do at the end of every two weeks, they'll typically share the, you know, what they learned and if they have a little question here and there, like how to tweak it. That's usually where we're at at that point. But it's pretty neat. We do some groups that are all one company and some groups that are people from very different non-competing companies, of course. And it's amazing just how they all work together, too, in that conversation of, oh, I tried this and someone else will speak up and be like, oh, that's great. Maybe I should do that, too. Or companies that do it as a group will be like, oh, my gosh, we're going to make this a policy or we're going to train this across the board. And it really can make massive transformations for companies just doing some of these simple things we train.
Yeah, I do think that transformation to that extent is possible just from some few simple behaviors that people follow, whether they're leaders or doers, the people doing work. Either way, I think just some few things that people start to practice can make a huge difference. I mean, I see it all the time in corporate culture where people just... you wouldn't talk to people like that outside of work.
Yeah, right.
I mean, do you... I don't see it as much now but I remember in the early two thousands like nasty emails were so prevalent.
Yeah.
We would never talk to each other like that.
Exactly, my mom would slap me if she knew I had sent an email like that or talked to someone that way, right?
So it is interesting.
Yeah.
But you know, one stat I find interesting is like, and I think this is from twenty twenty-three, two to five percent of companies' budgets - the whole budget - is dedicated to training. That's it. Two to five percent. And it averaged out to nine hundred and fifty-four dollars a person. So think about a company where you have new hires, internal promotions, problem employees, all these people that need training. All your good people or your people that maybe need just to tweak things a little bit here and there, they probably get no attention and no training whatsoever, right? And your internal promotions get the least amount of training attention because those dollars usually are going to the new hires and those things. So I always find it interesting in how little companies provide to their people that are promoted to leadership roles without any training or support on how to really do that, other than, you know, the tasks they have to do. So I find that fascinating and something I really would love to see companies be more thoughtful about and providing that kind of training.
Yeah, no, I'm with you there. I see it all the time in the companies that I work with. And I see a lot of the behaviors that are just countered, that run counter to the company stated goals, you know, their values, things like that. You've got these values plastered on the wall.
Oh, yeah. Don't get me started on those. Those make me crazy because I'm like, you can't do that. Just because you say it doesn't mean that's what you are.
Yeah, exactly.
It actually makes them angrier. Employees get angry when you have it on the wall and you don't practice what you're preaching, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at least a disengagement, right? And so it's a common statistic that you hear out there that, you know, the majority of employees in a company are disengaged. And, well, there's a reason for that. You know, they're not treated like people. They're treated like horses, you know? Given a set of tasks and made to go do them. Not allowed to be creative, not allowed to make mistakes, psychological safety goes down, all that good stuff. So it sounds like your training really helps these people learn how to communicate better with other people in the workplace. And because of that, they become more effective leaders or more effective followers even, right?
Yes, absolutely. The training is good for everyone. We just focus on the leaders because obviously every company can't afford to put everybody through this training. But, ninety-four percent of our surveyed students after they are done have said, I'm going to use this for the rest of my life and not just professional but personal too. So, I find that very rewarding. I mean, I'm the proof in the pudding, really, because I live it too.
Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it's like when you're doing something that is rewarding, it doesn't feel like work, right? That's what I always have felt. And I'm sure it's that way with you. I can see the passion coming out while you're speaking about these things. So that's really amazing. So I want to ask, you know, you do other things besides LeaderSkills.
Yes.
You run a successful real estate company. So I'm sure you apply these principles in your business, correct? And talk a little bit about that and how it's helped you and your business.
Well, it's fascinating just because I do that - a lot of things now without even realizing it. For example, one of the first things we train on is time management and there's different tools, you know, in Teams there's things you can use to keep track of tasks. There's all kinds of things out there. But one thing she taught me up front was Trello which is a free platform online and I love it. And I'm not to say those other systems don't work great for people. I've just gotten used to it and the app on my phone that goes with it is very useful. I have naturally, I use that, my team uses it, we can all see each other's, we can update. So that's just one little piece of all I learned in that program that I definitely stuck with and used. And it leads into learning how to hold your team accountable, but in a way that's not punitive if they don't do something. It's in a way that I can grow them or ask why didn't this get done and find out how I maybe didn't do for them what they needed. Those are things I never used to do. I mean, they didn't get it done. I don't know why. They knew it was due. You know, I pay them, do the job, you know. And you learn how to view people's actions differently and the one of the biggest things I learned and I just live with this every single day is assumptions are the enemy, you know. Assuming why someone does something or says something or why they don't do something, you know, is very... we're doing ourselves a disservice when we do that because we think we're the center of the universe. And they're the center of their universe. So we need to think about things from their shoes. So I think those are things I definitely have taken into this with me, but I could never have managed this - having a real estate company, being an executive coach. And I was just made partner with LeaderSkills with Nan. So doing all of that together, I could never have done that without LeaderSkills because just the time management alone, but also people want to work with me because of what I've learned from it. And I'm a much better boss, leader, owner, all those things because of it. So, yeah.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
It definitely changed my life.
Yeah, it sounds like it. It sounds like it is life-changing for sure. So what's next on the horizon with all the things that are on your plate? What are you looking to, how are you looking to disrupt yourself even more if that's possible?
That's a great question. Well, actually, I have put... I made the conscious decision that I'm going to put the coaching practice really on hold. I have a few people I work with. I'll continue to work with them. But I am speaking with Nan. I'm really focusing now on LeaderSkills and coaching, what all that means, because it's something I enjoy the most out of everything I do. I love the real estate. I've done that my whole life, but I have some great team members that really don't need me to be involved in everything. And so that's been huge. And that just recently happened. So that, I would say, has been a big change for me, so as we go forward it's figuring out where I fit and what I can do to help make LeaderSkills, you know, a better company and be more visible really because we're so small. Every client we get is from word of mouth, so, you know, we'd like to get out there more to make people more aware.
Yeah, sounds like you can have a pretty wide-ranging impact with LeaderSkills as well right? So individual coaching, executive coaching, it's one-on-one, it's one person at a time. And certainly that has value. I mean, I can't state that enough. I mean, the number of... the value I've gotten from the coaching I've received from people, and certainly I hope the same is true for the people I've coached over the past ten, fifteen years or so. And the impact, it does sort of ripple out because that person that you've helped coach or you've coached, their behavior changes and hopefully that translates to other people that they touch. But it seems to me that LeaderSkills, you can sort of exponentially increase your impact through that training.
That's actually a really good way of looking at it. I haven't thought about it. But yeah, we typically have six to ten people in a cohort. So that's a group that I'm working with specifically. One of my clients right now, I've actually been doing one-off coaching with them too, which throughout the program, I'm available to answer questions even when we're not on the live discussion. So I'm always their kind of coaching, spot coaching, I would say. But with this one, I've gotten a little more involved. And it's just been very rewarding to see them. I don't know, just watch their change too, the positive impact it's made on them even outside of LeaderSkills. And it's nice because everyone that teaches LeaderSkills is a coach too, so we can do that, understand that dual role there. We're not just facilitators, we're also coaches helping.
Yeah, awesome. That's awesome. So we're getting towards the end of our time together. So what have I not asked you that you'd like to share with our audience?
Well, one thing I did want to point out is that on our website, Nan has created these awesome snippets of tips that are really helpful. And you can just sign up to get those for free on our website. They come every two weeks like clockwork. So if you go to leaderskills.training as the website, that's something that anyone now could sign up for for free and get those tips. And some of them are really darn amazing, actually. I don't know how the things in her head amaze me. But beyond that, I mean, I just think that, you know, if there's any leader, business owner out there that, you know, wants to do better, be better. It doesn't have to be LeaderSkills, but just it's so important to be thoughtful, to make sure your leaders are really doing not just the tasks, you know, they're growing their team. Because at the end of the day, if you are over a company, you own the company, whether you're in a C-suite role, you want to be able to take vacation and enjoy yourself, right?
For sure.
And you're never going to be able to do that if you don't create good leaders in your organization. A lot of people are banging their heads against the wall when they come to us. And that's usually the problem is they're leaders or managers, not leaders.
Yeah, that's a great point. And thank you for the... we'll put the links in the show notes here to the website and, of course, for people to get a hold of you, get connected to you. But it's a great point that you made all throughout this episode, really, about maybe just taking a pause, reflecting on your own leadership style, your skills and level of anxiety that you might feel going into work. And that may be a signal that maybe you need some help.
Yeah, absolutely. And to reach out, there's plenty of help out there.
And it sounds like the program that you offer is different in that it is very actionable and very sort of oriented to providing real capabilities for managers, leaders, either new to their role or have been in their role for a long time, but are struggling. So, yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate you and your time and the energy you bring.
Thank you. Fantastic. I appreciate being a guest. It was very nice chatting with you.
Likewise. All right. Thanks, everyone. See you next week. Bye-bye.
