What are the key takeaways from this Coaching for Leaders episode?

Key insights include: **Asking for Help:** Leaders avoid seeking help primarily because it feels unsafe, not because it actually is. The fix is finding one person outside your organization or industry who holds no political stake in your situation. This person can give objective guidance without judgment, and the act of asking regularly builds the habit of openness to growth.; **Knowledge vs. Behavior:** Knowing a leadership framework and applying it in a real one-on-one meeting are entirely different skills, similar to passing a written driving exam versus actually driving. When stuck in a knowledge loop, skip the next book or podcast and spend that same time implementing one concept already learned but not yet practiced with your team.; **Tactical Bar Setting:** Set vision and outcome goals high, but start tactics at the smallest possible unit — five minutes or one action per day. Leaders who aim to recognize every employee in every conversation often quit after missing two or three people, labeling themselves failures despite a 70% success rate on day one.

How long is this episode of Coaching for Leaders?

This episode is 30 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

Coaching for Leaders

The Five Things That Get in Leaders’ Ways

March 17, 2026

30 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

30 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Health & Wellness, Leadership, Software Development

AI-Generated Summary

Published Mar 18, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Asking for Help: Leaders avoid seeking help primarily because it feels unsafe, not because it actually is. The fix is finding one person outside your organization or industry who holds no political stake in your situation. This person can give objective guidance without judgment, and the act of asking regularly builds the habit of openness to growth.
✓Knowledge vs. Behavior: Knowing a leadership framework and applying it in a real one-on-one meeting are entirely different skills, similar to passing a written driving exam versus actually driving. When stuck in a knowledge loop, skip the next book or podcast and spend that same time implementing one concept already learned but not yet practiced with your team.
✓Tactical Bar Setting: Set vision and outcome goals high, but start tactics at the smallest possible unit — five minutes or one action per day. Leaders who aim to recognize every employee in every conversation often quit after missing two or three people, labeling themselves failures despite a 70% success rate on day one.
✓Feeling Worse as Progress Signal: When a leader gains more visibility or influence, they often uncover problems previously hidden from them. This feels like regression but signals forward movement. Write down in advance the specific frictions likely to arise from a new goal, then use an objective third party to distinguish healthy tension from genuinely harmful situations.
✓Tracking Improvement: Leaders are typically the last to notice their own growth, just as parents stop seeing daily height changes in their children while grandparents notice immediately after months apart. Record current skill levels and target outcomes at the start of any development effort, then review progress every 60 days to maintain motivation and course-correct accurately.

What It Covers

Dave Stachowiak from Coaching for Leaders identifies five recurring obstacles that prevent leaders from improving: not asking for help, assuming knowledge drives behavior, setting tactical bars too high, expecting progress to feel good, and failing to notice personal growth over time.

Key Questions Answered

•Asking for Help: Leaders avoid seeking help primarily because it feels unsafe, not because it actually is. The fix is finding one person outside your organization or industry who holds no political stake in your situation. This person can give objective guidance without judgment, and the act of asking regularly builds the habit of openness to growth.
•Knowledge vs. Behavior: Knowing a leadership framework and applying it in a real one-on-one meeting are entirely different skills, similar to passing a written driving exam versus actually driving. When stuck in a knowledge loop, skip the next book or podcast and spend that same time implementing one concept already learned but not yet practiced with your team.
•Tactical Bar Setting: Set vision and outcome goals high, but start tactics at the smallest possible unit — five minutes or one action per day. Leaders who aim to recognize every employee in every conversation often quit after missing two or three people, labeling themselves failures despite a 70% success rate on day one.
•Feeling Worse as Progress Signal: When a leader gains more visibility or influence, they often uncover problems previously hidden from them. This feels like regression but signals forward movement. Write down in advance the specific frictions likely to arise from a new goal, then use an objective third party to distinguish healthy tension from genuinely harmful situations.
•Tracking Improvement: Leaders are typically the last to notice their own growth, just as parents stop seeing daily height changes in their children while grandparents notice immediately after months apart. Record current skill levels and target outcomes at the start of any development effort, then review progress every 60 days to maintain motivation and course-correct accurately.

Notable Moment

Dave describes waiting the entire duration of a low-performing employee's tenure — over a year — before delivering feedback, choosing the final hour of the person's last shift to do so. The fallout extended beyond that employee: several high performers quietly left afterward, having observed how the situation was handled.

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Episode Transcript

Hey. Dave here from coaching for leaders. I get asked a version of this question all the time. What's the difference maker that really helps leaders thrive? And I'm getting this question a lot right now as I talk with applicants to the Coaching for Leaders Academy. Our academy helps leaders thrive at key inflection points, and applications are open right now for new members only until the end of the day this Friday, March 20. Go over to coachingforleaders.com/academy for more details and to apply. The version of this question I'm getting now in relation to the academy is this. What's the difference maker that really helps leaders thrive in the academy? And we always end up talking about that when people apply, But I find that there's an even bigger question behind that. And that question is this one. What is it that really gets in the way of leaders improving? It's not a lack of knowledge, certainly not these days in an AI world. And it's not a lack of resources usually, and it's also not typically a problem with good intentions either, certainly not in the community of people who listen to this podcast. Look. The context of every leadership situation is unique, and there are many nuances that come up in our work. But I'm constantly struck by how much is similar across all the leaders I work with. And especially similar is what gets in their ways. And that's why today I'm outlining the five things that I most commonly see that stop leaders from improving. These things come up again and again, and it's why the structure of our academy is intentionally designed to help us all transcend these five stopping points. Leaders thrive by creating movement to work through obstacles like these. So let me share the five things that I see all the time, how you can guard against them, and how our academy might help. And if you decide the academy might be right for you, go over to coachingforleaders.com/academy to apply by this Friday, March 20. The first thing that gets in leaders' ways most commonly, not asking for help. My very first job as a full time professional manager, I inherited a team of employees that was really great. Almost all of them with one exception. There was one person that was, in my opinion, not a very high performer and sometimes didn't meet the minimum standards that we expected in our organization. And yet I didn't really handle it very well. I would occasionally mention something that I thought he could be doing better. He would improve marginally. And then it seemed like things kinda went back to where they were, and I didn't really know what to do with that. And I didn't see him that often. We ended up working on a staggered schedule, and I kept going back and forth. Should I handle the situation? Should I not? What do I say? What do …

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