Magnanimous Leadership

“You haven’t failed. You just haven’t figured it out yet.” Marguerite Thibodeaux, Founder & Executive Coach, Magnanimous Leadership

A strong magnanimous culture at work reduces operational risk.

How?

A sick teammate walks into the office. What do you do?

🎯 Magnanimous leaders, first and foremost, recognize that our teams are made up of people.

Seems simple, but seeing people rather than numbers makes it a simple choice to send sick teammates home to recover rather than asking them to “just push through”.

In the long run, being one person down for a day and avoiding a week or two of sluggish performance or an outbreak in the office that downs an entire team is the best choice for the business and the most magnanimous choice for your teammate.

💡 Funny how what’s good for people is usually what’s good for business.

Part of a growth mindset no one talks about:

You can get worse, too.

The same neural elasticity that physically allows you to continue to learn well into your twilight years means that your old learnings can get “written over” to make room for new ideas and skills.

Just another reason why there’s no shame in occasionally needing a or some helpful .

❌ Accountability is not exclusion.

❌ Accountability is not bullying.

✔ Accountability is part of leadership.

✔ Accountability + compassion = inclusion

What you say matters.

What you don’t say matters.

is most often assumed to be .

As a , your silence could accidentally be agreeing with:
👉 Another leader’s poor treatment of your
👉 Your teammate’s, “I’m on PTO tomorrow, but I’ll have my phone if you need anything.”
👉 Your company’s official stance on big political moments

Set up your work environment to make team success more likely.

✅ Regular one-on-ones

✅ Regular team meetings

✅ Regular updates for leadership including status updates and kudos

✅ Transparent and regularly updated team backlog

✅ Transparent work-in-progress

✅ Transparent KPIs

Guess Who is an easy team-building activity that gives each teammate an opportunity to learn more about themselves and each other and ultimately makes the team more collaborative and effective.

Skim through the article to learn more about how your team can benefit from this activity.

Guess Who: An Easy Team Building and DEI Activity Guess Who is an easy team building activity that gives each teammate an opportunity to learn more about themselves and each other and ultimately makes the team more collaborative and effective. This activity is geared towards improving communication and collaboration and building trust and transpare

Humans are both perfectly rational and unthinking.

When we think, we’re rational.

When we don’t, we are on autopilot.

The trouble comes in when habits we built back in the day no longer serve us. We developed them in a different environment.

Things changed.

Now, they’re just in our way, and we probably don’t even realize, because by nature, we’re on autopilot and not thinking.

As , we have the opportunity to help our teammates recognize those unhelpful habits and change them with thoughtful feedback and coaching.

Approach every difficult conversation assuming your teammate does things for a reason.
🎯 Share context: the event/behavior that drove undesired results vs expectations
🎯 Coach: Ask what made them choose the route they did? Knowing what they know now, what alternatives might they consider in the future?
🎯 Co-create a path forward: Based on your teammate’s brainstorming and your coaching, sharing examples or reminding them of important constraints to consider, agree on a path forward.
- What will your teammate try next time?
- When will they have the opportunity to try it?
- How will they know if it worked?
- When will y’all discuss this again?

During one consultation on an executive sponsorship DEI program, we realized with the client we were talking about a short-term band-aid to a long-term problem.

Their diversity data across levels said they needed a better promotion pipeline to move diverse talent through development.

What does your organization's diversity by level tell you?

can be about the environment, not just the person.

✳ What time zone is your teammate in?

✳ Which room of the house is your teammate working from?

✳ Does your teammate have to work from the office because they can’t get internet service where they live?

✳ How reliable is your teammate’s internet connection? Phone service?

As leaders,

👉 Employers should train you.
👉 Employers should set clear expectations.
👉 Employers should help you grow.

Employers should.
Employers don’t.

And you don’t have to wait for them.

You can get the support you need on your own.

That’s why we’re here.

Most employers don’t have the HR know-how or the training budget to give you the support you need to succeed as a leader.

We believe every leader deserves support and every team deserves a high quality leader.

That’s why our founder left a successful Fortune 100 career.

To bring effective, accessible leadership coaching to you.

Invest in yourself.

Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.

If you're ready to invest in yourself, click on the link in the comments to schedule a one-on-one with Marguerite.

Replace “No” with “Yes, if”. See what happens.