Coaching With Marla

Keep coming back to this conversation. In today's America, many of us have stopped talking to our neighbors who hold views different from ours. Yet we may be sitting and enjoying the same concert. How do we bring humanity back to our everyday life?

SE01E11 - Conducting Change: How a New CEO Orchestrates the Company’s Future | With Justus Zimmerman In this conversation, Coach Marla Moody speaks with Justus Zimmerman , the CEO of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, about the unique challenges and opportunitie...

The first day I coached her, I could tell that Sarah was spunky, smart, and clearly good at her job, but I saw a defeated woman, her confidence shot.

A disagreement at work left her not only feeling unsupported but defeated. She reacted, her boss reacted, and the situation escalated.
She was blamed.
Then reprimanded by her boss and HR.

I could tell, not from what she said, but from how she said it, that she was carrying something heavier than the reprimand itself.

Shame.

That situation ended in a panic attack.
In the meeting.
In front of her boss and her team.
Should she have reacted that way?
No.
Should she have been put in that position?
Also no.

Here's what I know to be true: most of us can look calm, sound intelligent, and perform well when things are going smoothly. But what happens when you get accused of something outrageous? When you don't feel heard, supported, or safe?
When you become the scapegoat?

Not after the fact. In that exact moment when your supervisor throws you under the bus. When you feel small, attacked, misunderstood?

For my client, her body responded the only way it knew how. Her thinking mind went offline. Her nervous system took over. And what came out looked, to everyone in that room, like someone who was out of control.
Which made everything worse.

When the dust settled, she couldn't take it back. What she said. How she acted. How people saw her.

That conflict ended her dream job.

Over six months, we did the hard work of untangling that day. Finding the themes that ran through it. Practicing techniques to stay present — in her adult brain — even when the room gets heated and she doesn't feel safe. Learning that staying present is possible. Learning how to exit in a way she could be proud of.

What I've seen firsthand: when things escalate, even the most senior people in the room can collapse into a much younger version of themselves. Your boss. The HR director. Everyone responding not as the adults they are, but from the age they were when they first learned that conflict wasn't safe.

Regulated presence is the skill that changes that.
Not for them.
For you.

Sarah and I celebrated when she landed a new role (with a healthier boss). I got to watch that happen. More importantly, she stopped needing her environment to be conflict-free in order to feel okay. She built the internal muscle to weather what used to take her out completely.

That's the work. That is I do what I do. It's amazing to partner with women who have so much to offer and have so much joy to experience.

If any part of this landed. If you've left a meeting replaying what you wish you'd said, or worse, what you can't take back — I'd love to talk.
DM me, or grab 30 minutes on my calendar. Link in the first comment.

Coach Marla

Note: Sarah is not her given name.

Can I have 30 seconds? I need your input.
When you think about a truly exceptional leader—who comes to mind?
Whom do you consider a great leader?

What made them different?
How did they impact you?
What qualities stood out to you?

As I build out my Freedom Framework, where healthy people become great leaders, I came back to a simple question:
What actually makes a great leader?

I started listing qualities—character, presence, emotional regulation, clarity.
But I realized—my perspective is limited to my own experience.

So I want to hear from you.
Drop it in the comments, send me a DM, or even record a voice note—I’m listening. Tell me your perspective.

If you mention someone on LinkedIn, make their day by them. :-)

I’ll gather what I hear and share the patterns.
Let’s learn from what actually works.

Can I have 30 seconds? I need your input.
When you think about a truly exceptional leader—who comes to mind?
Whom do you consider a great leader?

What made them different?
How did they impact you?
What qualities stood out to you?

As I build out my Freedom Framework, where healthy people become great leaders, I came back to a simple question:
What actually makes a great leader?

I started listing qualities—character, presence, emotional regulation, clarity.
But I realized—my perspective is limited to my own experience.

So I want to hear from you.
Drop it in the comments, send me a DM, or even record a voice note—I’m listening. Tell me your perspective.

If you mention someone on LinkedIn, make their day by them. :-)

I’ll gather what I hear and share the patterns.
Let’s learn from what actually works.

The “Leadership Tax” You Didn’t Know You Were Paying

“Where do you feel that in your body?”
I asked a client.

She looked at me and said,
“I’m a lawyer. I didn’t even know I had feelings until three months ago.”

We laughed.

But here’s what wasn’t funny:
Her most expensive decisions were still driven by them.

We all do it.

We mistake reactive for decisive.
We mistake anxiety for urgency.

Feelings are not a good life coach.

To lead at a high level, you have to know the difference between reaction and intuition.

Intuition is grounded.
Calm.
Clear.

Reactivity is fast.
Emotional.
Unregulated.

And when it takes over, your thinking brain goes offline.
Now you’re not leading—you’re surviving.

Survival keeps you safe.
But it doesn’t help you grow.

That gap?
That’s the Leadership Tax—the hidden cost of reactive leadership.

I know my tells:
– fidgeting or pacing
– all-or-nothing thinking
– “I’ll just do it myself”

You might recognize yours:
– turning small issues into emergencies
– over-controlling because letting go feels risky
– changing direction because the middle feels messy
– shutting down or getting sharp

None of these create great leadership.
They create burnout—and bottlenecks.

The real skill?

Notice the feeling.
Don’t obey it.
Lead anyway.

Stop paying the Leadership Tax.

DM me “LEADERSHIP TAX” and let’s identify where your reactions are costing you—and how to get your thinking brain back in the driver’s seat.

What is the cost of wounded leadership to an organization?

Conferences. Certifications. Coaching programs. Executive retreats.
And most of it is worthwhile. Developing leaders matters. I believe that without reservation.

But there is a budget line that almost no organization accounts for.
The cost of unaddressed wounded leadership.

I experienced this firsthand as the Operations Leader across 10 countries in Central Asia.

The Area Team Leader was brilliant: intelligent, disciplined, athletic, and driven. He also carried unresolved wounds from his past into our meetings.
We all have them, but when we turn a blind eye to them, it comes with a cost.
We, the Leadership Team, learned over time how to play the game. Maybe, in the meetings, we just gave up.

We learned that alignment meant compliance.
Did that make us come up with the best ideas? No.

We were all passionate about improving our work, so we said yes in the meeting and then went out and did it our way.

A vision meant to unify us instead diffused our goals.
Who suffered? Our staff and projects. Central Asian countries were hard, challenging, and emotionally deep. But we were not unified.

This is what wounded leadership costs an organization:

1. Your best people leave...quietly.
They don't storm out. They get quiet first, stop bringing their best ideas, and then one day they're just gone.
Replacement costs: 50–200% of salary.
That doesn’t include the institutional knowledge that walks out with them.

2. Compliance gets rewarded.
The people who survive are the ones who agree.
Your leadership pipeline fills with those who conform, not those who lead.
We don’t drive the best ideas forward.

3. Your vision fractures.
Misaligned leaders create diluted messaging.
What reaches the front line is a shadow of what was intended.
You cannot build a unified culture on a fragmented foundation.
Let's address the wounded elephant in the room. What is unaddressed woundedness in your leadership team actually costing you in talent, in trust, in results?

DM me “wounded elephant”. Let's talk about what it's costing you.