Have you ever reacted to feedback before you even knew what you were reacting to?

In this episode of Deep Work Out Loud, Julie Harris Oliver welcomes coach Susan Lanphier to explore the power of the pause, a deceptively simple leadership and communication skill that creates real choice in emotionally charged moments. Drawing on her decades in tech and coaching leaders through change, Susan explains how a pause is what shifts us from reacting to responding, and how curiosity and empathy do the heavy lifting from there, especially in feedback conversations where defensiveness and anger are so often just fear wearing a different face.

Julie and Susan get into how leaders set the emotional temperature for everyone around them, why normalizing emotion at work still requires real boundaries and psychological safety to hold it, and what repair actually looks like when it's built on accountability for impact rather than good intentions, backed by self-compassion instead of self-punishment. They also talk about how judgment quietly blocks curiosity before it even has a chance, and why making time to pause, for strategic thinking and for your own priorities, takes boundaries and ongoing recommitment rather than a one-time decision.

• Why a pause is what creates the choice between reacting and responding

• Using curiosity and empathy to stay grounded in feedback conversations

• How leaders set the emotional temperature for their teams

• Normalizing emotion at work without losing boundaries or psychological safety

• Repair through accountability for impact, not just intent

• Self-compassion as the foundation that makes repair possible

• How judgment shuts down curiosity before it starts

• Making time to pause through boundaries and recommitment

⏰ Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Format
00:35 Meet Susan Lanphier
01:31 Power of the Pause
03:41 Feedback Without Reacting
06:04 Leaders Set the Tone
08:15 Coaching and Practice
10:46 Emotions and Boundaries
15:08 Repair and Accountability
17:59 Assumptions Block Curiosity
20:24 Making Time to Pause
23:41 Connection and Next Steps
24:27 Find Susan and Closing

👤 About Susan Lanphier Susan Lanphier is a coach with decades of experience in tech and in coaching leaders through change. Her work centers on helping leaders build the emotional skills, like pausing before reacting, that create genuine connection and psychological safety on their teams. She offers an "Align and Accelerate" coaching call for leaders ready to put these practices into action. 🌐 Website: https://susanlcoaching.com

👤 About Julie Harris Oliver Julie Harris Oliver is an Executive Coach, Leadership Development Professional, and host of the Deep Work Out Loud podcast. Through thought-provoking conversations with coaches, leaders, and subject matter experts, Julie helps professionals develop greater self-awareness, strengthen leadership skills, navigate career transitions, and create meaningful personal and professional growth.

Each episode explores practical insights you can apply to your work, relationships, leadership, and everyday life. 🌐 Website: https://julieharrisoliver.com

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for More Leadership & Coaching Insights If you enjoy conversations about leadership, executive coaching, emotional intelligence, mindset, workplace culture, and personal growth, make sure to Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss a new episode of Deep Work Out Loud.

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🔗 Connect with Julie Harris:

• Website: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/

• Instagram: → https://www.instagram.com/julieharrisoliver/

• LinkedIn: → https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-harris-oliver

• Book a FREE Call: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/coaching-appointment

#DeepWorkOutLoud #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #EmotionalIntelligence #PsychologicalSafety #FeedbackCulture

Have you ever ended a full, packed day of leadership and still felt like you didn't actually get anything done?

In this episode of Deep Work Out Loud, Julie Harris Oliver welcomes executive coach Jennifer Tankersley to unpack why senior leaders so often feel like they're "not doing enough," even when they're busy from the first meeting to the last. Jennifer traces her own path from data-focused management consulting into coaching, driven by a growing fascination with the human side of leadership that no spreadsheet could capture.

Julie and Jennifer dig into a real client case where a leader felt like "nothing got done" in a day that was, in fact, full of high-impact conversations, just none of them checkable off a list. From there, Jennifer lays out her value equation, a framework for what leadership value actually includes: tangible work, enabling other people's work, information flow and learning, reflection and sense-making, and self-leadership, meaning spaciousness, regulation, and intentional presence. They talk about how to make that invisible leadership work visible, how role chartering and managing up can align expectations, and how to tell the difference between real external urgency and the reactive urgency that comes from a nervous system stuck in threat response. Clarity, safety, recovery, and the willingness to pause come up again and again as the real practices underneath good leadership.

• Jennifer's path from data-driven consulting into executive coaching

• Why a full day of leadership can still feel like "nothing got done"

• The value equation: tangible work, enabling others, information flow, reflection, and self-leadership

• How to make invisible leadership work visible to the people around you

• Role chartering and managing up as tools for alignment

• The difference between real urgency and reactive urgency rooted in threat response

• Why clarity, safety, recovery, and pausing are core leadership practices, not soft extras

⏰ Chapters 00:00 Jennifer Tankersley
04:17 Jennifer's Path to Coaching
08:46 The Value Equation Framework
12:57 Making the Invisible Visible
17:56 Safety, Groundedness & Reactive Patterns
25:31 Urgency: Real vs. Reactive
31:22 Recovery & Restoration for Leaders

👤 About Jennifer Tankersley Jennifer Tankersley is an executive coach who moved into coaching after a career in data-focused management consulting, drawn by a deep interest in the human side of leadership. She writes and speaks about redefining what leadership value actually looks like beyond output and checklists. Read more in her article, "You Don't Have a Time Problem, You Have a Value Problem," at thetankersleygroup.com. 🌐 Website: https://thetankersleygroup.com

👤 About Julie Harris Oliver Julie Harris Oliver is an Executive Coach, Leadership Development Professional, and host of the Deep Work Out Loud podcast. Through thought-provoking conversations with coaches, leaders, and subject matter experts, Julie helps professionals develop greater self-awareness, strengthen leadership skills, navigate career transitions, and create meaningful personal and professional growth.

Each episode explores practical insights you can apply to your work, relationships, leadership, and everyday life. 🌐 Website: https://julieharrisoliver.com

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for More Leadership & Coaching Insights If you enjoy conversations about leadership, executive coaching, emotional intelligence, mindset, workplace culture, and personal growth, make sure to Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss a new episode of Deep Work Out Loud.

📌 Subscribe & Stay Updated: → https://www.youtube.com/@DWOLJulieHarrisOliver?sub_confirmation=1

🔗 Connect with Julie Harris: • Website: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/ • Instagram: → https://www.instagram.com/julieharrisoliver/ • LinkedIn: → https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-harris-oliver • Book a FREE Call: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/coaching-appointment

#DeepWorkOutLoud #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #SelfAwareness #InvisibleWork #LeadershipValue