The higher you move in leadership, the less your job is about what you can personally produce. That changes everything. You may know exactly what a strong performer should do. The harder question is: how do you help another person consistently become the performer they're capable of being? That's the work Michael Fox does with financial-services distribution leaders.
When your results depended mostly on your own activity, you could change what you did. Leadership is different. Now your results depend on other people too. You're setting expectations, coaching, holding people accountable and keeping trust, all at the same time, across a lot of different personalities.
On any given week, you might need to:
Raise expectations, create accountability and handle underperformance without crushing trust.
Tell a skill problem from a mindset problem, and see what's really holding someone back.
Know when to press, when to back off, and how not to over-manage.
The difficult one. The honest one. The one you've been putting off.
Keep top performers challenged and grow the leaders who come after you.
Protect culture and balance this quarter's production with long-term development.
Someone on your team is underperforming. The natural questions come fast.
Do they need another script? More product knowledge? More activity? More accountability? More training?
Sometimes, yes.
But sometimes the real issue sits underneath the behavior: a belief, a self-image, fear, expectations, identity, emotional reactions, habits or standards.
Misdiagnose that, and you keep prescribing more strategy to someone whose real obstacle is internal. They nod, they agree, and nothing changes. You both get frustrated.
Here's a hypothetical example of how it plays out on a team.
A wholesaler on your team believes a certain advisor group doesn't take them seriously. Before calls and meetings, the thought is "they won't give me the time of day." That creates a feeling of hesitation. The actions follow: fewer calls, weak follow-up, avoidance.
And you see only the result: low activity, poor confidence, missed opportunities. So you think, "they need to work harder."
But what you're looking at may be the end of a chain that started much earlier. When you can see the chain, you can coach the right link. Explore BTFAR →
Most leaders manage people who already know what they should do. That's what makes underperformance so frustrating. You find yourself thinking: "We've talked about this. You know what to do. Why aren't you doing it?"
That's the Knowing-Doing Gap.
They know who to call, who to follow up with, how much activity is expected, how to prepare, how to ask for the opportunity and how to manage their time. And they still don't do it consistently.
The problem isn't always information, so your job isn't to say it louder. Sometimes the better question is: what's happening between knowing and doing? More on the Knowing-Doing Gap →
Each person on your team needs a different conversation. The framework helps you see which one.
Something in the internal foundation needs strengthening: confidence, beliefs, self-image, fear, habits, expectations, call reluctance. Your job is to help uncover what's happening underneath the behavior.
They usually know what to do. The issue is consistency: accountability, standards, follow-through, focus, activity, execution. A different conversation from BUILD.
Maybe one of your strongest people. Nothing is broken. The question becomes: how do I coach someone who's already excellent? Higher standards, strategic thinking, leadership, decisions, purpose, avoiding complacency.
These describe the kind of work that helps most right now, not how good someone is. People move between them.
Poor performance is easy to notice. High performance can actually be harder to coach. This person already has confidence, strong habits, good relationships and hits their goals. They need very little day-to-day management. So what do you work on?
And how do you challenge them without making it sound like what they've done isn't enough? They don't need fixing. They may simply be ready for another level. That's CHAMPION work.
Leadership comes with pressure. Under it, almost every leader slips sometimes: a reactive decision, a conversation put off, trying to control too much, impatience, letting a standard slide, trying to rescue everyone.
That's not doing leadership wrong. It's just a reminder that your own beliefs, emotions, habits and standards shape how you lead. Sometimes the person you need to coach first is yourself.
Michael has worked in financial services since 1996. He understands advisors, the people who call on them, and the pressure that comes with being responsible for other people's numbers.
His coaching isn't motivational theater, and it isn't team training. It's private, one-on-one work on your beliefs, thinking, standards and identity as a leader, and on how you see what's really going on with the people you lead. About Michael Fox →
Usually leaders who are building a team, developing new performers, managing established producers, coaching high performers, leading other leaders, or working to raise standards, accountability and consistency across their team.
What it isn't: generic leadership training, product training, a sales-management system, a replacement for your company's processes, or motivational hype. It's mindset and executive-performance coaching for the leader.
Also see coaching for insurance RVPs, insurance wholesalers and financial advisors.
At some point, leadership stops being about having the right answer. It becomes about seeing what another person can't yet see in themselves. And sometimes that starts with seeing your own leadership more clearly too.
If you're ready to take a closer look at how you're leading, let's talk.
Michael Fox — Mindset & Executive Coach for Financial Advisors, Insurance RVPs & Wholesalers.
Apply for private coaching →