Psychology at Work | Career Success, Leadership, Communication Skills

How do you get your team to be more resourceful? What’s the best way to help people think for themselves before they come to you? And how do you stop being the person everyone relies on for the answer without becoming hands-off, unavailable, or unclear? In this episode, Melody sits down with Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit (+1 million copies sold)  to talk about how busy leaders can build smarter, more capable, lower-drama teams through becoming more coach-like.
You’ll Discover:
The 4-word question to open every 1:1 with — that finally gets past the canned update
The phrase Michael calls "possibly the best coaching question in the world" (and why you should ask it multiple times in a row)
The #1 thing to say when a meeting is going off the rails to get your team back on track
How to coach UP the chain of command, even with executives levels above you
About Michael
Michael Bungay Stanier is best known for The Coaching Habit, the best-selling coaching book of the century. His other books include How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, which is about building the Best Possible Relationship with key people at work. He’s part of the MasterClass faculty, and is the host of the Change Signal podcast. Michael was a Rhodes Scholar, and was recently admitted as a Thinkers50 Coaching Legend (“the Oscars of Management”). Learn more at MBS.works.

https://melodywilding.com/training
Connect with Melody:
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Get on the Waitlist for Speak Like a Senior Leader™
Get on the Waitlist for Lead from Within
Get Melody's new book, Managing Up

🚨CLOSING: Apply for the final Lead from Within cohort of 2026 by Sunday July 26th 11:59pm ET: https://melodywilding.com/lfw
Certain stretches of your career are compressed. The reputation you'd normally build over 18 months of steady work gets decided in a matter of weeks. Handle it well and you accelerate onto the shortlist for the next role. In this episode, engineering manager Alejandro walks through how he used a high-stakes product launch to accelerate his own path to the next level. 

https://melodywilding.com/training
Connect with Melody:
FREE NEWSLETTER: Psychology at Work Weekly
Get on the Waitlist for Speak Like a Senior Leader™
Get on the Waitlist for Lead from Within
Get Melody's new book, Managing Up

🚨APPLICATIONS CLOSING 🚨Apply for the final Lead from Within of 2026 by Sunday July 26th 11:59pm ET: https://melodywilding.com/lfw
This is a mini masterclass on the four pillars of executive readiness. These are the things no business school will teach you, no performance review captures, no leadership book breaks down with this level of specificity. Melody walks you through all four, with a clear diagnostic as to where you stand and what’s holding you back before year-end opportunities get decided without you. 
What You’ll Discover: 
▪️Three levels of visibility every stakeholder sits on – and why only ONE gets you championed for bigger roles 
▪️ One script that took a field marketing function from "the booth people" to a recognized business driver within 90 days
▪️ A subtle psychology trick an incoming executive used to keep her predecessor from undermining her
▪️The two-week team management test 90% of leaders fail (and what to do ASAP) 
https://melodywilding.com/training
Connect with Melody:
FREE NEWSLETTER: Psychology at Work Weekly
Get on the Waitlist for Speak Like a Senior Leader™
Get on the Waitlist for Lead from Within
Get Melody's new book, Managing Up

📢 NOW OPEN: Apply for the final Lead from Within cohort of 2026: https://melodywilding.com/lfw
Whether you want to position yourself for a promotion, step into a bigger scope or go from tactician to enterprise-level leader, the next six months will make or break your shot at what's next. Leverage Q3 & Q4 to rise into the role, projects, and pay that match your caliber. 
You'll discover how to: 
Get handed high-visibility opportunities (no groveling, pitching, or proving necessary) by escaping the dreaded "next level loop"
Walk out of your annual review with a 140% bonus (yes really!) because you turned the busiest, most chaotic months of the year into a total perception reset
Uncover exactly who decides your future, who's a hidden blocker, and who you've been wasting energy trying to impress (it's rarely what's on the org chart)
Reclaim 10-20 hours per week for work that proves you're ready for bigger things -- shaping direction, building executive-level relationships, and developing a rockstar team
https://melodywilding.com/training
Connect with Melody:
FREE NEWSLETTER: Psychology at Work Weekly
Get on the Waitlist for Speak Like a Senior Leader™
Get on the Waitlist for Lead from Within
Get Melody's new book, Managing Up

At a certain level, being the one everyone depends on can stop feeling like proof of your value and start feeling like a ceiling. The same pattern that makes you trusted can also keep you buried in execution and trapped making decisions your team should make independently. In this episode, you’ll learn how to recognize what Melody calls “hero mode” in real time, neutralize the hidden emotional driver behind it, and take steps to scale your team while positioning yourself for greater career growth. 
You’ll Discover: 
8 behaviors that look like "great leadership" but are torpedoing your next promotion
What your boss REALLY means when she keeps saying you're "so close" to VP year after year
The “seesaw” dynamic keeping your team permanently junior (and getting worse the more you help)
The 3 things you HAVE to let go of before ANY delegation tactic will actually stick
The specific tool I give Lead from Within clients to recalibrate productivity at senior levels
https://melodywilding.com/training
Connect with Melody:
FREE NEWSLETTER: Psychology at Work Weekly
Get on the Waitlist for Speak Like a Senior Leader™
Get on the Waitlist for Lead from Within
Get Melody's new book, Managing Up