297: Make People Feel Heard with Katie O’Malley

https://youtu.be/vKFULhTQwg0 Katie O’Malley, Founder of (en)Courage Coaching, is on a mission to create workplaces that do no harm by equipping leaders with the skills to prevent toxicity and foster cultural transformation. We dive into Katie’s career path from political campaigns and higher education to leadership coaching, and explore her Power of Listening Framework—the AIR Methodology: Attention, Intention, and Recognition. Katie shares how listening well is one of the most powerful tools leaders have to build trust, increase engagement, and demonstrate respect. We also discuss how she uses LEGO Serious Play to unlock team vulnerability and build connection in a playful but profound way. --- Make People Feel Heard with Katie O'Malley Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Katie O'Malley, the founder of (en)Courage Coaching. She has helped over 200 leaders and leadership teams prevent toxic workspace experiences and create cultural transformations across the US and the UK. Katie, welcome to the show. Steve, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here and really eager for our conversation and to be helpful to your audience. I'm sure you will be very helpful. You bring a different perspectives than what we had, the previous 300 guests, so definitely very interesting. But let's start with my favorite question, which is, what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice? Absolutely. So my personal “Why” goes all the way back to when I was in college studying political science. I have always wanted to make a positive impact in the world, the communities that I'm a part of, the connections and the relationships that I have. And that thread has pulled throughout my entire career, whether it was working on political campaigns and nonprofit organizations or in higher education. And eventually what I realized is I had this kind of itch for small business ownership, entrepreneurship, having the agency and autonomy to work the way that I wanted to work and took that, combined it with my “Why” of really helping folks at the intersection of mental health and work. It's where we spend eight, 10, 12 hours of our day. And to think that it doesn't have an impact on how we move through the world or our overall well-being is bonkers. And so I spend my days really helping folks to align their strengths, talents, and values with the roles and organizations that they're pursuing.Share on X And also working on the other side of the equation, on the employer side of the equation, training up their leaders to do no harm to their teams and employees throughout the workday. And so, yeah, my “Why” is how do we help people have, at worst, a net neutral experience in their workday and at best, a workday that elevates their life outside of work. Yeah, I mean, it's a huge thing and a lot of companies don't realize that they have these employees in the company and if they are happy, they're going to be much more productive. They are going to project a much better impression of the company to the outside world. They are going to make their customers happier. So it's really worth investing in improving the mental health and the happiness of the people in the company. That's a big lever that you're pulling there. So let's take this as a good pivot point because we are podcasting on frameworks, as you know, and our listeners know. I'm always on the hunt for a good framework that someone has discovered. What you do definitely is an important topic. You talk about the empathy, you have background in counseling. So you came up with a framework called the Power of Listening Framework, and I would love it for you to explain why it's important and how does it work with our listeners? Yeah. So I call it the AIR Methodology. A stands for attention, I stands for intention, R stands for recognition.