Introduction
Tim Gustafson, an executive leadership coach and president of Applied Leader, joins Jack Ossa on The Power of Design Podcast. With more than 30 years of experience leading teams, including in commercial real estate, design and construction, he helps leaders develop by bringing out the best in people.
They talk about self-awareness, authenticity, how behavior changes, and what it takes to leave a corporate career and start a business.
About the Episode
Tim opens with the weakness he sees most often in leaders: a lack of self-awareness. He explains that technical professionals, including architects and engineers, are great at solving problems outside of themselves, but leadership means working through people, balancing tasks with relationships. Jack and Tim agree that nearly everyone carries baggage that affects how they lead.
Tim describes his path from environmental consulting, through a financial company's program offices and a coaching certification, to running construction and projects for a bank's corporate properties group. He started his own coaching practice five years before the conversation and says he has not looked back. Jack shares his own experience of starting a business and the internal conversation that preceded it.
In the second half, Tim explains how he coaches: 360 assessments, questions, experimenting with new behaviors and feedback. He also talks about limiting beliefs, identity and stages of adult development, and says design and coaching share a purpose, which is improvement.
Key Takeaways
- Self-awareness comes first: leaders who do not see how others perceive them lose time in communication, empathy and delegation.
- Leadership is working through people: task skill alone does not scale, so leaders have to balance tasks with relationships.
- Get outside feedback: a 360 assessment can show gaps between how you see yourself and how others see you.
- The client drives the work: coaching goes into inner territory and depends on the client's willingness to do the work.
- Behavior takes practice: default behaviors are deeply worn, so new ones feel awkward until repeated.
- Be the same everywhere: Tim wants clients to live by their values at work, at home and in the community.
- Coaches need coaches: Tim works with his own coach to see what he cannot see himself.
Highlights from the Conversation
I think the most common weakness of leaders is self-awareness.
Tim Gustafson
We want to be the same here there and everywhere.
Tim Gustafson
The clients are the ones that need to drive it because they have to be willing to do the work.
Tim Gustafson
Topics Discussed
- Self-awareness and how leaders are perceived
- Balancing tasks and people in leadership
- Leaving a corporate career to start a business
- How executive coaching works, including 360 assessments
- Neural pathways and changing default behaviors
- Limiting beliefs and identity
- Stages of adult development and fear-based versus love-based leadership
- The purpose of design compared with the purpose of coaching
Why This Conversation Matters
Design and construction teams depend on leaders who can work through people, and this conversation puts that skill at the center. It also relates to how we think about branding: a brand, like a leader, works when it is authentic and consistent. The same idea of shaping an experience for people drives our interior architecture work, such as the BWM Office, and our identity work for construction firms like Genesis Construction.
About the Guest
Tim Gustafson is an executive leadership coach and president of Applied Leader. He holds degrees in geology, worked in environmental consulting and program management, earned an executive leadership coaching certification at Georgetown University, and led construction and projects for the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic at a major bank's corporate properties group. He coaches CEOs, owners and managers, many of them in design, construction and real estate.
