When You’re Pushed Outside Your Comfort Zone

Is your job pushing you outside your comfort zone? Executive coach and former venture capitalist Jerry Colonna has coached leaders on how to make the most of stretch responsibilities.

“When a leader is able to connect with the reality of what they know and don’t know and speak truthfully from that, there’s this lovely, lovely corollary benefit that occurs called trust,” he tells Dear HBR hosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn. “Then all of a sudden you start to pull the team together and people start rooting for you.”

Colonna takes questions from Dear HBR listeners about what to do when you don’t feel qualified to manage your new responsibilities. He also offers advice for leading a team without formal power.

Key episode topics include: leadership, leadership development, career planning, career coaching, psychology, managing people, building trust.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Dear HBR episode: Stretch Responsibilities (June 2019).
• Find more episodes of Dear HBR.
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.