Corinne Gavlinski, high-impact leadership and team development coach and creator of the Executive Table Read (XTR) method, is on a mission to help leaders improve communication, understand their people, and drive stronger team performance by transforming how leaders read, interpret, and utilize the strengths of their teams. 

We explore Corinne’s Executive Table Read framework: table read the script, understand the actors, get how to utilize them, and optimize team performance—a method that helps executives gain clarity, reduce friction, and build alignment inside leadership teams. Corinne shares why many leadership issues stem from misunderstanding roles, how actor awareness reshapes collaboration, and why structured team conversations are essential for building healthy, high-performing executive groups.

Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here, the Founder and CEO of the Summit OS® Group, and I have as my guest, Corinne Gavlinski today, who is a high-impact leadership and team development coach and the creator of the Executive Table Read, or XTR process.  Corinne, welcome to the show. 

Thank you, Steve. Pleasure to be here.

Well, it’s exciting to have you here and to learn about your wonderful framework. But first thing first — tell me about your personal “Why,” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice and business? 

Yes, I’d be happy to. If I’m honest, Steve, I’ve enjoyed and led an accomplished career, much like my colleagues, and the clients that I have. And I realized far too late in that great career that I was paying attention to the wrong things. And I wasn’t being intentional about the legacy that I really wanted to leave from a leadership perspective. And that only came on the heels of a pretty big identity jolt, which was losing both of my parents in succession. And so today, I work with leaders who care about their legacy, who care about their people, and have pressures on them to perform that perhaps distract them from that intention. And so I teach that which I, too, had to learn. And I work with executive leaders to do just that. 

I like it. This is very noble. So what is your legacy that you are pursuing? 

I hope my legacy is that I grew others. And as I said, I’m not sure I did that my whole career. In fact, I’m darn sure I did not. It took me a long time to realize that my own growth would be enhanced and amplified by me allowing others to grow that were on my team. And so if I had to say a legacy that I hope I leave, it’s that I left others with a strong sense of self, that I helped them develop new skills, and that they grew in areas that they hadn’t even dreamed possible, perhaps.

Love it. Well, I mean, that’s the beauty of coaching — that if you are able to amplify whatever you learned and pay it forward multiple times, it can have a big impact on people get there 20 years earlier, 30 years earlier, then imagine how much they can achieve in that time. 

That’s right. 

I love it. That’s great. So tell me about this process that you developed — the Executive Table Read. It sounds like very Hollywoodish. 

Yes. 

It’s very interesting. What is it? 

I put my money where my mouth is. I’m not only a coach, but I hire my own coaches. And this was born out of a working session that I did with one of my coaches, and I was interested in doing something that started with the team. And I wanted to reorient leaders to that focus on their team and not just on the self. Much like a director in a movie or a sitcom might do, they often will get actors around the table to do a table read. And I thought, what a fun play on words if I can get corporate leaders to do a similar exercise whereby they are learning about people around their table in a new way, so that they can understand how to optimize those individuals that are on the team, perform at perhaps a higher level, and agree together what behaviors will make them successful.

And so from that was born the Executive Table Read, and it’s a series of activities that, in under 45 days, will arm a leader and his or her team with data, custom analysis, and real performance measures that they can both take on a day one and 90 days later to ensure that they are being accountable to what they said was most important.

Yeah, that’s fascinating. So it’s an exercise where, as a leader, you can learn about other people, and then you can get them to commit to goals and to objectives, and then you follow up with them. So is this a repeatable process, or is this a one-off thing? 

It takes an evolution.

I think there's an initial Executive Table Read, whereby we go through a three-step process of collecting data, analyzing and sharing that data out with the team, determining behaviors that are important
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Yeah, I like it. And I think a lot of leaders and even coaches miss the opportunity to really analyze the personalities that are around the table. 

Yeah. 

When they start working with them, they can fail to exploit the opportunity to improve them and improve the communication, knowing the different communication styles and approaches between people. And a dysfunctional team is going to be much, much slower to the momentum. 

Yes. That’s right. I think leaders do a very good job of understanding how their team members fit into the roles in which they’re assigned, where they may not do as good a job. And I say that because I did not do as good a job in really understanding how those individuals think. How they inherently behave during times of when they’re not under duress and stress. And when you do, you get a better sense for the capabilities on your team. And moreover, where there may be friction points on your team that might not have been obvious before, but have a reason behind them. And then you can go about addressing that. So you can go about optimizing the talents on your team because you now understand how people think, process information, and innately or inherently behave, and you may have uncovered that if you have team members who are extremely different from one another, you can see where that friction could occur and mitigate any conflict as a result. So it’s a powerful tool when layered with some custom analysis because you get some real insight that maybe you didn’t have the time or the energy to do yourself.

So when you do this analysis, do you then use it as a group and facilitate the resolution, or is it a one-on-one tool? 

We do. We do. We do both actually, Steve. So an individual will receive a bit of coaching one-on-one as well as the team. So we start with some insight around individual thinking styles and behaviors, and helping that person to understand who they are. And then we, as a team, meet and debrief the results of the analysis and talk a little bit about how that helps the team to be successful, where might friction occur? How can those talents be better utilized, and based on the behaviors identified in the team, what are the most necessary for their specific discipline, whether that’s sales or an executive team, for example, there are differences in what they might want to pursue. And so it’s a little bit of both, but it’s predominantly geared around the team and the team working together to solve some of these questions. 

Is it always productive to have the team, let’s say there’s an inherent conflict in the team. Is it always productive to solve it in a team setting, or sometimes it’s better to solve it in a one-to-two settings, or one-on-one setting?

I’ve not encountered anything such a conflict that it required individual time and attention beyond what we were able to do in the format that I typically do it in. What has happened is that there’s been an opportunity for me to work with that leader one-on-one subsequently, to help that leader to better work with his people so that those conflicts don’t arise or they get headed off at the pass if you will, before they even start to show themselves. And that’s been very effective because

a leader then can understand, what some techniques might be to help those individuals both lean into what is so good about their behavior and see what might be a blindside for them.
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Yeah, that’s super interesting. So if someone doesn’t do that, is this what you call lazy leadership? 

Yes, a bit. I talk about lazy leadership because again, I believe I was lazy in my career. There were times when I was very centered on self and my own achievement and was a bit lazy about the things that were most important. And so lazy leadership, when we talk about that, is all about not someone lacking leadership prowess or not lacking the ability to lead a group of people, but instead being very distracted. Today’s environment is so pressurized. The political stakes are very high. There’s board demands, private equity demands. The CEO demands perhaps, and leaders have a lot to contend with. It’s very easy to take their eye off the ball of the actions that they want to take. And it’s very seldom that they have quiet space to be able to think about the legacy that they’re leaving or building. So lazy leadership is all about intentionality or the lack thereof.

And when I talk about that, what I mean is, how distracted are you? Are you being intentional about the things that you say matter to you? And if not, let us help you get back to that state of being an impactful leader who has influence and control. And if you’re in some of the other places, which we would call the leadership quadrants, you might show yourself in disengagement, you might show yourself in erosion or chaos. And if you find yourself there, how do you thrust yourself back into the impact zone? And one of the best ways to do that is by doing the XTR. 

Okay. So, let’s take an example. So I am suffering from lazy leadership. I’m being distracted. I’m the CEO of this company. There is someone who wants to acquire us. The board wants to cut costs. My people want pay rises. We are losing talent, and a competitor is trying to disrupt us. So all these things are happening. I’m totally distracted. How do I use the Executive Table Read process to get back on track, refocus, and get productive again? 

Yeah. Yeah. Here’s the thing. Leaders at that level have very little time. There’s a lot of time scarcity. And as you’ve just outlined, they have a lot of pressures. They have pressures to do more with a lot less in a lot of cases. And so the way that you might use the Executive Table Read is to intentionally stop time for a moment to focus on the team and the exercises that we bring so that you can get clear on what is it that you should or want to be focusing on, and how do your day-to-day actions represent that. Once you’ve figured that out, we can go through a process whereby you’re really being very specific with your week and precise about how you’re making decisions quickly for yourself and your team, so that you can get back in control. And that’s difficult. The scenario you just laid out is complex. It takes multiple angles of discussion to be able to work through that, but it can be done. And I think what leaders, more than anything really need is this concept of time and space to think, because they don’t have that in their day-to-day life. 

The more senior you become in leadership roles, the less likely you have a confident who doesn’t introduce additional demands on your time or who doesn’t represent some level of political risk. And so the reason that leaders seek out an executive coach is because they crave that confidentiality, that high-trust partnership, and someone who is willing to be a reflection of what their actions are versus what they say they want. And that’s a powerful competitive advantage when you’re an executive leader. But it comes with confidential setting, confidence in the person that you’re working with, and a very high-trust situation.

Well, it is very lonely at the CEO spot. It can be. I used to run a couple of CEO peer groups, and we did coaching, we did content speakers, all the stuff, but the biggest reason they wanted to be there was to have a peer group that they could confide in, share some things that they’ve heard about. They have a coach that would listen to them. It wasn’t even so much for any suggestions or ideas. It was just being a sympathetic ear who understands where they are. So that is true. 

No question. Leaders really don’t have people that often tell them no or that often challenge them. And I think that’s exactly what an objective partner can do for someone is not just be that reflection back to them of what someone sees, but to challenge them a bit in their thinking and game play out scenarios that may be challenging for them. Where there’s no one asking for them to do anything other than themselves, and there’s no one introducing additional political risk or navigational relationship risk. And so when someone has that, you’re right, it’s someone who understands them, who is there to listen with them and has no agenda or objective other than that support. It’s something frankly, I wish I had sought in my career and I didn’t. It was never even offered or discussed, and I was a fool for not seeking that on my own. I could have had twice the impact, I think I did have, if I had sought some external counsel.

Yeah, mentorship is so important. I did a keynote speech two weeks ago and they told me I only had 20 minutes. And what are the three most important things that I want to share with the audience? One of them was to seek out mentors. And I actually look back, I had so many mentors, whether in person, books, or conferences, thought leaders. So I think I did a lot, but then I also felt like I missed out on even more, because sometimes I just didn’t have the self-confidence to go to a mentor. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say. I felt overwhelmed. I felt insecure. Many times people who have been there and done it, they love to mentor younger people because they get a lot of satisfaction for being able to share what they know.

Yeah. 

What I’d like to ask you about is, so often people think they have a problem, but actually they have something else that is causing their frustration. It’s not what’s ostensibly the problem — it’s the real problem. 

That’s true. 

So how do you help them dig and find the real problem underlying their pain?

Yeah, you’re very right. Executives, especially highly accomplished ones present with a certain framework of problems, right? They’re largely the same from executive to executive. What I find is the linchpin to uncovering what might really be going on is that trusted relationship. Nothing comes without that. And there’s a bit of magic in executive coaching in that you really have to have the right rapport with people, and I can’t undersell that. I often say to people, whether you choose to work with us or not, I want to give you an idea of what it might be like to work with us, so that you then can compare to other programs or other individuals who you might work with, because it’s all about your personal comfort level with someone.

Once that occurs, then we quite rapidly can come to what’s really underneath the surface. And

for us at The GAV Group, that's really about a sharing of experience.
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And then just becoming aware of what is causing that, is it enough? Or you actually have to help people move on to something else to be able to replace that lost meaning that they had? 

Oh, yes, that’s not nearly enough. Then we have to get to work and action around it. So I am an action-oriented individual. I often joke that I am not a “woo-woo” coach, and I mean no disrespect for those who are more  woo-woo”. But I am all about getting into action around things. So once we start to pull the thread of what may be going on for them, then it’s time to get into action. And that’s where really what they want to build comes into play. So understanding and really doing some reflection themselves of where is it I’m trying to have an impact? Where is it that I want to have influence, and how do I want to be perceived — is critically important before getting into action. And then once we understand that, then it’s a series of “let’s try this and report back,” so that we can continue to move that needle towards where they’re trying to get to.

Do you find that just the fact that someone starts taking action is already helping? 

Yes, there’s a bit of lightning, if you will. A release of some amount of stress when someone gets back into control because action puts them back into control. And the moment they start to feel that, the moment they really start to show up differently, and it doesn’t have to be this momentous action. Sometimes it’s the consistent attention to some very unsexy tasks or some very unsexy behaviors is what starts to move the needle. And once someone really feels that, the momentum starts to gain, and then we can build upon. 

Yeah. I read this somewhere about writers — sometimes writers have writer’s block.

Yes, right. 

They’re not able to write. 

Yeah. 

And they are procrastinating and suffering and don’t know what to do. And one of the advice I heard was that if you’re not able to write, just sit down at your keyboard and just start writing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And just by taking the action, you’ll actually start to get the hang of it and you will start to write things up.

It breaks the pattern, right? I think sometimes leaders say to me, well, Corinne, I’d love to work with you, but I just need this one thing to happen first, and that’s an immediate tell for me. That’s an immediate sense of, does that really need to happen? What would happen if we started to work together and that thing changed completely? Or you approach that thing with more decisiveness, or you approach that differently because of the influence you want to have. And so this is a human instinct to want to, I just wanna have this all in order before I work with you, but the real thing is you’re feeling a sense of being not in the game you once were in, or not in control of the way things are happening. And

the fastest way to get in control is to have a conversation with someone, so that you can get clear on what it is you're trying to do, and take the smallest step possible to get there.
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Yeah, I’m with you. It’s the clarity and knowing that, okay, maybe there are thousand directions that I can go, but if I just go this direction, it’s going to be okay.

That’s right. 

Love it. Now, we’re close to the end of the time, but there’s one thing that you mentioned in our pre-interview that really struck me — when you said that what’s important, and something I’ve never heard anyone say before, is that you have to match the intensity of your client to be effective. So what does that mean exactly, and how do you do that? 

Yeah. I think, beyond the fact that leaders really want someone who is that high-trust partner, they also want someone who is engaging, maybe a bit sarcastic or witty, maybe someone who matches their drive. I think because for me, I have been often, in often cases, in their shoes, I’m able to match their intensity, not just because, frankly, I’m a “get it done” kind of woman, but also because I’m not afraid to be a bit, I refer to myself sometimes, as being sassy. I can be a bit sassy. I can be a bit provocative. I can be a bit challenging. And I’m not afraid to match the intensity with which they manage their business in order to get their attention over something important. 

And not all coaches will do that because there is a belief in the coaching world that the client is always the driver, right? The client is always the main architect of what they want out of the coaching relationship. I think I’m a bit different in that I believe that my experience can also lend itself to the conversation, and affords me the opportunity to say things maybe that might not otherwise be said, because I’ve got a lived experience that backs that up. And so I think it’s a combination of I’m not afraid to be that reflective mirror. I’m not afraid to be provocative, and I can be rather direct and have a sense of humor at the same time. So I’m not afraid to poke fun of myself, and I can sometimes poke fun at my clients once we have that trusted relationship, and that usually unlocks another level of our relationship.

Yeah, I agree. And sometimes what I find that the more the leader is used to getting their way in their environment in the company, the more they need someone to really push back on them. And they actually realize that they might not enjoy it in the moment, but they realize that this is needed and they don’t get it elsewhere. And it’s kind of a precious thing, and they respect it. 

Yeah, it is. When you can find that right partner, even advisor, sometimes it can make a big difference in how you show up and how you lead, and that’s what I hope to do. Yeah. That’s amazing. 

So if people would like to engage with what you’re doing and learn a bit more and maybe have a conversation, see if you can help them, where should they go and where can they find you? 

Yes. If you are a leader and you are curious about whether you are in the impact zone and how you are leading a legacy that you would be happy with, you can get in touch with me directly at corinne@thegavgroup. You can go to www.thegavgroup.com, or you can find us on LinkedIn. 

Well, definitely don’t miss this opportunity and get a kick in the pants by Corinne and The Gav Group. Go visit her, check her LinkedIn out. And if you enjoy this conversation and you felt like it helped you see your business in a different light, then don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, it’s SummitOS.co./newsletter.  Thanks for coming on the show, Corinne, and for those of you listening, thanks for listening, and please stick around next week. 

You’re very welcome, Steve. Thanks for having me.