Leading Like an Improviser: Listening Without Agenda and Making Others Look Good

In this episode of The Coaching Edge Podcast, Erwin de Grave and Dr. Steve Jeffs sit down with actor, director, and leadership coach Andrew McMasters, founder of ImprovMindset and author of Listening Without Agenda. Andrew shares how 25 years of running a theatre company and performing improv became an unexpected training ground for helping leaders show up more authentically at work.

He explains how improv—“spontaneous theatre” with no script, set, or costume—mirrors real life and leadership. Andrew introduces the improv principle of “yes, and” not as blind agreement, but as a way of accepting reality and building from it instead of shutting ideas down. He links this to divergent and convergent thinking in teams: first exploring possibilities, then analyzing, then aligning on concrete action. Leaders who confuse these modes, he warns, end up blocking creativity and stifling contributions.

A big focus of the conversation is authentic presence. Andrew describes how many technically brilliant people are promoted into leadership but don’t yet know how to communicate, coach others, or bring their full selves into the room. Drawing on acting training, he invites leaders to bring more of who they are—how they are with friends, at home, or at a football game—into their professional role. Leadership, he says, is about fostering others’ growth and modeling the behavior you want to see, from putting your phone away in meetings to being willing to be vulnerable and tell real stories.

Andrew also dives into listening without agenda, the core of his book. He walks through three layers of listening:

• Clarifying the data (“Did I hear you correctly?”),
• Reflecting the emotional impact, and
• Surfacing underlying values (“This sounds like what you really care about…”).

From supporting neurodivergent team members with external focus, to inviting multilingual colleagues to use their native language to express themselves more fully, Andrew shows how deeper listening transforms connection and trust. He even shares crisis and conflict examples where matching someone’s emotional intensity builds rapport instead of escalation.

The episode closes with practical practices for leaders: using check-ins and check-outs to align teams, leveraging AI as a structural aid (not a replacement for human intention), and adopting an improv mindset in moments of crisis—stop wasting energy on blame and instead ask, “Okay, this is reality. Now what?” It’s a rich, practical conversation for any coach or leader who wants to be more present, more human, and more effective

Watch the full episode here: https://thecoachingedgepodcast.com/leading-like-an-improviser-listening-without-agenda-and-making-others-look-good/