Inside the NFL: Dr. Gina Thoebes on Leadership, Coaching, and the Intentional Pause
I had the opportunity to speak with Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychologist Dr. Gina Thoebes, Vice President of Organizational Performance for the Arizona Cardinals Football Club. She is the first person to hold this specific VP role in the NFL! Dr. Thoebes offers a unique perspective on human behavior, talent development, and leadership across high-stakes environments—from retail and healthcare to professional sports.
I asked her what an Intentional Pause means to her. For Dr. Thoebes, an intentional pause means taking a moment to center herself in the present so she can choose how to show up in the next moment. Whether dealing with emotions in parenting or managing workplace conflict and feedback, pausing helps prevent defensiveness and allows leaders to check in with their mind and body. For example, when experiencing physical signs of nervousness before professional speaking, taking a beat helps reframe those sensations as excitement and a sign of caring.
Dr. Thoebes also uses small moments of waiting—like waiting for the slow water filter on her fridge—as reminders to do a body scan and take deep breaths. I mentioned that many people breathe shallowly throughout the day and benefit from practicing deep diaphragmatic breathing.
What Makes a Good Leader?
Dr. Thoebes highlights three core types of awareness that drive leadership effectiveness:
- Self-Awareness: Understanding your own strengths, tools, and potential derailers.
- Other Awareness: Recognizing how your decisions and actions impact others and picking up on how they feel.
- Contextual Awareness: Evaluating the situation to ask, “What does this moment need of me?”
Leaders must be good self-leaders first, relying on self-awareness and emotional intelligence (EQ) to manage stress, make decisions, and guide how their emotions affect others. Dr. Thoebes adds that great leadership must ultimately drive results and help teams perform better both when the leader is present and when they are not around.
Designing Leadership Programs & The Role of Coaching
When building leadership programs, Dr. Thoebes focuses on designing with the end in mind and connecting programs to business outcomes, stage of growth, or organizational needs.
Key principles include:
- Avoiding One-Size-Fits-All Training: Programs should not simply try to boost everyone’s confidence. Pushing an already high-confidence leader further can lead to bravado, whereas they might need help empowering others. Conversely, lower-confidence leaders need support leaning into their authority.
- Balancing Continuum Skills: Leaders evaluate where they naturally fall between empathy/care and driving accountability, learning to strengthen the side they lean away from.
- Motivating Behavior Change: Leaders must see what is in it for them and be willing to endure being uncomfortable while learning new behaviors.
- Pairing Group Learning with Coaching: While group sessions foster connection, storytelling, and shared experiences, one-on-one coaching provides a confidential, judgment-free space. In coaching, leaders can be honest about underlying fears—such as avoiding negative feedback—and work through what is holding them back.
Pause Homework: Think of one way you can be a better leader at work or at home—whether through more patience, better listening, or taking recovery moments throughout the day—and take one step toward it.
“Leadership isn’t measured by the scoreboard; it is measured by the people who are better because you lead them.”
Listen to the Intentional Pause Podcast: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music | Audible
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