Her patience was wearing thin in weekly meetings. Creating a collaborative team environment used to be natural. The promotion to run a larger team on a complicated project had initially felt really validating, but now she felt argumentative, isolated, and drained. She didn’t want to imagine the rest of the multi-year project being like this.
That was the starting point for our leadership coaching sessions. Here’s that client’s journey:
We acknowledged that ‘what got you here won’t get you there’ and we set out to identify the habits that led to past success but may now be hampering further growth. Our goal was to have her leading with her values and therefore feeling authentic.
This goal was important to her, because she didn’t want the negative emotions and basic transactional style to become her new defaults, but even more so, she didn’t want younger team mates to emulate this version of her. She wanted to breathe more easily and feel more centered. She wanted to be happier doing the work she loved.
Through coaching she learned two key things about herself.
- She had come to expect that the depth and breadth of her technical expertise would always be a reliable source of respect and authority, so when it was challenged or labeled as “know it all”, she was hurt and understandably confused in how to react.
- She felt constant pressure and increasing responsibility to make everyone understand what must be done to move forward effectively and avoid crises, which kept her from being curious to find common ground and have shared learning.
Together we framed an image of a new way for running a team and created three specific competencies needed to reach that image. In every session, we created a detailed exercise to practice and develop those competencies in her regular workday, and we would explore her observations and reflections.
She shifted how she saw her value – from being the one to avoid crises (and if not, then solve them) – to being the one to prompt engagement, discourse, and gratitude. There were still timeline pressures and problems to solve, but the team had the creativity, curiosity, and motivation to navigate them together. After the project, she moved away to another, but when she returns to visit former teammates they are excited to spend time with her – not for her knowledge but for how she makes them feel.
She noticed her symptoms, didn’t dismiss them as “this is a tough group on a tough project so I guess I have to become tough”, identified that coaching was a solution, and made an investment – in herself.
I wish I had learned much earlier in my career journey about ways to build my abilities to influence a group, and about navigating emotions at work. So as a coach, these are some of the tools I offer so my clients can thrive.
If you see yourself in this story, with similar symptoms and important goals, and you’ve been trying training programs, podcasts, and books, but haven’t felt momentum, yet alone a transformation, perhaps the solution you’re seeking is – coaching.
Hop on my calendar for a chat to learn more.
