Coaching Success Stories
Several success stories are described below to provide a sample of client success in executive, leadership and career coaching.
Coaching for New Manager Success
An IT professional recently promoted to the manager ranks found that she was not prepared to meet the role's expectations. She recognized that she needed help and development to be an effective leader in her new role. Through 9 months of coaching sessions, we focused on leadership, executive presence and career navigation. More specifically, we worked on:
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Leadership -- directing others, delegating and providing difficult feedback
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Executive Presence -- believing you belong in the room, demystifying the executive role, projecting confidence and vocalizing expertise
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Career Navigation -- utilizing CMAP, a proprietary tool, to identify clear vision, goals and a path with specific milestones to achievement
Key Results -- A manager who now delivers timely feedback when messages are difficult; offers expertise and insights in all meetings with executives to establish value of presence; pursues internal experiences that align with career journey goals; and delegates effectively to others and trusts them to deliver on their work.
Coaching for Leading Transformational Change
A CIO at a 15-hospital system undertook a functional transformation to better align the IT function with the needs of the business today and into the foreseeable future. However, the executive was frustrated with the lack of alignment among her direct reports. To gain alignment, I worked with this IT executive to understand the disconnects among the IT leadership team. We worked together to help the executive clearly articulate her vision beyond discussing the organization chart and in terms of how work gets done in the new world, the required proactive rather than reactive business partner mindset and the new requisite behaviors and culture. In other words, I coached her to tell a clear, compelling and vivid transformation story that evoked thought and emotion and ultimately buy in into the change effort.
Key Results -- An engaged IT leadership team that fully bought into the vision, understood the goals of the transformation, were prepared to articulate the work to be done to make the change happen and convincingly told a clear and compelling story to their respective teams in a widely-regarded function-wide townhall.
Coaching for Executive Success
A non-profit Finance & Operations Director sought to improve his level of accountability to himself and others as well as key aspects of his leadership skills. Over the course of 9 months, we addressed 3 key areas: managing self (i.e., time management, prioritization, focus and work/life balance), managing others (i.e., delegating while remaining accountable, avoiding micromanaging, directing others) and performing at the executive level (i.e., strategic focus and visioning/long-range planning). Utilizing a personality assessment, the Director was able to gain a deeper understanding of his development opportunities in terms of their alignment with his natural preferences while also validating his natural and developed strengths. This heightened self-awareness allowed for great traction and movement over the course of our coaching sessions.
Key Results -- Executive gained the knowledge and confidence needed to make key behavioral changes. He better prioritizes work and manages his time, has developed a more empowering leadership style with his team and meets his most of his commitments to self and others.