The leaders I have coached have all become dramatically better leaders, each in their own unique way and in the manner that life was calling them to grow. In some cases, the individual had a blind spot and could not see what was limiting their effectiveness. They all experienced growth in personal awareness and personal mastery as a leader. Every leader grew in their understanding about how they were perceived by others and it helped them tremendously because they could work toward becoming a better leader in a specific way to improve their followers’ perceptions. Their leadership skills grew more rapidly because they knew how others saw them and most importantly, received invaluable insight into which leadership skills to work on and which not to work on. With my assistance, they choose to work on the most leverageable skills and became in the eyes of their followers’ better leaders because they worked on the one thing that made the biggest difference.
Example of Success
10-year veteran at one of the largest consumer packaged goods companies in the world (P&G) was given feedback that he was “average”; he was perceived as being “too nice” and should work more on developing others. After 18 months he developed his emerging strengths into outstanding strengths by a factor of 10 and showed improvement in all competency areas.
Senior Partner and Director at a preeminent executive search firm in healthcare and higher education. As she transitioned into a new leadership role, she would sometimes derail relationships with other executives at her firm that led to a lack of trust and broken relationships. The internal conflict was high and her patience, judgmental and forceful nature did not help. She learned and practice improving her emotional intelligence to the point that she was promoted again. She practiced deeply how to better interact with those she didn’t like and couldn’t stand by developing her awareness and management of her mind and emotions.
Commercial Director (Head of Sales & Marketing), at one of the largest consumer packaged goods company in the world was given feedback that he was a ‘good leader’ but something was missing to make him extraordinary. The perception of his managers and peers was different than his direct reports, which made the challenge of creating a development plan complex. His goal was to grow his career more rapidly by becoming an outstanding leader through the perception of all those he worked with. His development process considered the leadership of different sets of stakeholders must be different for each group of people. Subsequently, he has been promoted several times because of his improved leadership effectiveness.
In one of the most competitive industries in the U.S., the second largest U.S. communications provider to global enterprise customers and has customers in more than 60 countries and over 50,000 employees. Before this growth, the CEO was interested in developing his executive team. Working alongside two other outstanding coaches we observed the executive team in action and coached, them individually. Our focus was to help them become a more cohesive team and improve their leadership effectiveness. The results were so impressive, the next level of the organization was trained and many of the Vice Presidents received executive coaching. A Leadership Development Community was created that helped many people become outstanding leaders achieving outstanding results.
Integrated healthcare organization based in Wisconsin experienced an unplanned vacancy at the CEO level. The health system appointed the local medical group’s chairman of the board to interim CEO. Because of the financial issues of the local medical group, the physician was tasked with increasing physician engagement and improving the bottom line of the medical group. Executive coaching was provided to help the physician implement his plan and to navigate the process of becoming a successful interim CEO, Physician engagement soared, and financial results improved dramatically.
A fast growing non-profit had not provided executive coaching for their leaders. When a new CEO was appointed by the board, they requested the CEO work with a coach. A plan was developed for his initial six months and guidance of how to restructure his team was provided. He had never been a CEO and was learning ‘on the job’. His success has been amazing over the following 10 years; more than 70% cumulative revenue growth ($135 million dollars in revenue & over 650 employees).
A Finance Director was going to be promoted to CFO at a large medical college that taught the next generation of physicians and scientists. However, the managing director wanted her to have a personal leadership development process to round off her skills and help her become easier to work with. Her emotional intensity and ability to work with others was perceived to be low and her ability to communicate with her boss was not great. Through a development approach she became aware of how she came across to others . Her development process helped her practice different types of leadership skills that shifted other’s perceptions about her and she subsequently became the CFO.
A General Manager was promoted to Vice President at a Fortune 500 company (leading provider of facility solutions in the U.S. because he successfully ran the local branch and had the best EBITDA in the country. However, even though he frequently won the company’s annual awards he annoyed so many internal people that no one wanted to work with him. His communication style and abrasiveness were legendary, but he justified his style because he always delivered the results. His coaching was designed to create awareness, empathy, and a desire to be a better internal leader within the company. Through his coaching, he found an authentic way to provide corrective feedback and challenge others. His approach to conflict and to motivate others changed without losing the impact that he desired.