Kate's Success Story
Kate’s Executive Coaching Success Story
Kate was passionate and dedicated. She outperformed her colleagues consistently.
But all this changed when she was promoted to the position of Managing Director of an international firm.
With this promotion, Kate’s confidence fell.
Her best strengths no longer mattered. She needed a new skill set. She needed to keep her eye on the bigger picture and resist being pulled into the details.
To overcome her anxiety, Kate resorted to micromanaging. Rather than listening, she over-explained. When her team’s work failed to meet her expectations, she stepped in to do it herself.
This reactive style of leadership resulted in alienating staff and creating distance with the CEO.
On top of all of this, Kate was dealing with major transitions in her personal life. She felt wobbly and uncertain, and she was taking that with her to work every day.
Kate’s Executive Coaching Success Story
Kate was passionate and dedicated. She outperformed her colleagues consistently.
But all this changed when she was promoted to the position of Managing Director of an international firm.
With this promotion, Kate’s confidence fell.
Her best strengths no longer mattered. She needed a new skill set. She needed to keep her eye on the bigger picture and resist being pulled into the details.
To overcome her anxiety, Kate resorted to micromanaging. Rather than listening, she over-explained. When her team’s work failed to meet her expectations, she stepped in to do it herself.
This reactive style of leadership resulted in alienating staff and creating distance with the CEO.
On top of all of this, Kate was dealing with major transitions in her personal life. She felt wobbly and uncertain, and she was taking that with her to work every day.
But Kate was ambitious! She desperately wanted to succeed in this new and demanding role.
Your goals, obstacles, beliefs and fears all form the foundation for our conversations.
Whether you want to rise to a C-Suite position or to go out on your own as a private consultant, we partner together with curiosity, compassion for where you are now, and support as you reach ever higher.
Executive coaching is vulnerable work. I know this from my own experience. We reach into the depths of who we think we are, who we want to be, and who we discover we actually are.
Coaching is powerful. Whatever you want to develop in your career will ripple outward into the rest of your life. You can count on that.
Executive coaching is transformative work for one individual – you. Who you become is how you will serve everyone in your orbit.
Kate’s Coaching Objective
She wanted to build her confidence to navigate whatever was in front of her, and to become her own best resource – especially when things felt unclear. She wanted to appear calm and in charge.
Kate believed that confidence came first. She believed that she had to be confident to create everything else she wanted.
But this is where coaching comes in….
Confidence comes last. It’s a product of brave actions. The goal is not the process.
First, you need to be willing to wade into the areas of uncertainty. Repeatedly. This is how you expand what you think you can do.
But Kate hated uncertainty!
Kate’s Challenge
Kate’s biggest challenge was that she believed she had to understand everything perfectly before wading into action.
But certainty doesn’t exist.
When things were unclear for her, Kate would burrow more deeply into her own perspective. From within that silo, she was convinced she was right. But her decisions were myopic. She would try to exert control in the wrong places – or avoid them altogether. Neither option was working for her!
Our Approach
- Through inquiry, Kate learned to see and accept her vulnerability. Her identity had been all tied up with ‘never failing’. But what she really needed was more validation, more witnessing, and more compassion for that part of her that insisted she get everything right – or else!
- Kate uncovered the limiting beliefs that fueled her emotional reactivity:
- I am not, and never will be, a part of the team.
- The CEO doesn’t care about my wellbeing.
- I am failing at everything.
- I can’t succeed without someone telling me what to do.
- Without external validation, I can’t know if I’m doing a good job.
- I invited Kate to consider what other perspectives she could hold about this situation.
- I’m already part of the team, even when I don’t feel that way.
- The CEO considers me capable of leading myself, as much as my team.
- Failure is the path of learning. It’s not my identity.
- I am worthy, whether or not I’m validated from the outside.
- My needs will be met by me.
Kate’s Action Plans
- She prepared for the national meetings as if she was part of the team. Proactively. Strategically. As if she had something valuable to say.
- Rather than relying on explaining in the same way – repeatedly – Kate chose more assertive and specific language to convey her ideas.
- Kate met her failures with curiosity and compassion, rather than judgment.
- We deliberately focused on celebrating the wins she’d been dismissing.
- She practiced seeing her team’s failures differently. Instead of making them a reflection on her, she asked bigger, broader questions about how to improve her team’s performance.
- She practiced creating clear agreements, rather than relying on expectations. Her approach was more crisp in areas that were inherently vague.
Kate’s Turning Point
Together, Kate and I designed an assignment. Who would she be as the Managing Director – without being a ‘dictator’?
Kate had a profound realization – and it changed everything.
She realized that everything she did was about proving herself. This led her to over- explaining, being emotionally reactive, and focusing on numbers at the expense of relationships.
Once Kate became aware of this pattern, her leadership capacity grew exponentially.
She realized that leadership wasn’t about proving herself. It was about communicating effectively, seeing her value as something innate (rather than about the performance of others), and cultivating relationships in a more meaningful way.
Kate’s Big Win
Kate is now a managing director who leads effectively. She demonstrates her trust in her team’s ability to grow. And she trusts herself to lead.
She knows how to hold the bigger picture, tailor her communication to her audience more strategically, and empower her team to take responsibility for their own growth.
Kate has transformed her relationship with her CEO. He reported to her that he found her more influential, effective with her team and visibly more self-reliant.
On our last day together, Kate shared with me that through our coaching, she had gained “so many powerful revelations.” She declared herself “a better leader and person.”
It all starts with a conversation. Tell me your story and what’s on your mind.
Hear my voice and we’ll take it from there.
