Challenge
The coachee was in his comfort zone where he was certain he could deliver and spending little time in that true leadership space where he was uncertain he could be successful.
This resulted in the coachee:
- not really understanding what his role in the leadership space was, he had no clarity around his great work as a leader and was therefore getting involved in lots of bad work (endless back to back meetings), swamping himself with lots of ‘dos’ and doing work that really belonged to his team
- rescuing his team members by giving them the solutions, getting involved in the detail of his team’s work, being directive in how his team carried out their work, which was disempowering his team members and resulted in members leaving and others not wanting to join
- seeing things very black and white, there was a right way and a wrong way of doing things which brought with it his judgements – rules, regulations and processes provided the desired certainty and control and had to be upheld always
- jumping straight into the tasks that needed doing without giving any thought to the relationships he needed to develop and grow, the involvement and co-creation that was needed, the engagement of others that was essential to success
Our Approach
Following a confidential exploratory session with the client he started to gain clarity around what fo him would be good coaching outcomes. He was aware to a large extent that he was ‘showing up’ as above but had been unable to date to shift the necessary behaviours/ways of being.
A confidential call with his line manager concurred that the business was seeing the coachee showing up as indicated and it was having a detrimental effect on his relationships. It was also hindering him from moving to the next level even though it was clear that he had the potential to succeed at a higher level.
In a 3-way contracting session with the coachee and his line manager the following coaching outcomes were identified as the success criteria for the coaching:
- increase in propensity to take a more strategic/broader perspective, more business leader vs functional leader
- increase in empowerment of his team (give them the space to step up, learn, fail, take ownership – teach them to fish)
- increase in strength of his relationships with internal peers/stakeholders – understand their lens view, their agenda, look to co-create with them, build ahead of when needed
- increase in awareness and appreciation of his own strengths/value (unique contribution/differentiators)
Benefits – In The 3-Way Review Session, There Was Unanimous Agreement:
- the coachee was now operating from a balcony perspective reversing their split of time from 80% in detail/indoing and 20% on the balcony/in the thinking
- the coachee identified their great work, (3 big game changers) to focus his time and energy on for the next 12 months – one was successfully delivered with full stakeholder engagement before the end of the coaching
- feedback from his team was that they felt more empowered, 1:1s had shifted to development focus, they had the autonomy to come up with their own solutions, they had embraced the ownership and were thriving
- the coachee was focusing on stakeholder relationships, ‘showing up’ as genuinely curious about others’ perspectives and gaining insights that were delivering greater business gain
- the coachee felt really comfortable managing stakeholders and realised that his actually played to his strengths; with greater clarity over his strangths and value he could now see a much wider range of possible next moves than the narrow view he previously held
- the coachee was offered a promotion to Transformation Director which both the coachee and his line manager agreed he would not have been offered before the coaching
