Case Studies - Elevated Leadership

GREAT LEADERS, GREAT RESULTS

Throughout our time as executive leadership coaches, we have worked with many clients move closer towards the leaders they always aspired to be. Below, you can read some composite case studies built from real client scenarios and the coaching steps that were taken to help them.

The Pace Setter

S had been promoted into his first international position. I was engaged to work with him on his style of work which both he and his line manager described as working very intently for long hours in the hope that people will copy him and when they don't, he can become frustrated. With the fresh start in a new country and team, he wanted to manage this trait more closely to ensure it didn't impede his sucess. We started by exploring what S had learned from previous work on his style and distilled this into a fact sheet. From this we were able to create a set of challenges we would work through to expand his self-knowledge and reflection.

Behaviour Blocker

Somewhat reluctantly I accepted the offer of coaching from the company, and in our early sessions was resistant to discussing the challenges she faced. Over time, she gradually filled the silences with her anger, disappointment and fears. We agreed to start focusing on the behaviours that she had received feedback on and decided to address this by trying to reframe the way she saw her colleagues. We discussed key moments in the work week and developed ideas to test these moments. It was an at times uncomfortable journey, but one that would ultimately lead to her being seen as more collaborative and trustworthy.

K had returned to work after maternity leave. She was considered a high potential employee and was offered coaching with the broad brief of helping her prepare for future roles with increased responsibility. In our work together we were able to challenge work routines and beliefs that fed her desire for approval, and trial different methods of disconnecting from work and engaging with her family. K said that she felt better equipped to juggle a successful career and family life, but the proof would be in the way her family and colleagues gave her feedback in the future.

As part of J's development, she took a lateral move to lead a larger team with more P&L responsibility. There had been strong internal competition for the role, and some of the people who had not been appointed were in J's new team. In our early sessions together, it became clear that two of the people who had missed out were not responding well to her leadership style and were becoming disruptive. In our coaching sessions, we developed a series of test and learn approaches that she took to her individual conversations with these two team members. In some instances she was required to compromise her democratic style to overcome their underperformance, creating a lingering sense of doubt in the team. This became the focus of our future work.

Previous slide

Next slide