Recently, a client’s manager brought me in to help improve the client’s impact with Executive management. The client was not presenting himself in a way that left an impression worthy of his skill, intelligence and experience.
We are still on the coaching journey, just over halfway through and have received the interim coaching feedback from his manager.
Progress is definitely being seen by the manager and the client’s incoming new manager. The client is appearing more confident so we are on the right track and will continue to work together.
We are on the second of a 3-phase approach. The first phase was based on working on the inside – helping him understand himself through exercises, observation and reflection.
Exercises included:
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determining his values – those things he needs to have in his life to be fulfilled, and the underlying feeling they elicit
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drafting a life purpose statement – what impact does he want to have in the world, what’s the legacy of his life
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what confidence and belief feel like in his body and what thoughts and beliefs help or hinder that feeling
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attitude – understanding the intention he wants to make, the fears, the ideal outcome in various situations
The second phase has been about increasing awareness and knowledge of his external impact – in the sense of what he projects physically and energetically to those around him. We covered areas such as appearance (hair, dress, body position), audio (voice volume, inflection, pause, emphasis), gestures (body and head position, gestures to emphasis words, breathing, movement).
I work with complimentary coaches such as Amy Carroll and Greta Muller for clients to understand the impression they make when presenting whether that’s to a large audience or one-on-one with a key stakeholder and how to be as effective as possible.
The client is practicing the inside and outside learning now – it feels unnatural and uncomfortable initially until there is enough practice for it to start feeling natural or genuine. Once he has some comfort around the external phase we will move onto phase 3 – so stay tuned!
