My client was holding herself back from grabbing a divisional opportunity. There were a few underlying reasons for it:
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It wasn’t fully her area of responsibility so would she be stepping on someone else’s toes?
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It was a big initiative and would she be up for the challenge?
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It seemed daunting as she had had some setbacks recently so would this follow suit?
My approach
We worked from the inside out during our sessions over 8 months. This meant we worked on her internal thoughts, feelings and beliefs rather than external behaviours. I started with a 360° feedback survey to raise awareness of how others perceived my client and we explored the gap between their perceptions of her and her perceptions of herself and how this related to the potential leadership opportunity. Then we moved to visioning work – what did success look like for herself as a leader and for the opportunity. Once she had the picture of success we focused on developing her presence and ‘mindset’ so that she could think and show up as the leader she needed to be. Throughout this whole process I had challenged my client to keep a gratitude journal recording daily a minimum of 3 positive things about the day and 1 thing about her that made her proud.
Result
She’s in the process of successfully leading the initiative. She felt empowered to just claim the leadership role. She has stopped dwelling on what went wrong in the previous setback. She feels more positive, feels her requests and initiative are legitimate and finds it easier than she expected. Her boss has noticed her attitude shift and is very encouraging and happy. On the home front her kids have also noticed a more positive, less critical and defensive mother.
What would you want to achieve in your work or home life with coaching support?
