Are you ready to invest in your leadership and your team?
We all have better versions of ourselves waiting to be activated.
Example Engagements
New CEO
A new CEO must refine her leadership strategy and establish credibility with diverse stakeholders
Alice was a new, first-time CEO at a social services nonprofit, where she was confronted by a variety of challenges. She had to build trust with a new board chair and several veteran board members with strong personalities.
Because these relationships were fragile — showing more signs of misunderstanding than of alignment — Alice’s confidence was eroding. Fortunately, her dedication and good judgment were intact.
As her coach, I helped her think through, refine and validate her responses to Board requests and to several staffing crises. By exploring options together, she was able to think ahead several steps with clarity, and to decide which frustrations to let go of and where to stand firm.
As a result, Alice engaged Board members more effectively and strengthened her leadership. She ultimately navigated a very challenging year successfully.
Chief Marketing Officer
With complex, competing demands, a Chief Marketing Officer must make tough decisions with confidence
Nina had a great track record and was a skillful, supportive team manager.
But it was hard to feel at the top of her game in an organization with moving targets, challenging internal politics, and a continual resource shortage. She wanted coaching to help her work through a series of tough decisions and be more confident and assertive as she executed them.
By unpacking the complexity with me, Nina was able to decide what was most important and then trust her instincts and experience when trade-offs had to be made. In addition to leading with greater conviction, she helped others better understand and buy in to her decisions.
Our coaching sessions enabled her to step back for a broader view of her team, so Nina was also able to identify improvements in the team’s structure.
Rising Star
A high performing subject expert needs to work on relationships and collaboration and see the value of doing so
Evan was a rising manager who was a “rock star” as an individual contributor in terms of subject matter expertise and productivity.
Top management valued his leadership potential but knew he was seen as aloof – disconnected from his peers and seemingly uninterested in collaboration. They wanted to keep Evan on the leadership track.
Through our coaching partnership, he learned that relationship-building and productivity need not be competing commitments, and he got better at engaging others. Our work led to valuable improvements to his communication style.
By the end, Evan truly believed in and demonstrated to all stakeholders a commitment to shared goals and the collaboration that supports them. Top leadership was very pleased with his transformation.
Management Team
When their new COO wants to delegate more, a management team must reset norms and align roles
The cross-functional management team of a national nonprofit had plenty of talent and commitment.
But when a new COO came on board who wanted to delegate much more decision-making, the management team realized they were not yet prepared for that added responsibility. They had obsolete assumptions and bad habits to shed.
I facilitated a retreat that achieved several objectives: the management team got to know each other better and identified the good and bad team habits they wanted to manage. They also clarified roles where confusion was causing frustration, and they rolled up their sleeves to make tough decisions on what to deprioritize.
As a bonus, they actually had fun in the process!
