A Dream in Peril Syed and I hadn’t spoken in years. I had coached him when he was a young rising star at a Silicon Valley tech giant. I had enjoyed my time with Syed. I found him to be an interesting thinker. He had no modesty about what he didn’t know. In those days, …
Feedback from her boss Connie was in her second year at a global hardware company as chief product officer. She’d been a product leader at a hardware behemoth until this smaller giant wooed her away. Now she was in the C-suite with global reach. Her entry into the company had been an explosion. From the …
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Calm in the Storm Rana had reason to be upset. Her reputation for making large-scale sales was well-known. She’d been hired by a company and placed on a division leadership team that had been together for years – in some cases, decades. That leadership team, which included women, had no interest in welcoming this outsider …
A Vicious Cycle Samir was stuck in an unhealthy cycle. Over the course of several years, I’d delivered a number of 360-degree feedback reports to him and his partners at their architecture firm. ‘Every report of Samir’s, including this current one, reflected the same good news-bad news portrait. On the one hand, people idolized Samir. …
Stepping in a Heap Edwin was already shaking his head when he popped onto my screen for our coaching call. “Oh, boy, I really stepped in it,” he said as an opener. I knew Edwin had a sincere drive to do the right thing. When he felt himself off the mark, he suffered. Although he …
Creating upset Meg liked having things in order. As she saw it, order happened when people, including herself, followed rules. Living by rules gave Meg fierce certainty. Meg was given a coach because people were often upset with her. I asked her what she knew about people being upset with her.
Provoking war Mandalit and I had tackled an idea that unsettled her: setting boundaries. She was a life-long “good girl” who, despite her success in business, often struggled to advocate for herself.
“Why can’t I speak up?” Mandalit felt like a victim of her own success. The leaders at her company moved her wherever a team was under-performing. She’d become known as someone willing to do whatever was asked of her – a loyal team player, good at her work and uncomplaining.
Losing his touch Patricio came to me with a worry. He’d been holding this worry in the back of his mind for a long time, but a recent incident pushed it forward.
A missed promotion Ritu had expected a promotion. Not only did she not get promoted, but a peer, whom Ritu thought a much less effective leader, did get promoted. Ritu complained to her boss, the CEO, Delwin.
