Conquering fear in order to rebuild trust at the top
In our Coaching Corner series, we share real-world coaching cases that come from our work with leaders....
Coaching Corner
From micromanagement to leadership: How coaching helped a CEO empower her team
As a leader, you face complex and intricate challenges every day. At times it can be hard to pinpoint or even articulate these challenges. But until you can fully address and resolve them, they have the potential to stall your professional and personal growth, your career, and your teamâs success. This is where professional coaching comes in.
In our Coaching Corner series, we share real-world coaching cases that come from our work with leaders.
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The challenge
Susan is a rarity. She is the female CEO of a firm that sits squarely within a male-dominated industry. To get to where she is today has taken resilience, guts, and verve. She has fought hard for every promotion and still must routinely fend off negative pushback from some very vocal internal stakeholders who have trouble matching her gender and her nationality with her seniority in the organization. As a perfectionist, Susan has always set a very high bar for herself â and her direct reports. Lately, this has been causing a few issues.
Susan has a tendency to micromanage her teams. Even when she delegates, she struggles to accept the work her team members submit, believing it to be below the highest-caliber standards necessary for positive outcomes. She ends up letting people off the hook and simply re-doing their work for them. Of course, this is becoming problematic. She is increasingly exhausted with the overload and is juggling several peopleâs work with the home responsibilities of aging parents and growing children who need her attention. Internally, she feels close to burnout. Meanwhile, externally, her micromanagement habit is depriving her reports of a chance to learn and grow; something that is undermining engagement in the team.
Susan is aware she has a problem. She knows it wonât be easy, but she feels ready to tackle these long-standing behavioral issues. She believes that with the right guidance and support, she will be able to build a professional and personal support network and forge the allies she needs to grow into the leader she wants to be. She seeks the help of an executive coach.
âHer coach reminds her to watch for her knee-jerk reactions and to purposefully allow these trusted colleagues to help take on more responsibility.â
The coaching journey
Susan and her coach agree that she has a primary goal: to let go and allow other people to step up to responsibilities. To help Susan build towards this goal, the coach supports Susan to take the conscious decision to divide her challenges into two camps: internal and external.
As they talk, it emerges that Susan makes better decisions â she is better able to delegate, for instance â when she is in good shape, mentally and psychologically. This helps Susan prioritize activities that nourish these internal needs, such as taking regular Pilates classes and spending time with her family and friends. Susan takes the initiative to create a self-care calendar and stick with a âmeâ regime, no matter how tempting it is to forego personal time for business needs. Her coach helps her deal with this tendency. Whenever she thinks âIâm too busy with work to be with loved ones or take some exercise,â she purposefully tells herself something helpful: âIf I feel this way, I need personal time more than ever.â
Externally, Susanâs coach encourages her to take a brave step. She is asked to intentionally develop deeper relationships with an inner circle of confidants at work: colleagues who have always shown a willingness to offer support, but from whom she has never asked for help. This is new to Susan, but she goes about identifying individuals that she knows will be able to assist in mobilizing team members to raise their game and operate at the peak performance levels that she needs. Her coach reminds her to watch for her knee-jerk reactions and to purposefully allow these trusted colleagues to help take on more responsibility.
Slowly, Susan finds herself moving out of her self-imposed isolation. She begins to feel calmer, more centered, and better able to take the captainâs perch. Instead of getting trapped in the weeds of day-to-day operations, she is increasingly focusing on the bigger-picture strategy and the vision she hopes to achieve at the helm of her organization.
Susanâs coaching journey has not only been liberating for her but it has freed others to recognize and use their power.
The impact
Freeing herself from the traps of micromanagement has given Susan the energy and inspiration to do more with her leadership. She can see greater possibilities in what she can accomplish for the business, her teams, and herself. Meanwhile, her key team members and their teams now feel a greater sense of empowerment, agency, and authority. Theyâve picked up the slack and are producing better results. This is a âwin-winâ as everyone and everything is functioning more efficiently. There are still challenges ahead, but Susan no longer sees problems as solo ventures. She has the support of a capable team and the confidence to rely on them.
Susanâs coaching journey has not only been liberating for her but it has freed others to recognize and use their power. She decides to continue her coaching journey, not because she urgently needs guidance, but because she realizes she can continue to flourish. She also understands that coaching can help her nurture her team to become more effective.
Susan has transformed from a burnt-out micro-manager to a confident organization builder.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Do you believe that only you can do things âthe right wayâ?
- Do you recognize the value of your team members, and do you empower them?
- How might you build cooperation and banish feelings of isolation in your professional and personal life?
In this series, we share real-world cases that come from our work with leaders. Read on to discover the specific challenges that face each of the leaders we have coached â and the insights that have helped them navigate their multifaceted challenges to find their own solutions. How might these insights and questions apply to you?
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