24 Aug Leah’s Client Story: Executive Coaching
The results of executive coaching include improvements in: psychological and personal mastery skills; performance, prospects, personal growth, leadership, management of change processes, communication and relationships, efficient implementation of acquired skills, motivation, clarity, purpose, self-awareness and reflection.
My style of executive coaching focuses on the whole person and delivers results in a holistic manner. It’s essential to address not only the external actions but also what’s occurring within the client to achieve sustainable success in a professional role. A key emphasis lies in unlocking the core identity to attain and surpass desired results.
LEAH’S GOALS
- Alleviate stress and burnout, achieve work life balance
- Assess whether the current role or the pending promotion was right for the her
- Discover and address what was getting in the way of thriving inwardly and outwardly in her career.
LEAH’S MASK
Leah is a high performing financial analyst, working in the City of London. She is married with young children and a nanny helping out at home. Outwardly she appears organised and in control. Leah takes her work very seriously, she is very professional and routinely appears composed, professional, confident, presentable, commanding respect, intelligent and decisive. She is a thoughtful person who is both altruistic and aim able. Leah is the “go to” person for her colleagues who “want to get the job done”. Sometimes though, Leah is over accommodating at her own expense.
BEHIND THE MASK
Her work was exemplary and she was about to be promoted again. However, Leah was overwhelmed, experiencing stress and burnout. Wanting to be liked and accepted by everyone meant she was always the go-to person and could not say “no” to other people’s requests – even if these were outside of her remit.
Even though she had risen through the ranks on merit; Leah felt insecure, never wanting to show any vulnerability or weakness, for fear it may be interpreted that she could not do her job well. There was a constant feeling of being undeserving, she often suffered with imposter syndrome – feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally, despite being high-performing in external, objective ways.
Inwardly Leah resented her inability to say “no” more often. The thought of another promotion did not excite her – although she liked her role – it had become unmanageable. Leah was doing the work of a minimum of three employees and it was impacting her home life, she was too exhausted to spend quality time with her young family. But because she was able to come across as confident and in control, even when she was struggling to meet excessive work demands, Leah soldiered on to her detriment rather than ask for assistance.
THE CORE IDENTITY COACHING MODEL
My signature model for unlocking the core identity enables clients to connect with who they REALLY are and create alignment with what they TRULY want, eliminating stress, burnout and inner conflict. Women gain the insight and confidence to step into their unique purpose. The process involves breaking free from the mask of acceptance, challenging limiting beliefs, and tuning into their core values to foster confidence, personal growth, impact and healing. To be at one with yourself (inside and out) is the springboard to fulfilling your true potential and enjoying it.
THE ROOT: IMPACT OF BULLYING ON SUBCONSCIOUS BEHAVIOUR
When Leah was in her early teens she was subjected to severe bullying by her classmates, following a family move to a new location and school. During those teenage years, Leah lost her confidence and drive, she learned to withdraw, not show her true feelings and not draw attention to herself. By fitting in she was moulding herself into what her peers expected of her to gain approval to avoid being isolated and subject to hurtful, humiliating experiences. Through this lens, unique things about her personality that were deemed as being different were rejected in the endeavour to fit in. This was the beginning of the disconnect with her core identity.
Into adulthood, these beliefs and behaviours continued to form part of her guiding compass, even though they were no longer required. This learned behaviour created a perpetual “survival mode” mentality that entrenched itself into her personality. But now it was more of a hindrance than a help.
The result? Leah was experiencing an identity crisis, there was a significant gulf between the public face she presented to the world and her true authentic self.
These limiting beliefs and subsequent behaviours transported easily into Leah’s working life. Although she could craft a “work persona”, it was exhausting living behind a mask and she was losing the battle to keep it thriving.
In reality, Leah had major difficulty with putting a true and authentic VALUE on herself. She would always try to put everyone else first even at her own expense – she was already accomplished in adapting to difficult situations when forced to – even if these situations did not benefit her.
LEAH’S COACHING POINTS
- Coaching involved re-framing the beliefs that held her back most of the time. Unearthing core values and values alignment work helped Leah connect with her REAL needs and desires.
- A series of exercises to raise self-awareness helped Leah to unearth the real person, along with all its suppressed passions that had been obscured for so long.
- Learning how to say “no “and understanding her triggers enabled Leah to be a better advocate for herself and accept: “My needs matter”.
- Trait-based personality profiling examined what parts of her personality strengths could be harnessed and utilised further; and promoting a greater awareness of her weaknesses helped Leah to minimise those situations and tasks that would cause stress.
- By discovering her core identity and value, Leah gained more control over her life and took pro-active steps to eliminate stress and burnout from her life. For example, Leah took steps to improve her work situation.
A QUICK WIN
Overworked, Leah was doing the work of a minimum of three people in her department. Although, she was in a strategic role, she was caught up with operational tasks that were stealing valuable time and not enough energy was focused on the bigger strategic areas – important work that would produce greater value to her department and grow the overall business.
Initially Leah didn’t believe she could get any help from the company to employ additional staff. But through coaching she stepped out of her comfort zone and together we worked on negotiating a proposal to invest more resources into her team.
This was a huge step for Leah who had to firstly see and believe in the immense value of her department and her work, and then believe that by putting forward the business case, her request would not be rejected out of hand. Before this her attitude would have been to soldier on to the point of exhaustion.
Leah focused on the business case for the high-value strategic tasks that would grow the business and lower-level operational tasks that could be conducted by other more junior members of the team (once employed). Her department contributed 33% of revenue to the business, but other departments had a 60% higher staff ratio. This raised awareness of her value to the business and enabled her to speak up for more resources, with the business case to back it up. It did not mean that she was not capable or could not cope. Needless to say, Leah’s proposal was successful.
EXECUTIVE COACHING WITH THE CORE IDENTITY MODEL CAN ASSIST YOU TO:
- Banish imposter syndrome, take off your mask and connect with who you really are
- Create alignment with what you truly want
- Eliminate stress, burnout and inner conflict
- Gain the confidence to live out of the truest expression of yourself.
- Delve into your unique purpose
- Fine tune your bespoke road map to success.
WORK WITH SUZANNE FOR A PERSONALISED APPROACH TO YOUR TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY
Eliminate stress, burnout and inner conflict and connect with who you really are. Register for my six-month intensive coaching programme to gain the insight and confidence needed to reinvent with intent, creating a roadmap to fulfil your unique purpose.
BUY MY BOOK
Who Am I? Swap Your Straight Jacket for a Bespoke Suit takes you on a journey of transformation to get to the core of who you really are, to live a genuine life with passion, clarity and purpose. Who Am I? is packed with inspiring stories, thought provoking case studies, practical exercises and in-depth reflection for a challenging but enjoyable journey to transformation. Click here to purchase.