My client had just been promoted to her first leadership role. She was finding the move from team member to team leader very challenging. She was used to being responsible for delivering her own work and she was happy to put in long hours as she is passionate about the aims of the organisation. When she became team leader, she initially expected the rest of the team to work at her pace and to share her passion. She found it challenging to delegate, give feedback, and run effective team meetings.
I worked with my client to develop a range of core leadership skills, notably managing a team, thinking more strategically, and developing her self-confidence as a member of the senior leadership team. Over the course of six sessions of coaching, my client’s optimism and sense of self efficacy improved dramatically. She gave the following feedback:
“I cannot over state how helpful Vanessa has been to me and my development. Vanessa’s approach is open, attentive and kind. I have appreciated her patience and time, allowing me to explore challenges and arrive at my own solutions. There have been occasions where I’ve been incredibly stuck in knowing how to proceed, and Vanessa has always been considerately probing and constructively challenging. Encouraging me to grow and develop at a pace I have been comfortable with. I cannot recommend Vanessa highly enough and will almost certainly be returning for her support when I turn to the next stage of my development.”
My client is a manager in the financial services sector. She wanted coaching to help develop her ability to manage conflict, provide constructive challenge and be more decisive. She also wanted to improve her visibility within the organisation with an eye on future promotion. Over the course of six sessions, we built a strong rapport which enabled my client to open up, explore different perspectives and experiment with new behaviours. She gave the following feedback:
I found your empathetic approach very helpful as it made me feel heard and supported, and was important in building a trusting coaching relationship, which meant our sessions were always very useful…I enjoyed how our sessions really made me think a lot deeper about specific topics or situations, but in a productive way. I also really enjoyed the fact that our sessions would start with a problem or goal, and by the end I would leave feeling confident that we had achieved what we had set out to.
My client recently changed career from law to the charity sector in order to achieve greater personal fulfilment. She sought coaching on becoming a more effective leader in a new sector, communicating clearly, and bringing people with her rather than directing them. I used a range of coaching tools to help my client manage her time more effectively, clarify the balance of her role between strategy, leadership and execution, and appreciate how to flex her leadership style depending on the situation or the capabilities of her team member. In her feedback, my client said:
“[My biggest learnings have been the] importance of carving out and committing time to the important but non-urgent work and to good line management; self-reflection and actively recognising rational/irrational thinking and managing that; effective delegation - avoiding micromanaging/controlling by focusing on what's needed, not the form. [Vanessa’s coaching style is] empathetic, calming, curious, kind, present”.