Leading with people

Our client started working with WDI following an organisational change where he moved from a delivery focused role driven by deadlines, to one developing a business strategy, managing people and dealing with customers. The coaching engaged him in a dialogue that developed greater awareness about his impact on people, and new insights about how to work with his strengths. Key elements of the WDI process were:

• To encourage him to explore some simple and very difficult questions

• An in-depth exploration of his leadership that was practical and deepened by using supporting material and appropriate research.

He describes himself now as being more in tune with people and sensitive to their feelings. About the coaching, he says “the quality of the interaction was superb, prompting invaluable soul searching”.

Sharing passion to achieve results

The demands and pressures of working in a global ‘always-on’ business can challenge the most effective leaders and result in the loss of work-life balance and the emergence of unhelpful behaviours. Our client was trying to execute a major organisational change in delivering a new strategy and yet he knew his relationship with his team had become increasingly strained and resistance to the change was strong. As pressure increased, his focus was on delivering the task and he had lost sight of the need to invest in key relationships and step into the shoes of the people affected.

As part of the WDI coaching process we gathered ‘expert witness’ feedback from his team through a series of confidential telephone interviews. The process allowed his coach to gain deep insight about the team’s perceptions of the change and our client’s leadership style in executing it. The feedback was hugely powerful for him, as it revealed how little effort he had invested in explaining to others why the change was important to him and why it should matter to them. In his head, he understood the importance of the change, but he had done very little to share and engage others with that. He then focused his coaching work on creating his own ‘authentic narrative’ and fully sharing his passion for why the new strategy was right for his people and the business. As the process unfolded, he also realised how important it is to really hear and understand all the different reactions of those affected.