Case Studies

While we work with a wide range of leadership challenges, here’s a sample of common issues, how we approach them and the results. These case studies are real, but we’ve changed the names and other identifying features.

From complying technical expert to proactive leader

A senior leader builds trust with his colleagues by speaking concisely, making reliable commitments, and raising his concerns skillfully. Read more.

From emotionally reactive to thoughtful and patient

A technical superstar with a tendency to steamroll learns how to lead in a way that inspires others. Read more.

Learning how to manage up and around

A newly promoted sales manager charged with leading explosive growth gains the skills need to manage a high-performing team. Read more.

Speaking up for impact

An associate director at a healthcare company gains confidence and learns how to share her perspectives in difficult situations in a way that gets respect. Read more.

Learning to build trust and influence

A senior director at a medical device company builds communication skills and gets promoted to vice president. Read more.

From complying technical expert to proactive leader 

A senior leader builds trust with his colleagues by speaking concisely, making reliable commitments, and raising his concerns skillfully.

Challenge

Like many technical professionals that rise to senior positions, “Mike” was perceived as a hard working, bright engineer and overall nice guy.  When excited, he would often dive into what he was most excited about—the tactical details of the problem at hand. 

He was also intimidated by his domineering CEO and would reflexively say yes to the CEO’s demands and figure out the details later. This behavior led to unintended broken promises and frustration within his senior team. They saw Mike as too complying and doubted his judgment when it came to execute on project plans. At the same time, they saw value in his contribution and wanted him to succeed.

Approach

We conducted a 360-review. Sharing the feedback with Mike, he was able to see how his behavior contributed to the unhealthy dynamic. He admitted he was frustrated too, believing that people didn’t listen to him, or understand the challenges he was facing.  We decided to focus on developing core skills that enabled Mike to make and manage his promises more effectively, listen more deeply to the cares of his colleagues and raise his concerns in a skillful way.

Results

Coaching helped Mike learn how to tailor his message to his audience. His colleagues noted he was more concise and relevant when speaking with them, and comfortable contributing his point of view in senior meetings. Over time, they began to trust his ability to follow through on his commitments and ask if he needed help.  

The CEO was so impressed by Mike’s progress that he initiated a proposal for a series of workshops designed to improve the communication and coordination of his entire senior staff. 

From emotionally reactive to patient and thoughtful 

A technical superstar with a tendency to steamroll learns how to lead in a way that inspires others.

Challenge

Bob was a rising leader at a small biotech company. His manager described him as “a real resource for us”, having had years of experience as a PhD Molecular Biologist, and wanted to help him further develop his leadership skills.

Approach

After interviewing seven stakeholders who worked closely with Bob, the anonymized feedback indicated that he was respected for his problem-solving skills, work ethic and and support for his team. And at the same time, he was described as sometimes overpowering, abrasive, judgmental and impatient with others.

After a few discussions with Bob, we uncovered that he was predisposed to feeling resentment towards his manager and other select leaders in the company. He would react with anger and this was getting in the way of his ability to influence others. We decided to focus our coaching time on his reactivity as the core coaching focus and building trust with three people he found challenging to work with—his manager, and two colleagues.  

We worked to identify what kinds of things irritated him at work and how he typically responded. Through coaching, he learned how to recognize when he was getting triggered and developed skills to regulate his emotions and respond more appropriately. Instead of assuming negative intent, he began to listen more deeply to others and approach his colleagues with openness rather than resentment.

Results

Through regular practices (and courage!), Bob was able to see how he played a role in the way that others saw and responded to him. By the end of the coaching, his manager commented that he and others had noticed Bob was more patient and thoughtful in his responses, willing to admit when he was wrong, and more attentive in meetings.  Bob shared that he wished he had developed these skills 30 years ago when he began his career.

Learning to manage up and around

A newly promoted Sales Manager charged with leading explosive growth gains the skills needed to manage a high-performing team.

Challenge

Due to his exceptional sales performance, Dan was promoted to a sales management position in a growing global healthcare company.  As part of his new role, he inherited six seasoned sales reps, and rapidly hired an additional six reps to cover his extensive territory.

Dan was offered coaching to help him navigate the expectations of multiple stakeholders and grow his high-performing team.  Although he was very good at reading and influencing customers, as a manager, he had less tolerance for working with personalities different than his own.  

Approach

Dan’s 360 feedback revealed he could be too casual with some internal stakeholders, and not hear their true concerns. He could also show up as abrupt and demanding if people didn’t listen to him.

Through the coaching, Dan learned how to initiate (and if appropriate diffuse) difficult conversations. He became more skilled at articulating his assessments of his team so he could support them in their development. By deepening his listening for team’s morale and motivations, Dan was able to better understand his team and different stakeholders.  

Results

At the end of the coaching, Dan was seen as a sincerely caring, collaborative partner, with stronger skills for managing conflicts and developing his team.

Speaking up for impact 

An associate director at a healthcare company gains confidence and learns how to share her perspectives about difficult topics in a way that gets respect.

Challenge

As an Associate Director of a Healthcare company, Rebecca came to coaching asking for help with her confidence. Rebecca’s manager fully supported her, and recognized that she was holding back even though she had important contributions to make. 

Approach

The first step was to learn more about what was behind Rebecca’s confidence struggles. She knew she had a tendency to be nice and could see it was getting in the way of her speaking up, especially in senior meetings. Her shy introverted nature contributed to this—it was easier for her to not say anything than to risk saying something inappropriate. At times when she did get the courage to share her perspective in meetings, she walked away not feeling heard.  

Over the course of the coaching, she shared that she could be intimidated by some of the strong personalities with whom she worked. She also placed a high value on being humble and respectful, so if she didn’t have the right words, or find the right time, she didn’t speak up.  

Once we were able to see the challenge more clearly, we were able to design a course of action. What were Rebecca’s responsibilities?  What did her manager and stakeholders expect of her?  What decisions and recommendations did they need from her?  Getting clarity around her promise and purpose provided firmer ground upon which she could stand.

Another key to Rebecca’s development was becoming aware of what, within herself, stopped her from speaking up. Through our discussions, she revealed that she was afraid of being over-confident and labeled as too aggressive. She’s known women that were too vocal, to the point of being abrasive, and she certainly didn’t want that. How much was too much?

Results

Over time and with practice, Rebecca became more comfortable accepting compliments and owning her value she brought to the table.  She learned skills for bringing up difficult topics and experimented with different ways she could speak up and make an impact.

Learning to build trust and influence 

A senior director at a medical device company builds communication skills and gets promoted to vice president.

Challenge

Liz came to coaching very aware of her frustrations and areas of development.  With a PhD and years of experience, she had risen to the Senior Director level in her Medical Device company and wanted to be considered for a promotion.  

Approach

It was clear from Liz’s 360 feedback interviews that she was very knowledgeable in her area of expertise, and people valued her ability to be decisive and provide direction. Her team loved her—she cared about them and their success, and was responsive to their needs.  And people noticed that she had successfully taken on a lot in her organization, stepping up to the challenge and making vast improvements.

Liz struggled with influencing other parts of the organization. Peers claimed she could be too demanding and unapproachable. They wanted her to have more of a collaborative approach and be more flexible in how she worked with them.    

Through the coaching, Liz became more aware of how her stress was interpreted by others as being too serious or direct. She began to recognize when she was stressed and who/what triggered her, and took steps to calm herself. She learned to prepare herself before meetings so that she could listen and respond appropriately. This gave her the composure to solicit feedback and ask questions before sharing her opinion.

Parallel to this, Liz identified key stakeholders and meetings in which she wanted to influence. With more refined listening and trust-building skills, she began to hear other points of view and communicate her strategy in a more thoughtful way.  

Results

By the end of the coaching, Liz was receiving unsolicited calls from her peers actively seeking to partner with her group to achieve their corporate goals. Within a year, she was promoted to Vice President.

Ready to expand your leadership range and feel more ease?