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Leading others is a blessing and a curse for most executives. When things go well, it is a major source of achievement, satsifaction and fulfillment. When things go badly, it can be an all-encompassing disappointment. The saying "its lonely at the top" accurately captures the experience of many executives and leaders who struggle to make their organizations successful in a wildly complex and changing operating environment - while concurrently maintaining a sense of balance with the rest of their lives.
Leap Advocates offers one-on-one executive coaching to help improve leaders' performance, establish or maintain work/life balance, and successful manage their careers.
Challenges
In our experience, leaders and executives often experience a number of challenges:
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Trying to respond tactically to the day-to-day needs of running their organizations while simultaneously determining a vision for the future.
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Making sense of a global operating context that is dynamic, changing and overhwhelming.
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Building and maintaining strategic relationships.
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Translating their vision into actionable plans that occurs can follow.
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Holding their people accountable for results while concurrently helping them grow and develop capacity.
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Creating balance between their work and the rest of their lives.
Our Approach
Our approach to coaching includes the following
key components:
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Competency-based coaching designed to help leaders improve the skills identified by their organizations as being critical for leaders and managers.
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Assessment about a leader's baseline ability through 360 degree feedback collected from their managers, peers and subordinates. With many clients this also includes the use of various instruments such as the MBTI, FIRO-B, DISC or EQI.
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Goal focus whereby we work with leaders to develop a clear list of coaching goals as a means for evaluating the success of the coaching engagement.
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Research-based practices and methods that help create insights and results.
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Accountability, support and challenge where we hold our coaching clients accountable for their commitments and support them as they face challenging circumstances.
Benefits and Outcomes
While the results of each coaching engagement differs, there are some consistencies in the results that our clients achieve. These include:
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Greater awareness of their own behavior, motivation and impact.
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More effectiveness at managing their time to focus on strategic issues - visioning, relationships building and planning.
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Enhanced ability to build relationships and influence others.
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Improved capacity to make decisions and take smart risks.
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Clarity about short and long term career options.
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Enhanced ability to manage time and establish life balance.
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Improved skills at managing the performance of subordinates.
Illustrative Client Vignette*
Background
Stephanie was a director in the marketing function of a pharmaceutical organization. New to the organization, she struggled with influencing peers and senior leaders in the organization. Further, Susan needed to improve the ability of her staff to think more independently and act proactive in performing their roles.
Approach
We first collected 360 degree feedback from her peers, staff and direct report manager to assess her baseline level of functioning. Further, Susan also completed several personality assessments to help her identify her preferred style of interaction. Through these initial efforts, Susan realized that her introverted style was both a strength and a weakness depending on the context. We helped her find suitable mentors inside and outside her company, had her experiment with new behavior in her interactions with her staff, and identify new ways to develop relationships with peers and executives.
Results
Stephanie improved her ability to influence others by creating greater balance between expressive and receptive communication skills, as well as identfying her own source of power. She become more comfortable in her role and communicating her vision for her organization. Stephanie was ultimately promoted to the next level and continues to thrive in her executive position.
* The facts of this case have been generalized from several clients in order to maintain confidentiality.
Relevant Qualifications
Our coaches bring a variety of educational and
organizational coaching experience that make us
well suited to coach leaders in organizations. In particular, Kevin
Nourse brings the following qualifications
to his work as a coach:
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"Big 5" consulting leadership development
and coaching experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers
Consulting.
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MA degree in Human Resource Development; MA degree in Human and Organization Systems.
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Currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program
at the Fielding Graduate Institute in Human
and Organization Development.
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Certification by the International Coach Federation as a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with over 800 hours experience coaching entrepreneurs,
leaders and managers.
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Training with the Coaches Training Institute
and Coach University.
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Experience developing and implementing 360
feedback and mentoring programs, including
the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) Benchmarks
360 and the Hay group Emotional Intelligence
(EQI) tool.
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Hands-on experience coaching leaders and executives at the director, vice-president, senior vice-president, CFO, and executive director/CEO level.
Selected Organizational Client List
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America Online
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American Association of Port Authorities
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American Psychological Association
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Association of Trial Lawyers in America
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Astrazeneca Pharmaceuticals
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Global Financial Services Company
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Marriott International
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National Cooperative Bank
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NCB Captial Impact
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Port of Los Angeles
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US Food and Drug Administration
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US Patents and Trademark Office
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