Increasing executive presence as a Woman Leader

A Managing Director at a large consulting services company hired me as her executive coach. Her goals were to enhance her executive presence and her influence within the team and with clients. 

Through this coaching journey, she learned to leverage her strengths of authentic communication. She started assertively sharing her point of view during group meetings. During our sessions, I guided her to combine empathetic listening and recognition for enriching her conversation with clients.

She learned to nudge her direct reports for stretching their potential and thus enabling their growth. She figured out the path for making her presence felt without 'stepping on anyone’s toes'. Going forward I encouraged her to further improve her communication style to inspire the team and many other professionals through her initiatives at work and in the community.

A newly promoted Vice President of a large home construction company engaged me as his executive coach. He wanted help in transitioning to this new role and in setting himself up for success.

We started by determining the stakeholders in this role and charting his relationships with each one of them till now. As he was already working in this organization, we designed a 360 review. This led to evaluating various interventions such as improving his relationship with his boss and with cross-functional leaders and direct reports. During our sessions, he engaged me as a sounding board to assess the authority grid and the strategic levers for influencing decision-makers in the C-suite.

Then we worked on his communication effectiveness wherein we explored various aspects of communication, dialed up different competencies, and did role plays to practice on leveraging these elements.

Our engagement led us to analyze his executive presence and his leadership style. We explore the various driving and restraining forces, the variance of his leadership style based on the situation, and the awareness to choose a particular style in alignment with the intended outcomes.

Next, we focused on his engagement effectiveness with his direct reports, providing them with more autonomy, and making them accountable for results. We formulated steps for motivating the team to pursue higher performance, enhancing their resilience, encouraging team members to share their POV, and building trust.

Going forward we prepared a plan for continued progress and growth. We used a rubric for creating a weekly and monthly self-assessment of his leadership effectiveness.

A prominent Medical Sciences Institute engaged me to conduct workshops for their faculty members for their in-service training requirements. I led a few workshops on communication, understanding & adapting to behavioral styles, etc. The faculty members were very engaged and participated in the discussions and the role-play practice. This led to more such engagements and trainings in-person and on-line. 

The CEO and their leaders collaborated with me in finding other areas for my involvement such as creating a great student experience, enabling a higher placement success rate for graduates, teaching effectiveness, enhancing student’s self-esteem, digital learning, etc.

My presentation style and the use of examples & stories were well received by the participants. They appreciated my approach of using role-play for facilitating participants to immediately practice the topic and go deeper into the subject matter. 

Through feedback and continuous interactions, we are enhancing the productivity and forging ahead with innovative approaches in blended learning. 

The head of software engineering at a multinational technology conglomerate hired me as her coach for enhancing her leadership effectiveness. She wanted to chart the path for ascending to her next level. 

Our journey began by assessing her portfolio of strengths and creating a plan for leveraging those strengths. We evaluated her overused strengths and skills and ways to let go or dial them down. 

I was her sounding board during our conversations to validate her thinking and at times challenge the angle from which she had approached a situation, offering new perspectives for her to consider going forward.

I leveraged my signature style of neuro-emotional communication to stimulate her critical thinking in figuring out the systemic issues, restraints, and enabling factors to achieve her objectives.

A Director of Analytics at a Communications Infrastructure provider selected me as his coach. The goal was to increase his leadership effectiveness by first regaining his own mojo and seeking inner growth.

Initially, we explored ways to leverage his natural strengths, manage his mindset by setting the tone for the day, chunking tasks & incorporating variety in his work during the day.

My client empowered his team for self-actualization and gaining mastery, extended them flexibility and contextual authority to decide how to complete their tasks; and inspired them to be accountable to the objectives & purpose. 

Then we delved deeper to find the right way to hold his team accountable. We partnered in developing a customized approach on clear expectations, right capability, specific measurement, receiving feedback, and providing feedforward.

This started yielding a higher productivity, self-satisfaction, and an increase in the level of engagement.

A Senior Manager at a Fortune 100 organization hired me for her career growth goals. The objective was to enhance her leadership skills and her effectiveness in her work environment.

During our sessions, I partnered with her to dig deeper and take a wholistic view of herself, her career, and life goals. She got a 360 perspective on how others viewed her leadership style. I guided her to become aware of her key strengths and focus her attention on the few critical opportunities to exert her influence. Our role-play sessions boosted her confidence to become more motivational in her communication with the team.

As a result, she started working on ways to increase her visibility and set her up for further growth.

A team manager at an Oil & Gas company engaged me for enhancing his effectiveness in planning and execution of complex maintenance turnarounds in large capital projects. 

During our engagement we explored the use of the MAP framework for engaging and motivating the team for higher performance. We determined various intrinsic motivators that could be leveraged in making his team members take ownership of their tasks and holding themselves accountable for the results. 

Then we focused using his relationship building skills to act as the bridge between the Operations and Maintenance team members. He explored leveraging his authentic communication and ethical conduct to deepen the trust with his team members and with cross-functional team leaders.

During our engagement, we discussed the ‘5 levels of leadership’ by John Maxwell. The goal was for him to achieve the higher levels (4 & 5) consistently. For this reason, we evaluated ways to amp-up his strengths of fostering alignment, enabling team synergy, encouraging participation, empowering team members, and creating an environment of growth-mindedness. 

A Product Manager in the Tech industry hired me for his goal to grow from his current level as a Product Manager to a role that would entail leading and managing product managers. He wanted to improve his leadership skills and personal discipline. 

Together we developed the structured plan to explore various areas and delve deeper in specific tactical steps. To begin with we assessed his strengths to see how we could leverage them to achieve his goals. And we evaluated some of his development areas that could be blocking his growth. 

Then we started to work on a few traits for becoming a better product leader such as communicating the vision, evaluating what to prioritize & what to let go, delegating effectively, becoming a decision facilitator, etc. 

I helped him specifically for amplifying his leadership skills. We delved deeper into areas such as: understanding the behavioral styles of people and adapting his communication, providing autonomy and holding people accountable on the purpose, presenting his POV persuasively, being agile to change based on the situation.

A Senior Manager in the Financial services industry engaged me for career coaching. She was seeking to grow from a Senior Manager to a role of leader owning the operations of a vertical line of the business. 

She wanted to increase her visibility in the organization. 

I helped her develop a customized 360 evaluation for self-assessment, and by co-workers, supervisors, and direct reports. By exploring deeper in the 360 evaluation, specific elements and challenges were uncovered. For growing to the next level, she needed to becoming a vision setter instead of implementer, she needed to communicate effectively to increase her influence, and she needed to provide meaningful feedback to her direct reports.

She focused too much on her own execution strength. I helped her realize that she needs to do less of the functional work herself and let her team to more & self-manage themselves. This led her to use delegation by providing contextual authority to her team while holding them accountable for the results. 

By improving her ability to motivate her team and delegate effectively, she improved on her leadership effectiveness. By focusing on things that her bosses were doing, she improved her visibility.  

A Program Manager from an infrastructure provider selected me as his coach. His goal was to learn specific leadership skills to ascend to the next level in his organization.

We started by introspecting his key differentiators and reviewing his recent performance assessment. Then we assessed his leadership style in natural and stress mode. Then on we did an evaluation of his initiatives and projects to figure out which ones to focus and do more, and which ones to ‘let go’. He learned specific ways to build and enhance his professional relationships. 

In order to improve his communication, I helped him on best practices to understand the behavioral  styles of stakeholders in a meeting and then adapt his communication for a higher impact. For expanding his prominence, we created some specific tactical steps. 

I helped him reflect on previous events to pinpoint the triggers, his auto-conditioned response, and the outcome. This narrative approach helped him figure out the change in his choice when triggered going forward.

Lastly we prepared a weekly action rating sheet for defined actions on improving his executive presence & communication.

A Director in the Life Sciences industry selected me as his coach. His goals were to manage stress amidst tight deadlines on projects and improving communication with people from other departments. Together, we discussed his goals and tailored a list of coaching sessions for achieving his goals.

He was facing some issues when dealing with people who at times had unreasonable expectations. We leveraged his strengths of authenticity and open dialogue to establish a trusted environment and reduce conflicts. Due to his strong planning and process management skills, he made progress on taking decisions clearly even though in stressful situations and upholding his team’s morale & his leadership impact.

Through our discussions and simulated role plays he became more confident when communicating with different personalities, enhanced his professional relationships, and become more productive at work as well as in his personal life.

We explored on how to conduct effective meetings between his team members and the project sponsoring team, negotiating timelines & deliverables, and handling scope-changes during the project.

A President of a medical services firm hired me to help him on getting placed for a better job role. Initially, we worked on finding his differentiators and figuring out the search strategy and best matching job roles. Then we did a customized SWOT analysis on the specific job role to create a matching action plan.

Our sessions helped him in articulating his accomplishments for us to retool his resume in alignment with the targeted job roles. Next, we reformatted his LinkedIn profile and added the appropriate sections to accentuate his position. 

To prep him for interviews, we built a customized list of questions most likely to be asked for the targeted jobs. Upon writing the response we did mock interviews to practice on the interview script and his ability to ace the interview. 

Furthermore, we developed an effective networking strategy to position him for suitable opportunities and develop more relations. Then we co-created an action plan for increasing his prominence in the industry. I guided him to build an impressive portfolio to showcase his accomplishments during a job interview. Finally, we explored areas for growing into the new role, and the specific traits needed to be enhanced for increasing his effectiveness.