Leadership Coaching : Speaking Up and Speaking Out

You come to me for leadership coaching and say that you’re not achieving the results your higher-ups desire. Now, they’ve also tasked you with integrating an acquisition and ‘sweating those newly acquired assets’ harder.

​"You tell me about the fraught climate in your division, of conflict-riddled meetings, factional teams who won’t 

collaborate, the soaring absence-rate and how you struggle to retain talent.

You know what you’re doing isn’t working.

I ask you what you’d like to do differently, and you fall silent. It’s a treadmill you say and you can’t change it. Your teams are exhausted, but you push them on because the CEO screams that the share price has tanked and the sales pipeline is weak.
​
I ask again what you’d like to do differently, and frustrated, you say flippantly "give my teams a break! A rest".
​
And I see the sadness in your eyes, and your exhaustion. “Maybe that’s what you need too...”

​We Need New Ways to Lead

“It’s OK,” I say as you blink back tears.  “Lots of people in business are tired and need to slow-down but feel they can’t.  And yes it’s true that the business probably wouldn’t survive a mass six-month sabbatical. But you’re a leader and together we can find a new way forward.”

You shake your head, even the HR director simply urged you to tighten up on performance management and employ disciplinary processes if need be. You sigh. “No one sees… no one sees…”

“What don’t they see?” 

“That we’re destroying it all; our reputation, our customer relationships; with poor service and after-care, and our people… We drive them like machines!”

You exhale, and you’re feeling the folly of it all.

And then you smile ruefully, and together we’re contemplating those two opposing forces in life and business. The ‘force for change’, some call will; to set goals and targets, take action, persist, achieve and shape the competitive environment. And opposing it the ‘force for acceptance’, some call love; to empathise with people and care for them, bring them together and to accept current reality in all its complexity. 

We sit silently, feeling the tension between those forces and the awesome task to harmonise them and make business sustainable.
​
You shake your head, and say you don’t know where to start.

​Leadership Requires Your Take Risks

And I ask if you’re willing to be courageous, and to risk; your reputation, your career, your financial security?
​
And of course you’re reluctant; to lead such change alone and when you don’t have the clout of the CEO.

And yet we make a plan, just baby steps, to begin to shift the balance in your division between achieving business targets and nurturing people and relationships.

And when you return you say it hasn’t been easy, but you’re now acknowledging what people have done instead of simply focusing on what’s next. You’re listening actively and engaging with your colleagues concerns rather than downplaying them. You’ve even championed people getting away from their desks at lunchtime!

But there’s pushback. Your higher–ups claim you’re losing your grip. They’re bringing forward the deadline for your division’s business plan so as to have it completed by the time the top team visit. You sigh, everyone will have to work late nights to achieve that!

You shrug and I feel how it hurts you to consider reneging on the ‘better way’ you’ve promised your teams.
​
And then I see your nascent leader emerging, and your passion, to make your division a place where you deliver results AND care for your people.

Leaders Need to Speak Up and Speak Out

And in this space between us you’re tapping into your self-belief and your preparing to step up. We’re preparing your appeal to the heads and the hearts of your higher-ups and how you’ll seek to interrupt their habitual ways and have them too experience the reality of the unsustainable course they've set. 

We imagine how you might inspire them to consider change,and develop your negotiation strategy to get the deadline pushed back, including your red lines. We also work with what holds you back.

And as you leave, you smile and say you’ll give it your best shot, but the important thing was deciding.

“Deciding?”

“To listen to the voice inside, and to speak up and; change or no change, choosing to speak out.
 
​And my heart sings at the leader you’re becoming.

© 2019 Trudy Lloyd & Associates. All Rights Reserved.