Quadrant 1: Finding Focus
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84
85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101
102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118
119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135
136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152
153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169
170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186
187 188 189 190 191 192
We will explore each of the Leading with Insight quadrants by following
the progress of Donna, the director in charge of a 40-person
IT services department. Considered a high-potential manager,
Defining the Space for Coaching 31
Donna was offered the opportunity to work with an executive coach
as part of a leadership development initiative within her organization.
Her primary goal was to improve the client satisfaction scores
for her IT services department, and in the process to begin to make
the transition from solid manager to leader.
Donna was a consistent overachiever who drove herself hard to
attain her goals and expected her people to do the same. Donna’s
coach suggested conducting a series of multirater feedback interviews
to gain insight into Donna’s management style, strengths, and
developmental opportunities. Some of the themes that showed up
in the feedback interviews were surprising to Donna. She learned
that although her people respected her intelligence, integrity, and
drive to achieve, many resented the unrealistic expectations Donna
set for them and her persistent habit of taking over their work if she
felt that it was going to deviate from what she wanted. Many of her
colleagues and coworkers stated that Donna could become impatient
when the pressure was high. It was clear to Donna and her
coach that Donna would need to focus on developing a more
collaborative style of leadership to lead her team to the next level.
Donna’s coach suggested that a good place to begin their coaching
work was to examine some of the patterns in Donna’s personal
habits that led her to be short or impatient with others. Donna’s
coach asked her to notice what she did during the day that contributed
to her sense of impatience. Upon reflection, Donna noted
that she tended to overbook her schedule so that she was constantly
running behind. She also noticed that she was a chronic multitasker.
As a result, she often felt like her attention was fractured, and small
annoyances could cause her to snap.
Armed with this awareness, Donna made some small but significant
changes in her personal management, including managing her
schedule more tightly so that she could focus on what she was doing
and get work done between meetings. She also became more attuned
to when she was becoming impatient and started to implement
approaches suggested by her coach to calm herself down before she
got to the snapping point. Within six weeks of working with her
coach, Donna was feeling much more in control of her life.