Julie's individual coaching in a restructuring context
The context
I accompanied Julie, who is a senior manager in an international technology company [first name and sector changed to protect confidentiality], on a visit to a
individual coaching. His background and expertise were valued by his company, which was undergoing a major restructuring. His department, which operated in several countries, was tasked with adopting new technologies and encouraging in-house innovation, to better respond to market developments.
With teams spread across several countries, she found herself faced with a set of varied and complex expectations on their part, while also being subjected to strong pressure from senior management. She felt that any wrong decision could have repercussions for the whole organisation. And she told me that she was worried that this would affect not only the profitability of her department, but perhaps also the company's reputation in its most important markets.
The challenges of individual coaching: how to deal with uncertainty?
Julie's company contacted me about this project. business coaching when it felt at a crossroads. The restructuring meant that she had to make quick decisions in an uncertain environment, without knowing where to start. She had to manage her teams through this delicate transition, which was generating resistance to change in some of them. The company talked a lot about innovation, but implementing it on the ground was more laborious.
Julie told me that she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the decisions she had to make. Not only did she have to deal with the effects of changes in the market demand, but also to internal organisational changes, the fear of failure within his teams and his own uncertainties about the best course of action. conduct.
Tailor-made approach to individual coaching
To help Julie see things more clearly and regain serenity in her decision-making, I proposed a programme tailored to her situation, with 10 1.5 hour sessions every 2 to 3 weeks, during which we explored three areas:
- Clarify your values, by working on your leadership values and the vision you want to achieve. wanted to share with his teams. By clearly expressing what matters most in her professional identity, she observed that she was better able to rely on values when making difficult decisions.
- Develop her ability to adapt, by working on her ability to adapt, so that she no longer perceives uncertainty as a threat but as an opportunity to find creative solutions. This has helped him to adapt his behaviour to help them thrive in this changing environment.
- Strengthen her decision-making ability, by staggering and prioritising all the stages that make up a major complex decision, and by working on what she needed for this type of decision-making. For example, she told me about risk assessment data and the opinions of the main stakeholders around them.
At the start and end of the coaching, we also held a group meeting with his line manager and the HR director, to ensure that the coaching was in line with the company's needs.
The coachee's journey: from uncertainty to leadership
After several months of coaching, Julie named that she no longer felt overwhelmed, that she felt prepared and supported to lead her teams through this transition. She felt more at ease with uncertainty, which she began to use as an opportunity to involve her teams in finding new solutions to the problems they were encountering, helping to lighten her workload. And by basing her decision-making on her values, Julie stopped getting lost in the 'noise' of competing and contradictory priorities. All this helped to make her more visible and legitimate to senior management.
Key success factors for individual coaching
Several factors contributed to Julie and her company considering her coaching a success:
- I created a space for her to talk without judgement, which helped her to be open and frank about the pressures she was under.
- I ensured that the coaching was closely linked to its environment leadership style and professional identity.
- I helped Julie to develop a better understanding of herself, so that she could better understand their emotions and reactions to difficult situations.
