From Uncertainty to Confidence: A Coach-Guided Path to Strategic Leadership
The Inspiration
Kay was a seasoned nonprofit professional with 15 years of operational experience. When her boss, the Executive Director, unexpectedly left, the Board of Directors tapped her to become the new Executive Director, and the world was responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the organization’s survival as her primary concern, Kay relied on her operational savvy to guide her team.
As the organization thrived beyond the pandemic, the Board encouraged Kay to work with a leadership coach and committed the financial resources to support her.
Kay and the Board saw an opportunity to evolve her operational leadership into a more strategic role that would prepare the organization for growth, more impact, and a healthy future.
The Professional Development Journey
At the outset of our work together, Kay’s aspiration was clear: within six months, she wanted to redefine her focus, present strategic goals to the board, find her organizational voice, and emerge as a confident, visionary leader.
While eager and willing to do the work, Kay was uncertain how to pivot and continue supporting the organization’s small, capable remote team.
A daunting question was, “What will my work be daily if I’m not focused on the operations?”
My response was, stick with me long enough, and you’ll see!
The professional development program we designed for Kay incorporated various tools.
The Leadership Practices Inventory 360 allowed Kay’s team, board members, and colleagues to affirm her strengths as a leader and offer opportunities for improvement they could see would make a difference for Kay.
She was surprised that her approach was much more valued than imagined, and the suggestion felt doable and motivating.
The Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment helped Kay understand where her strengths were being overused, fueling her inner critic and holding her back.
Paired with the Positive Intelligence course, Kay learned to trust her team more, invite their ideas, and even ask them to take on more for their professional growth.
This allowed her to change how she spends some of her time, including focusing more on connecting with donors.
Our Core Values Compass exercise gave Kay a chance to sort out and affirm the ideals that drive her leadership, how they show up in her work, and how she could bring them more into focus in her strategic ideas for the organization.
An AHA was that leaders wear many hats. Kay’s case includes and is not limited to engager, business developer, facilitator, historian, financial manager, supervisor, and coach. She learned she could be more intentional about bringing her values into each role more substantially.
We also explored how a misalignment with values can cause adverse or bad feelings about a person or circumstance, just like internal saboteurs do.
Shifting values back into alignment with small actions is sometimes all it takes to get back on track.
Kay finished her Core Values Compass by writing her leadership value proposition so she had the language to re-introduce herself to her staff and others through her values.
Then Kay used her 10 individual coaching sessions to work on these topics:
Delegating more to her team to create growth opportunities for each person
Developing a new job description for herself
Evaluating and experimenting with her schedule and the ways she was using her time
Preparing to guide her team through their first in-person multi-day planning meeting in two years, including refreshing the organization’s mission statement
Preparing to work with a new board president
Imagining a new strategic direction for the organization and ways of collecting and using data to inform future decisions
Developing the content for community presentation confidently
Outlining the organization’s achievements, strategic goals, and a call to action, and
Mapping out an inclusive process to engage the organization in strategic planning
The 5 Actions That Maximized Results
Kay was exceptionally dedicated to maximizing our work together. Here’s how she got the most out of her investment:
Commitment to Structured Learning: Kay embraced the tools we selected for her, not just completing exercises but reflecting deeply on insights and designing actions to test her ideas and work through her challenges.
Openness to Feedback: Kay engaged in honest self-reflection. Her ability to gather and objectively listen to feedback and find opportunities was key to her stretching.
Active Ownership of Goals: Kay drove the coaching session agendas, ensuring alignment with her evolving leadership priorities. She proactively identified areas for growth, from redefining her role to strategically engaging with staff and board members.
Action-Oriented Mindset: Kay translated insights from the assessments and coaching into actionable steps, whether developing a strategic calendar, preparing for meetings in new ways, or practicing self-care routines to sustain her focus.
Integrating Personal and Professional Growth: Kay worked on aligning her leadership journey with her personal values and resilience strategies, finding ways to bring more joy and balance into her demanding role.
The Daunting Question Is Answered
At the beginning, Kay asked, “What will my work be daily if I’m not focused on the operations?”
As we wrapped up our work together, she reflected that the shift from operational to strategic leadership was less daunting than anticipated.
Looking forward, she has plans to:
Make and follow a plan for each project, bring a developmental and coaching orientation to supervising each team member, continue developing the organization’s public voice, lead with a new strategic plan, and build in time for restorative self-care.
In her words, Kay “is leaving behind the doubt she felt comparing herself to her former boss.”
She also pivoted her beginning anchor word, compass-pointed in a new direction, to embodiment-making all that she learned, an integral part of who she is becoming in her leadership.
Would you like to change something about your leadership or management approach? Let’s discuss it and design a strategy that will support you.
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