Anna was excited to start her new senior leadership role at board-level, but had doubts she would be able to deliver on her potential. A nagging voice in her head was telling her she wouldn’t be able to cope with the challenges of the role. Especially as she was also coping with family issues, which take their toll on her focus and energy. For this senior leadership role, she was worried about:
- Giving in to conflict and not being able to deal with aggressive behaviour
- Not being heard and not being able to influence board decision-making effectively
- Having to be the face of the organisation and not being confident ‘on stage’
- Developing confidence in who she is as a leader, and leading by example to inspire other
Positive Intelligence approach
To help Anna understand that negative thinking and strengthen her mental powers for self-management and focusing on enabling thinking, she first participated in the Positive Intelligence (PQ) 6-week intensive programme that I facilitate. This identified the saboteur thinking patterns of:
- Controller – wanting to be in control of situations to ensure that they go the way you want
- Hyper-Achiever – pushing hard to succeed and win, at the expense of relationships and wellbeing
- Stickler – Insisting on perfectly following the rules, that things should be done ‘right’
Saboteur thinking is when things are overdone and become harmful in some way – stress, conflict, damaging relationships, anxiety, and so on. Working on your PQ enables you to regain self-control, quieten that negative thinking and strengthen your positive thinking powers. These are:
- Empathy
- Curiosity
- Creative problem-solving
- Values-based decision-making
- Focused action.
When you can access those powers from a place of neutrality or positivity, you can deal with any situation. This is what Anna worked on before our one-to-one coaching sessions.
We were then able to build on these foundations to address the challenges she wanted to master in her new role. Saboteurs are a powerful source of resistance to change. Now Anna had the skill to master that negative thinking, we were easily able to explore the possibilities and develop strategies for successful outcomes. This made the coaching sessions both highly creative and enjoyable as Anna generated ideas that felt authentic to her.
Additionally, when Anna decided on an action, this was true to her Values, and she didn’t feel like she would have to fake it. The joy for me was that Anna found the opportunities to implement those actions between sessions and we could see the progress she was making.
Progress towards her goals
When we closed the programme and reviewed the results, Anna had positive results in all her goals:
- She has built good working relationships with her colleagues on the board. She has learnt to effectively deal with difficult situations in the organisation by being clear on boundaries and adjusting approaches when faced with adversarial opponents.
- She can see evidence of the impact she has in influencing discussions and decision-making. She’s learnt to deliver her contributions with added power (quality of thought, emotional connection) rather than quantity, as that is not her style.
- She is building her presence across the organisation through engagement with others. She is inspiring others by inviting their contributions and facilitating their engagement with implementing strategy. As she grows in confidence, so she is feeling more powerful on stage, representing the organisation.
- Anna is clear on her values and leadership style and particularly enjoys developing others and delegating responsibility. This frees her up to add value through her clear strategic thinking and skills in preparing the organisation for a sustainable future in a highly competitive market.
Our coaching programme has given Anna perspective and built her self-confidence to address challenges in a positive way. She has valued the dedicated thinking time and is determined to keep that habit, ensuring there is time in her busy schedule to reflect and think.
I think this is such a good point – people are so busy and often not on value-adding activities. Setting aside time for thinking will make a huge difference to their ability to deliver the expectations of leadership. It is the quality of your thinking that will determine your success as a leader.
As Henry Ford said, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, that is why so few people do it!”
To discuss this approach please contact Amanda.