From Self-Doubt to Leadership Promotion

Emma, UK

Challenges

Before you started working with Kelly, what challenges did you face?

Speaking with more certainty – stop using phrases like “I think”.
Not saying I’m bad at things I’m good at.
Trusting myself/ growing confidence.
Celebrate my success more.
Take credit for my role in the team’s success (while also championing them!).
Stagnation in my career – unsure what to do next

What do you think would have been the implications of not dealing with your challenges?

I would likely be in the same job and still feeling uncertain in big group/ high challenge situations.

What (if anything) had you previously been doing to address those challenges?

I had approached peers and managers for advice, and found that a lot of them had the same challenges, which made me feel better, but didn’t necessarily give me many coping mechanisms. I needed the coaching to have the headspace to find my own solutions that work for me.

Coaching Approach

Aspects that we covered together included:

Goal setting and progress tracking
Confident & influential communication, executive presence, non-verbal behaviour (body language)
Interview preparation
Personality assessments (16 Personalities), and working with trait of introversion
Neuroplasticity, Embodied Cognition (power posing), Self-Affirmation Theory to support behaviour change
Acknowledging and celebrating own strengths & successes
Goal review, reflection of progress and growth

How often/long did you work with Kelly?

5 x 60 minute sessions over 5 months.

Impact

What has/have been the result(s)? How would you describe the outcome?

I greatly enjoyed being coached by Kelly. I came into the sessions struggling to present myself as a confident leader, and after a few months I’ve gained some great techniques to help me pause and work better within my reflective preferences, which are making me look and feel more confident. I’ve even successfully interviewed and been offered a promotion. Kelly’s passion for coaching was clear in the time and effort she put into preparing and following up on sessions – which was more than I’d experienced from coaches previously.

What specific techniques / strategies did Kelly use that helped you the most?

Focus on strengths
Sharing of resources eg. Ted Talk
Working with introversion instead of against it
Embodied cognition (power posing)

I also found it:

Very easy to book through the system.
Really enjoyed the follow ups sent through and the suggestion of additional tasks – these helped things move between the sessions.
Liked the check in during the session to check it was going in the right direction.

How would you describe the impact that coaching has had on your life?

Increased confidence (and perceived confidence) in my current role and in interviews which has led to me receiving multiple job offers and accepting a new opportunity in a leadership role with bigger scope.
I am now spending more time on “me” and my development and protecting that time – and seeing the benefits of this in my team and work.
The best bit of the coaching was having the space to think about my growth, and having the deadline of our next session to complete tasks for, so that I have to prioritise “me” over whatever work needs doing.

Is there anything else you would like to say about working with Kelly?

Kelly did a brilliant job of getting me excited and motivated to work on myself, something I’d not previously invested much time into. We discussed early on how I like to learn, and Kelly sent me useful bitesize articles and videos as a result which were useful for prompting the next session’s conversation. She prompted me in between sessions to reflect on how things were going, and this was a helpful reminder to try out some of the techniques we’d discussed and reflect on whether they were working. Within the sessions themselves, Kelly was warm and non-judgemental, and she asked helpful questions to get me thinking. She was occasionally direct when she needed to be (for example she did point out my insecure body language on camera) and she sometimes offered her own thoughts or suggestions – both of which I found useful for improving how I presented myself. But the majority of our conversation was very focussed on what I thought would work, and how I wanted to fix the problem. I found it very helpful to have Kelly as a sounding board to give me the space to think.

What would you say to someone who's unsure about whether to work with Kelly?

Do it! I was initially nervous as I’m quite self-conscious talking about myself, but Kelly quickly put me at ease, and I enjoyed the experience. For me, it’s been a great way to see progress quickly and it has changed my career completely. I had been in the same manager role for eight years, always getting very positive feedback but never having the confidence to progress further. So this has really helped me take the plunge and go for a more senior position which is outside my comfort zone for the first time in years!