CEO Coaching Stories – From Local CEO to Global CEO

Edition:?May 2022

Note: In this series I’m sharing excerpts from executive coaching programs with CEOs. Details of the coachees and their organization have been significantly changed to maintain strict confidentiality.?

Why Coaching?

“I don’t get it: My organization produces some of the best results within our group and yet, when the discussion about the successor to the Global CEO comes up, I seem not to even be considered for that role. I’ve been working like crazy to achieve these outstanding results, and that’s how they thank me?”

Monita was quite agitated when she shared with me what the coaching would be about. She asked the global CHRO for advice how she could optimize her chances and that’s when executive coaching was recommended to her. When asked about what the CHRO thought about her prospects for a potential promotion, she responded:

“As usual, the CHRO was ambiguous and not clear at all, just mumbling something about executive presence and charisma. She reassured me that there is nothing wrong with my performance. In fact, she emphasized that my performance is highly appreciated by the global top management, but that top performance is not sufficient to get the top job. Duh, I knew that, of course, but why can’t they tell me bluntly what is lacking or what I can do to be the top choice for the job?”

I shared with Monita that her case is not unusual at all, and that the reaction from her CHRO and other members of the top management is also quite common. In my experience, in most cases they don’t try to hide anything, but that?

a)?????They have difficulties to actually pinpoint the issue and clearly articulate it;

b)????They want to avoid frustrating or even angering such top performers by being too blunt.

My job as her CEO coach is to help her pinpoint what needs to change and then support her in making necessary changes a reality.

Comprehensive Assessment

In order to assess Monita more accurately, I agreed with her and the CHRO that we would engage in the following activities:

• Harrison Assessments
• Offline 360 Degree Assessment, i.e. structured interviews with her boss, 4 peers and 4 direct reports
• Shadowing her in a number of different meetings with her team, with peers and with top management/board

Coaching Objectives

These activities allowed me to narrow down what exactly would need to change to optimize her chances for a promotion to Global CEO:

Self-Esteem:?While I received some feedback that she appears often as over-confident, bordering to arrogant, Harrison Assessments revealed that she had a fairly strong self-critical tendency, i.e. her Self-Improvement score was very high (9.4 out of 10) while her Self-Acceptance score was less than moderate (4.1 out of 10). It’s quite common that senior executives try to hide their lower self-esteem by appearing over-confident.

Optimism:??Her Harrison Assessments score for Optimistic was 5.4 out of 10 (the scale is 2 to 10) while her score for Analyses Pitfalls was very high (9.1 out of 10). That puts her into the ‘Skeptical’ quadrant. This was confirmed by numerous people giving consistent feedback that she often ‘kills ideas’ prematurely (in their view) and that she frustrates her team by frequently seeing the glass rather half empty than half full.

Emotional Self-Management:?I got some indicators in the interviews that Monita appears to be extremely impatient and gets easily upset when things don’t go the way she anticipated. While this high level of impatience leads to a very strong drive to achieve, it also makes people around her jittery and somewhat scared of her. I could also see that ‘in action’ in a couple of meetings I observed. I noticed that when she got impatient, she didn’t let others finish their sentences and also used an imposing body language that made her conversation partners visibly uncomfortable and pressurized.

I asked for Monita’s permission to share these findings in confidence with the CHRO (we both thought it’s better not share them with the Global CEO) so that I could get a better understanding of what is expected from Monita in these aspects. I.e. I wanted to know what level would be good enough for Monita to become a serious candidate for the Global CEO role.

The CHRO shared with me that the current Global CEO started a corporate culture project soon after he was appointed to this role. He found that the culture in the company was too competitive and that effective collaboration on all levels was increasingly critical for the company to succeed in the longer run.

This was an important piece of information that helped Monita put my findings in perspective. So it became quite obvious that unless she significantly developed in these three areas, it would be very unlikely that she would be considered for the Global CEO role.

Applying the 'Mental Mastery Model'

I used the ‘Mental Mastery Model’ that I developed several years ago to support Monita in the development of these aspects. In short: what all 3 aspects have in common is that there are certain established ways of thinking (framing) that lead to lower self-esteem, pessimism and difficulties in effectively managing one’s emotions. For example, Dr. Martin Seligman’s research on optimism revealed that pessimism (or optimism for that matter) is the result of a certain explanatory style related to positive and negative events. First identifying the coachee’s style (through a dedicated optimism assessment) and then learning to reframe related events accordingly leads to a higher level of optimism over time.

It was great that we could leverage Monita’s high degree of willingness to self-improve. Like most top executives, she was also very diligent in executing the action plans she committed to in the sessions and we seemed to make great progress.?

At the same time, about two thirds into the coaching program, I conducted another assessment (a bit less extensive than the first assessment) to get a better sense of our progress. I interviewed a couple of key people and also observed two more meetings. The findings were very consistent:

• Monita’s very high level of drive and initiative has remained at the same level
• She appeared a bit more relaxed in meetings as well as more patient, especially when certain team members had difficulties to express themselves very concisely
• Overall, the stakeholders noted a more positive and forward-looking mindset

Since these new ways of thinking served her better not only career-wise, but also personally, she started to really enjoy this transformation. For me it is always a great sign of positive and lasting (!) change when the coachee enjoys the new way of being and behaving better than the old one. If that’s the case, it’s very unlikely they ‘go back’.

Charlie Lang is considered a Pioneer in Executive Coaching in Asia, with 20 years experience of coaching top executives in Asia-Pacific and beyond. Charlie is the author of 2 books and over 250 articles related to corporate culture, leadership and coaching. Charlie partners with CEOs with the purpose of achieving a meaningful transformation that benefit the CEOs, their team and their organization. In some cases, he also includes team coaching of his clients’ teams. His coaching style can be described as pragmatic, highly efficient, daring and intuitive.