Coach Spotlight: Nikka Santos

Human resilience is amazing to behold. It’s fascinating how we are able to bounce back from adversity, keep going through the hardships and pain—and not just survive, but thrive–using adversity as a catalyst for growth and transformation.

For Nikka Santos, a former broadcast journalist and self-confessed recovering perfectionist-workaholic, it was her own journey towards developing resilience that led to this fascination with the psychology of resilience and success. This is the fascination that led her to leadership coaching.

One of the graduates of the Certified Executive Coach training program of the Center for Executive Coaching in partnership with Coaching for Exponential Leadership (COEXL), Nikka coaches because she has experienced firsthand how doing inner work and taking responsibility for her own growth and healing has changed her life. This is something she hopes to support in her children and others. “We were all meant to be leaders,” she says, “but it is up to us to choose to become leaders. It is up to us to act as leaders. When we master ourselves, we are able to master our environments, even if what’s around us isn’t ideal.”

Her first coaching program was designed for teens and young adults. She wanted to be the adult who doesn’t just tell you “You’re wrong and here’s what to do,” but someone who listens and coaches you–curious about your unique strengths, identity and ideas.

She has since expanded to coaching leaders in corporations and public sector organizations, including the Netherlands Embassy in Manila. As a Care Coach for BetterUp, she focuses on mental well-being and emotional agility for?peak performance. BetterUp’s customers include organizations like NASA, Google, Salesforce, Chevron, Accenture, and The US Air Force.

Nikka is also a coach and workshop facilitator for Kaizen Leadership Asia (KLA). KLA is a team of professional coaches and consultants who partner with multinationals in Southeast Asia to accelerate innovation and productivity. Through her work with KLA, Nikka helps lead transformative change in organizations across the region.

In this blog interview, we put the spotlight on Coach Nikka. Read on to learn about her journey from broadcast journalism, mental health struggles, and parenthood to coaching, how to choose a coaching training program and how she helps her clients unlock their potential to become leaders in their own right.

Tell us about yourself:? What do you do? What drives you? What is your mission in life?

I believe we were all born leaders, but we must choose to act as leaders. My purpose is to help people make that choice, to help them become the kind of leader they were naturally meant to be.?

What are you passionate about? What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I love spending time with my husband, 2 kids and our favorite child, our dachshund Bruno. We love traveling, movies, music, books, eating and eating well! My well-being practice includes taking meditative walks, dancing, yoga and making sure to spend time with friends and colleagues just to laugh and talk about life or geek out about work.

What led you to wanting to be a coach? What do you like most about coaching??

While I grew up with love and support, my upbringing was quite dysfunctional. I carried a lot of baggage from that - like perfectionism and feeling unworthy. In my 20s I worked as a broadcast journalist, and here I became a workaholic, burning out until I got diagnosed with anxiety and manic depression (these days they call it bipolar disorder). I survived all that and eventually thrived with help from psychiatrists. Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy saved my life! And to think at first, I had to be forced to seek therapy by my boyfriend (now husband) and a dear uncle. Since then, psychology became a fascination. The science of resilience. Eventually, the science of human success.

When I became a mother, I started immersing myself in positive psychology and best practices around raising children. Again, the psychology of resilience and success. I wanted to give my children a better life. I wanted to break unhealthy patterns from our family history. One day, I stumbled upon the book "The Optimistic Child." The title grabbed me because that was the complete opposite of what I was for many years. When I was feeling that another tragedy was around the corner, so I had to be perfect and hyper-vigilant, planning 10 steps ahead all the time. Anxiety is exhausting!

Turns out, “The Optimistic Child” was written by Dr. Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology--the pioneer in using psychology for reaching our highest human potential and happiness, not just for treating mental illness. I consider that book to be pivotal in my philosophy as a parent and human being!

Lo and behold, last year I became a coach for BetterUp (the world's biggest human transformation platform) and leading our Science Board is none other than Dr. Seligman himself. Now I have the privilege of learning from him even more as a coach. Dr. Seligman himself practices coaching as a modality, apart from clinical psychology.

So, in a nutshell, I became a coach because doing inner work, taking responsibility for my own growth and healing has saved my life. Self-leadership first before leading others. This is something I hope to support in my children and others. Making people realize and use their unique blend of leadership powers is my little contribution to making the world a better place. That's why I called my first coaching program: The Future Leaders Program.

What has your life been like after you got certified??

My first coaching program was designed for teens and twenties because I wanted to be the adult that I wish had around growing up. Someone who doesn't tell you you're wrong, here's what to do, without even listening to you or trying to understand who you are.? Young people learn and grow better when there are people around them who are curious about their unique strengths and ideas.

My young clients are still there, (I love Gen Zs!)? but I have since expanded to coaching leaders in corporations and government organizations. Last year, one of my longest engagements was working with the Netherlands Embassy in Manila--conducting group coaching and leadership workshops for the entire embassy with my partner Coach Andrea See. We will continue to support their leaders this year with coaching. They were quite happy with our work that we have been asked to do leadership coaching for some of their stakeholders who are poised to get Dutch technical training. They recognize that for learning to happen, the right mindsets and communication practices must be in place.

I am also a Care Coach for BetterUp, where I coach for mental well-being and emotional agility. Most of my clients are leaders from Australia, some are based in India. I can’t share exactly what companies my clients come from, but I can say?that some of BetterUp's customers include organizations like NASA, Google, Salesforce, Chevron, Accenture and The US Air Force.

I am also a coach and workshop facilitator for Kaizen Leadership Asia. Kaizen Leadership Asia (KLA) is a team of professional coaches and consultants who work with multinationals in Southeast Asia to accelerate innovation and productivity. KLA has discovered that combining Lean Management with Psychological Safety through coaching generates rapid and sustainable changes in team performance. Some of the organizations I have worked with thanks to KLA include ICTSI, Remote Staff, MARS, Odfjell Technology, The European Chamber of Commerce.

Can you share a specific example of how coaching has made a tangible difference in someone's life or career under your guidance? Did you have clients who experienced breakthroughs or positive outcomes through coaching??

I’ve had the privilege to see many leaders bloom! One breakthrough was a young client who was frustrated with their job and wanted to be given bigger responsibility and better pay. The initial coaching goal was how to find the next best job. I initially probed about key conversations they needed to have to gain clarity around making this move. Apparently, this client had not even spoken to their manager about what they had wanted! When they realized oh, let’s have that conversation first, the client’s manager eventually gave the client what they had been hoping for. The rest of the coaching revolved around communicating more effectively–and becoming more confident initiating difficult conversations.

In another organization, a key leader was so frustrated with their top leadership. This client had been there for decades, growing in expertise but eventually feeling stifled in the role. Eventually, that client made the choice of leaving that position, the comfort of it all, and is now working in another company. Through coaching support, the client realized growth meant going elsewhere. They realized that–that also doesn't mean staying angry and frustrated with their current boss. That client left on good terms, realizing that they had to be the one to reconsider their current position, and their own perception of other people's leadership styles.

Advice for Aspiring Coaches. What advice would you give to individuals aspiring to become executive coaches? Are there key principles or lessons you wish you had known when starting your coaching journey?

Go for a coach training program aligned with and accredited by the ICF. Coaching is an unregulated industry, unfortunately. It's so easy for people to slap on the label "coach" and get clients to pay them but not get any real value. I have seen people get fooled by so-called spiritual coaches or supposed gurus or coaches who simply don’t have the right training. It's tragic.

Fortunately, ICF provides global professional standards. I’m such a big believer in their ethics and core competencies.??

If you are committed to becoming a coach who can truly support others based on positive psychology, research and evolving best practices, the ICF provides the best ecosystem for Professional Coaches. That's why it is considered the world's gold standard in professional coaching.

How did?the Certified Executive Coach training program of the Center for Executive Coaching in partnership with Coaching for Exponential Leadership support you on your coaching journey? What did you appreciate most about the program??

The CEC program, through its partnership with Coaching for Exponential Leadership (COEXL) is a quality program that is aligned with ICF core competencies and ethics—which anchors the practice of the world’s best professional coaches.?

It?gave?me the?rigorous training and frameworks needed to become a coach and provided a clear pathway towards an ICF credential. I would not have been able to work with the global leaders I now support without this, especially now that more and more organizations require that the coaches they work with are credentialed by the ICF.??

The program has also given me a community of cohorts who I learn from and love collaborating with.

To learn more about Nikka Santos, visit www.nikkasantos.com.

The strongest leaders are forged in the fire of adversity. But it will take resilience and a journey of self-mastery to unlock that leadership potential inside us all. If you’re ready to empower others like Coach Nikka,?and guide others through this journey and help them transform challenges into triumphs, our executive coach training program is the first?great step!? Join us for our next executive coach training. Reach out to us today: https://bit.ly/GCECCPSCHOLARAPP or book a discovery call: bit.ly/COEXLDiscoveryCall