Embracing Uncertainty with Ease

Hello Again!

During the last six weeks, I could not post coaching stories as I was busy redesigning my website (launched end of march) and coaching a new cohort on my new leadership program, "Creating Winning Culture."

Today, I restarted my coaching stories with an exciting story about Vijay. I have known Vijay closely for a few years and admired him for his core technical abilities, eagerness to break boundaries, and constantly innovating. Vijay is a competent IT professional working for FAANG organization, Ex-Microsoft MVP, Author, Blogger, and Speaker. Vijay achieved all of these at a very young age.

When Vijay learned about my coaching program, he was ready to jump in as a similar model helped him become Microsoft MVP. Being around like-minded people accelerated his success. He wanted to achieve similar success in his leadership roles.

His accountability to grow in leadership is a self-imposed mandate that inspired me to coach him.

When I asked him for further details, he mentioned that his peers and colleagues considered him very good at the core technical aspects of his job. However, management is a new dimension for him as his talents in leadership are yet to be sharpened. The transition he wanted to make from individual contributor to team leader took much longer, primarily due to his self-doubt and interpersonal skills. Leading a team of people end to end is new to him; that is where his confidence needs to be built.

I have noticed that many coaching clients who are grown up in technology-centric careers and have deep technical abilities have high apprehension to swim in unknown terrain on leadership. This was different with Vijay.

Vijay understood this is an essential ingradient despite his strength in technology. I admire Vijay's eagerness to sharpen his management skills. Vijay was ready to master his leadership skills.

Vijay is a faster learner who wishes to meet the ends of his roles. To my surprise, Vijay had significant momentum in the rock-bed leadership areas for leadership success.

Vijay mastered skills around interpersonal communication and grew up from Individual contributor to managing teams in a relatively short window of time.

• Developing Courage –?The ability to take risks, the willingness to fail, and the eagerness/initiative to try new things.
• Handling Ambiguity –?Creating a mindset where one lets go of mental barriers of doubt and inhibition is significant, and Vijay developed comfort with handling uncontrollable.
• Interpersonal Relationships –?Vijay learned about adaptive communication. It helped him identify issues limiting him, and he stated that he saw significant improvement in his team discussions and conversations with colleagues/clients.
• Empathy and Curiosity – Understanding and appreciating the other person’s perspective helped create healthier relationships at work and home!
• Self-awareness - Vijay mentioned to me consistently that the most significant benefit he saw from our program was developing self-awareness, which helped kickstart his transformation. Understanding core strengths and becoming more self-aware of his areas of improvement

Conclusion

Relatability with other people in the group, far from being unique to him, when he learned that other more senior people facing similar leadership and interpersonal issues gave him enormous confidence to tackle his professional challenges.

This, in turn, improved his ability to take risks and handle uncertainty around with a better mindset. This has been a crucial benefit of the coaching program and has helped him professionally.

On top of everything, he mentioned, the availability of a trusted, comfortable where he could have open conversations made the most significant difference for him.

The icing is when Vijay mentioned that he enjoys his job even more with these improved skill sets.

I particularly enjoyed his honest feedback and acknowledgment that this is a powerful transformation journey. Vijay wants to keep this leadership journey a work in progress as it keeps him growing to new heights.