Maximising Leadership Potential: Performance, Productivity and Wellbeing.

COACHING INSIGHTS | Sandra Arena, CEO Gallant Collective.

These days, 'professional coaching' for leaders is everywhere. With so many frameworks, methodologies, and individuals offering leadership coaching, it can be hard to discern what truly works. However coaching advice often comes from those who may lack the experience of being in your shoes - understanding the challenges, pressures, and complexities you face daily in balancing deliverables across pillars of operations, finance and people.

As someone who has led highly engaged and successful teams and worked extensively with individuals and groups to achieve measurable and meaningful high performance, I wanted to share my perspective. Coaching isn’t just about offering motivation - it’s about equipping people with practical tools, alignment, and clarity to help them thrive.

One framework that has consistently delivered transformative results is CliftonStrengths. Unlike many approaches, CliftonStrengths focuses on amplifying what you already do well. It’s a strengths-based approach that helps unlock potential, achieve peak productivity, and foster both personal and professional wellbeing.

At its core, CliftonStrengths is about shifting focus: instead of focusing on improving weaknesses, it helps identify, develop, and amplify your unique strengths. This shift creates a positive foundation for growth, unlocking capabilities that are both sustainable and impactful for individuals and teams.

By understanding and leveraging your unique talents, you can:

• Perform at your best by aligning tasks with natural abilities.
• Increase productivity by focusing on what energises you.
• Enhance wellbeing by reducing friction and aligning your work with what feels purposeful.

High Performance starts with Self Awareness

Understanding your natural talents and what makes you thrive

CliftonStrengths identifies your top talent themes, highlighting where your natural potential lies. For example:

• Someone with Focus thrives on clear goals and concentration, making them exceptional at cutting through distractions.
• Ideation individuals excel at generating creative solutions, turning challenges into opportunities.

By knowing these talents, you can focus your energy on what you naturally excel at, reducing effort while amplifying impact.

Building Synergistic Teams

Teams thrive when individuals bring complementary strengths to the table. For instance:

• A person with Strategic may plan the big picture, while someone with Arranger coordinates the moving pieces. This understanding fosters respect, collaboration, and collective success.

When the team has clarity about one another's skills and strengths and how best to leverage those, mutual success ensues! We've helped teams improve relationships, increase stakeholder engagement and accelerate results.

Measuring Meaningful Outcomes

By aligning strengths to team goals, progress becomes measurable and impactful. High performance isn’t abstract - it’s reflected in improved engagement, better results, and greater alignment between individual and organisational objectives.

Maximum Productivity requires intentional ways of working

Tailored Workflows

Your strengths shape how you approach tasks. CliftonStrengths helps you design workflows that suit you, for example:

• Those with Achiever can set daily task lists to stay motivated.
• Individuals with Communication might thrive in collaborative or presentation-focused settings.

Understanding what you need to thrive and planning your time and environment accordingly has significant impact on getting the most out of each day.

Daily Practices

Simple daily habits can amplify your strengths. Here are some approaches we've used with our clients:

• Bookmark the start and end of each week with calendar planning. Set times for deep work that are non negotiable and be realistic about time management (ie. allow preparation or commute times between meetings). You may want to apply methods like the Eisenhower Matrix.
• Limit meetings; be selective about what you personally invest your time in - determine whether the meeting is required or whether the content can be covered in a phone call or email. If you're not actively contributing, chances are you don't need to be there.
• Tackle your most critical or impactful tasks first ("Eat the frog"). Completing meaningful work early sets the tone for the rest of the day.
• Focus on one task at a time to maintain quality and efficiency - multitasking doesn't deliver best results.

Your Wellbeing matters most

When it comes to high performance, well-being is one critical but often overlooked aspect of leadership excellence.

When you operate within your strengths zone and lead by example, work becomes energising rather than depleting for the whole team, significantly reducing the risk of burnout for all. By operating at your best, you can communicate more effectively, resolve conflicts with ease, and build stronger, more authentic relationships.

If you’re curious about how our CliftonStrengths based coaching can transform your potential, or that of your team, I’d love to share more. At Gallant Collective, we’ve seen firsthand how the best leaders drive performance, productivity, and fulfilment.

The journey to measurable, meaningful success starts with understanding your strengths. Let’s work together to unlock your potential and create lasting impact!