Author: Kevin Nourse, PhD

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Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching in Irvine

Being an executive or leader comes with its unique pressures and challenges. Therefore, it’s important to adopt strategies for self-improvement that recognize these demands and help you continue to thrive. Executive coaching is one such strategy that has been gaining popularity among leaders in Irvine looking for more effective ways to maximize their potential while propelling their careers toward success.

 

There are five ways we help our coaching clients: (1) accountability and support, (2) increased self-awareness, (3) developing new skills, (4) building better relationships, and (5) achieving and sustaining peak performance.

Accountability and Support

Executive coaching provides leaders with accountability and support they might not have otherwise. As certified coaches, we are objective and non-judgmental, allowing leaders to share their challenges and receive honest feedback. We also help leaders focus on their goals, providing support and encouragement – including challenging them to take action.

Increased Self-Awareness

One of the primary benefits of executive coaching is increased self-awareness. When our clients work with us, they better understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This awareness can be a powerful tool, as it helps leaders adjust their behaviors and make more informed decisions.

Developing New Skills

We help leaders develop new skills through coaching sessions and providing resources and tools for self-improvement. Whether it’s developing communication skills, navigating a setback, learning new strategies for conflict resolution, or managing stress and burnout, or recovering from a setback, we help leaders acquire the skills they need to succeed.

Building Better Relationships

Leadership is all about relationships, and executive coaching can help leaders build better relationships with their teams, colleagues, and stakeholders. We can help our clients improve their communication skills, understand different personality types and communication styles, and develop conflict resolution strategies. Leaders can create a more positive and productive work environment by building better relationships.

Achieving and Sustaining Peak Performance

Ultimately, executive coaching helps leaders achieve peak performance. By gaining self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and receiving accountability and support, leaders can reach their full potential and make a meaningful and sustained impact in their organization.

Executive coaching is a valuable resource for leaders in Irvine committed to improving their skills and maximizing their potential. By providing accountability and support, increasing self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and helping leaders achieve peak performance, executive coaching can significantly impact individual leaders and their organizations.

If you’re a senior executive or leader looking to improve your skills, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore a possible coaching relationship.

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Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching in Santa Barbara

Misaligned leadership teams waste time and effort
Misaligned leadership teams waste time and effort

Being an executive or leader comes with its unique pressures and challenges. Therefore, it’s important to adopt strategies for self-improvement that recognize these demands and help you continue to thrive. Executive coaching is one such strategy that has been gaining popularity among leaders in Santa Barbara looking for more effective ways to maximize their potential while propelling their careers toward success.

 

There are five ways we help our coaching clients: (1) accountability and support, (2) increased self-awareness, (3) developing new skills, (4) building better relationships, and (5) achieving and sustaining peak performance.

Accountability and Support

Executive coaching provides leaders with accountability and support they might not have otherwise. As certified coaches, we are objective and non-judgmental, allowing leaders to share their challenges and receive honest feedback. We also help leaders focus on their goals, providing support and encouragement – including challenging them to take action.

Increased Self-Awareness

One of the primary benefits of executive coaching is increased self-awareness. When our clients work with us, they better understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This awareness can be a powerful tool, as it helps leaders adjust their behaviors and make more informed decisions.

Developing New Skills

We help leaders develop new skills through coaching sessions and providing resources and tools for self-improvement. Whether it’s developing communication skills, navigating a setback, learning new strategies for conflict resolution, or managing stress and burnout, or recovering from a setback, we help leaders acquire the skills they need to succeed.

Building Better Relationships

Leadership is all about relationships, and executive coaching can help leaders build better relationships with their teams, colleagues, and stakeholders. We can help our clients improve their communication skills, understand different personality types and communication styles, and develop conflict resolution strategies. Leaders can create a more positive and productive work environment by building better relationships.

Achieving and Sustaining Peak Performance

Ultimately, executive coaching helps leaders achieve peak performance. By gaining self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and receiving accountability and support, leaders can reach their full potential and make a meaningful and sustained impact in their organization.

Executive coaching is a valuable resource for leaders in Santa Barbara committed to improving their skills and maximizing their potential. By providing accountability and support, increasing self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and helping leaders achieve peak performance, executive coaching can significantly impact individual leaders and their organizations.

If you’re a senior executive or leader looking to improve your skills, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore a possible coaching relationship.

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Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching in San Diego

Being an executive or leader comes with its unique pressures and challenges. Therefore, it’s important to adopt strategies for self-improvement that recognize these demands and help you continue to thrive. Executive coaching is one such strategy that has been gaining popularity among leaders in San Diego looking for more effective ways to maximize their potential while propelling their careers toward success.

 

There are five ways we help our coaching clients: (1) accountability and support, (2) increased self-awareness, (3) developing new skills, (4) building better relationships, and (5) achieving and sustaining peak performance.

Accountability and Support

Executive coaching provides leaders with accountability and support they might not have otherwise. As certified coaches, we are objective and non-judgmental, allowing leaders to share their challenges and receive honest feedback. We also help leaders focus on their goals, providing support and encouragement – including challenging them to take action.

Increased Self-Awareness

One of the primary benefits of executive coaching is increased self-awareness. When our clients work with us, they better understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This awareness can be a powerful tool, as it helps leaders adjust their behaviors and make more informed decisions.

Developing New Skills

We help leaders develop new skills through coaching sessions and providing resources and tools for self-improvement. Whether it’s developing communication skills, navigating a setback, learning new strategies for conflict resolution, or managing stress and burnout, or recovering from a setback, we help leaders acquire the skills they need to succeed.

Building Better Relationships

Leadership is all about relationships, and executive coaching can help leaders build better relationships with their teams, colleagues, and stakeholders. We can help our clients improve their communication skills, understand different personality types and communication styles, and develop conflict resolution strategies. Leaders can create a more positive and productive work environment by building better relationships.

Achieving and Sustaining Peak Performance

Ultimately, executive coaching helps leaders achieve peak performance. By gaining self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and receiving accountability and support, leaders can reach their full potential and make a meaningful and sustained impact in their organization.

Executive coaching is a valuable resource for leaders in San Diego committed to improving their skills and maximizing their potential. By providing accountability and support, increasing self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and helping leaders achieve peak performance, executive coaching can significantly impact individual leaders and their organizations.

If you’re a senior executive or leader looking to improve your skills, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore a possible coaching relationship.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching in San Bernardino

Being an executive or leader comes with its unique pressures and challenges. Therefore, it’s important to adopt strategies for self-improvement that recognize these demands and help you continue to thrive. Executive coaching is one such strategy that has been gaining popularity among leaders in San Bernardino looking for more effective ways to maximize their potential while propelling their careers toward success.

 

There are five ways we help our coaching clients: (1) accountability and support, (2) increased self-awareness, (3) developing new skills, (4) building better relationships, and (5) achieving and sustaining peak performance.

Accountability and Support

Executive coaching provides leaders with accountability and support they might not have otherwise. As certified coaches, we are objective and non-judgmental, allowing leaders to share their challenges and receive honest feedback. We also help leaders focus on their goals, providing support and encouragement – including challenging them to take action.

Increased Self-Awareness

One of the primary benefits of executive coaching is increased self-awareness. When our clients work with us, they better understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This awareness can be a powerful tool, as it helps leaders adjust their behaviors and make more informed decisions.

Developing New Skills

We help leaders develop new skills through coaching sessions and providing resources and tools for self-improvement. Whether it’s developing communication skills, navigating a setback, learning new strategies for conflict resolution, or managing stress and burnout, or recovering from a setback, we help leaders acquire the skills they need to succeed.

Building Better Relationships

Leadership is all about relationships, and executive coaching can help leaders build better relationships with their teams, colleagues, and stakeholders. We can help our clients improve their communication skills, understand different personality types and communication styles, and develop conflict resolution strategies. Leaders can create a more positive and productive work environment by building better relationships.

Achieving and Sustaining Peak Performance

Ultimately, executive coaching helps leaders achieve peak performance. By gaining self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and receiving accountability and support, leaders can reach their full potential and make a meaningful and sustained impact in their organization.

Executive coaching is a valuable resource for leaders in San Bernardino committed to improving their skills and maximizing their potential. By providing accountability and support, increasing self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and helping leaders achieve peak performance, executive coaching can significantly impact individual leaders and their organizations.

If you’re a senior executive or leader looking to improve your skills, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore a possible coaching relationship.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching in Los Angeles

strengths and weaknesses

Being an executive or leader comes with its unique pressures and challenges. Therefore, it’s important to adopt strategies for self-improvement that recognize these demands and help you continue to thrive. Executive coaching is one such strategy that has been gaining popularity among leaders in Los Angeles looking for more effective ways to maximize their potential while propelling their careers toward success.

 

There are five ways we help our coaching clients: (1) accountability and support, (2) increased self-awareness, (3) developing new skills, (4) building better relationships, and (5) achieving and sustaining peak performance.

Accountability and Support

Executive coaching provides leaders with accountability and support they might not have otherwise. As certified coaches, we are objective and non-judgmental, allowing leaders to share their challenges and receive honest feedback. We also help leaders focus on their goals, providing support and encouragement – including challenging them to take action.

Increased Self-Awareness

One of the primary benefits of executive coaching is increased self-awareness. When our clients work with us, they better understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. This awareness can be a powerful tool, as it helps leaders adjust their behaviors and make more informed decisions.

Developing New Skills

We help leaders develop new skills through coaching sessions and providing resources and tools for self-improvement. Whether it’s developing communication skills, navigating a setback, learning new strategies for conflict resolution, or managing stress and burnout, or recovering from a setback, we help leaders acquire the skills they need to succeed.

Building Better Relationships

Leadership is all about relationships, and executive coaching can help leaders build better relationships with their teams, colleagues, and stakeholders. We can help our clients improve their communication skills, understand different personality types and communication styles, and develop conflict resolution strategies. Leaders can create a more positive and productive work environment by building better relationships.

Achieving and Sustaining Peak Performance

Ultimately, executive coaching helps leaders achieve peak performance. By gaining self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and receiving accountability and support, leaders can reach their full potential and make a meaningful and sustained impact in their organization.

Executive coaching is a valuable resource for leaders in Los Angeles committed to improving their skills and maximizing their potential. By providing accountability and support, increasing self-awareness, developing new skills, building better relationships, and helping leaders achieve peak performance, executive coaching can significantly impact individual leaders and their organizations.

If you’re a senior executive or leader looking to improve your skills, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore a possible coaching relationship.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Coaching Case Study Executive Transition Coaching Healthcare Leadership Transition

Coaching Case Study: Newly Promoted COO

In this case study, I share my experience as an executive transition coach supporting a Chief Operations Officer (COO) and how I helped her prevent career derailment.

Susan is a recently promoted COO in a large healthcare system. Her boss promoted her to her first C-Suite position mainly based on her experience, technical brilliance, and ability to clean up operational challenges. However, the skills that helped her reach her dream job were different from the right skills to enable her to succeed. Struggling in her new role, she realized she needed more support than her CEO could provide, so she engaged me as her executive transition coach. 

Susan’s Perspective

Based on conversations with Susan and her direct reports and an assessment of her personality type, I began to make sense of the situation. She struggles in her new role because her people will not step up and take responsibility for their functional areas. Fiercely loyal to her boss Steve, she wants to improve her business results but is still trying to figure out how to do this with the team she inherited.

Nothing was changing despite her efforts to involve herself in the day-to-day functioning of her subordinates’ organizations. She was frustrated with her staff and refused to recognize them, believing they would slack off even more if she did this. More importantly, Susan was frustrated that her talent for fixing broken organizations used to be valued by her employer but is now frowned upon. She feels the rules changed on what constitutes effective behavior for leaders somewhere along the way, and nobody told her. Susan wonders whether it was a mistake to take on this role and has considered stepping back into her former position.

Coaching Assessment Discoveries

As an executive coach, I always collect information from both my client and key stakeholders as an initial attempt to clarify the focus of our work. I administered the Hogan Personality Assessment so Susan could discover her strengths, potential derailers under stress, and core values. Among her insights from Hogan:

  • Tendency to isolate herself, work alone, and avoid reaching out to others in the organization.
  • Conscientious about her work, but also reluctant to delegate
  • Set very high standards for herself and others
  • Under stress, would become very risk-averse, fail to innovate and become overly reliant on her boss’ approval before acting

The Hogan Assessment provided some valid hypotheses I could test through behavioral interviews with her key stakeholders. Her raters suggested she struggled with delegation, building collaborative relationships with her peers, and having high standards for her team but not communicating those standards to them. Her boss, Steve, also mentioned that she was too dependent on his approval at times before taking action to address critical priorities they had already discussed.

Coaching Approach and Strategies

Once we debriefed her feedback report, Susan decided to set three primary development goals:

  • Improve her capacity to delegate and coach her team
  • Build stronger collaborative relationships with her peers
  • Shift her approach to her role from doer to leader

Based on her goals, we explored several strategies in our coaching sessions:

  • Susan practiced delegation conversations with me as if I was one of her direct reports.
  • She developed a system for delegation including a way to track tasks such as due dates, assigned staff, and notes on their level of performance.
  • Committed to stress management practices such as mindfulness, exercise, and yoga.
  • Left her office more often to informally stop by colleagues and direct reports’ offices to chat and build relationships.
  • Gaining greater clarity from the CEO on goals in her new role for the next 3, 6 and 9 months.
  • Recognizing when she was overusing her strengths.

Coaching Engagement Outcomes

At the end of the six-month engagement, I collected some feedback from selected stakeholders about changes they noted in Susan’s leadership skills. Based on this feedback, Susan achieved most of her goals and shifted her reputation to a strategic leader. Her direct reports felt more engaged and supported by her, with greater clarity about her expectations. As a result, they were more willing to step up and take on additional responsibilities, freeing up more of Susan’s time to conduct strategic planning and proactive relationship-building with her boss and peers. 

Promotions can be a time of great excitement as leaders increase their compensation, achieve a new title, and expand their scope. However, given their greater visibility and heightened expectations at the C-Level, they may also present an opportunity for derailment. Executive transition coaching is one way to help new leaders adapt to their new role and thrive. 

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Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach specializing in helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com.

(c) 2023 Kevin Nourse

Categories
Executive Transition Coaching Healthcare Leadership Success Research Brief Transitions

Executive Transition Coaching: Recent Research

 A leader transition is a significant shift in a leader’s role due to a promotion, expansion of their role, or joining a new organization. One of the most critical factors impacting the success of a transition into a new organization is the ability of a leader to understand and adapt to the culture so that they can gain support for their efforts and achieve results quickly. Executive transition coaching can play a critical role in helping C-suite leaders integrate successfully into their new job and organizations, according to researchers McGill, Clarke, and Sheffield (2019).

Leadership Transition Study Design

The researchers conducted a qualitative study of six people receiving coaching to support their transition into C-suite roles within global corporations. In each interview, they explored participants’ new roles, experiences, and challenges at each transition stage, and the experience of being coached. The study participants were employed by financial services, media, retail, insurance, and food and beverage organizations.

Key Study Findings on Leadership Transitions

The researchers identify two major findings from their study:

  • Executives experienced substantial and unprecedented challenges, mainly as a result of interactions with others, including their boss, triggering a variety of emotions from confidence and elation to overwhelm and self-doubt.
  • Executive coaching helped research participants manage their frustrations, gain new perspectives, and solve problems in a safe space, leading to lasting, positive change.

Consistency of the Study Findings with Other Sources

These themes are consistent with my work as an executive transition coach working with healthcare and pharmaceutical leaders. For example, I recently coached a new healthcare leader who was formerly a full-time physician. The shift in her role and joining a new organization with a very bureaucratic culture were overwhelming and frustrating. We explored the need for her to adapt her leadership style in working with non-clinical colleagues, adapting to and learning from setbacks, and how to pick up on critical unwritten rules for communication. As a result, my client was more successful in her attempts to sell her ideas and enlist support from key stakeholders.

The study’s findings align with other researchers who have suggested the three most effective approaches to supporting leaders in transition, including executive transitions coaching, support from internal mentors, and a customized assimilation plan. In that regard, it truly takes a village to support the successful integration of a leader into a new role.

McGill, P, Clarke, P. and Sheffield, D. (2019). From “blind elation” to “oh my goodness, what have I gotten into” … Exploring the experience of executive coaching during leadership transitions into C-suite roles. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 17(1), pp. 3-18.

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Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive and team coach specializing in coaching newly hired or promoted executives successfully integrate into their role. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com.

(c) 2023 Kevin Nourse

 

Categories
Healthcare Leadership Development Team Effectiveness

Go to the Source: Underperforming Teams and Leader Behavior 

poor team effectiveness and the role of leadership team
One arrow moves the opposite direction than the others. Unique, think different, individuality, standing out from the crowd and choosing a different path in business and life concepts.
Leaders come to me in search of solutions to improve their underperforming teams, but they might need to realize that leadership team behavior can also be at the root of issues. In this blog, I explore a case study of a healthcare leader whose aversion to conflict and micromanagement habits were making it hard for her team to reach its full potential and provide strategies to improve team effectiveness.

Other relevant blogs include misaligned leadership teams and improving the impact of team-building efforts. 

Susan, a senior leader in a healthcare organization, brought me in as a coach to help improve the effectiveness of her leadership team. She decided that a team coaching engagement was the right solution to improve the team’s functioning, which struggled with unproductive conflict and a lack of collaboration. In particular, one of Susan’s direct reports, Barbara, was the source of many of the issues preventing team cooperation.

Assessing the Team

I began the engagement by collecting data from Susan, interviews with team members, the organizational engagement survey, and a written survey of team functioning. Some of the themes from my assessment included:
  • Susan confessed she was afraid to confront Barbara since she had so much tenure and strong alliances with senior leaders across the organization. She feared facing Barbara would cause her to quit, leaving Susan in a precarious situation with key division stakeholders.
  • Team members observed that they were generally okay except for their interactions with Barbara because of her unwillingness to collaborate and her defensive personality.
  • Team interviews and the engagement survey revealed that Susan experienced substantial negative impacts on her credibility and reputation since her team members wondered why she was not addressing the issue with Barbara.
  • The team’s culture was largely top-down, command-and-control oriented, providing relatively few opportunities for the team to provide input to influence key division priorities or raise challenging issues to Susan.
  • The team survey revealed that the team’s overall effectiveness was mediocre at best, and members struggled with conflict, either avoiding it or criticizing each other behind their backs.

Working with Barbara

I began by coaching Barbara to explore the assessment findings, especially the impacts of her top-down approach and the team impacts of her reluctance to confront Susan’s challenging behavior. We explored the shifts that would have to happen in her style to enable a genuinely high-performance, collaborative team. I challenged Barbara’s ungrounded assumptions that addressing Susan’s behavioral issues would immediately cause her to resign. In our coaching sessions, I assumed the role of Susan and invited her to practice delivering feedback to me so she could develop mastery in this skill. We continued this process until she felt ready to engage Barbara and address issues for the team.

Working with the Leadership Team

My work with the whole team began with a half-day retreat to debrief the assessment data, formulate a team vision and ground rules, and identify aspects of the team dynamic that needed improvement. We then conducted ongoing team coaching sessions every 3-4 weeks to continue the work that started in the retreat that included practical actions team members would take between sessions. I also coached Barbara after each session, inviting her to reflect on the team’s interactions and her behavior.
We explored several team issues: trust, communication, collaboration, alignment, and conflict. Each session consisted of an educational segment and a team-led discussion of a business issue, enabling me to observe team dynamics and share real-time observations. In one session, we used a conflict styles assessment to surface patterns for each team member on their strengths and weaknesses in navigating conflict. After several months, Barbara developed the courage to let go of her micro-managing tendencies and let the team meet with me separately to enable their capacity to self-manage and speak honestly with each other.

Outcomes

Before concluding the six-month engagement, I readministered the team survey to determine any perceived changes in team functioning. Among the most significant positive shifts:
  • 43% improvement in their ability to surface and navigate conflict
  • 26% improvement in their ability to trust and rely on each other
  • 23% improvement in alignment among team members
These outcomes align with author Patrick Lencioni’s work on team effectiveness, which suggests how trust among team members and the ability to surface and resolve conflict contribute to team alignment. I also noticed significant shifts among team members in their ability to surface challenging issues, respectfully pushing back on Barbara, and function more autonomously. Barbara was much more relaxed and engaging with the team, enabling the team to respond in kind.
 
Rarely is the cause of an underperforming team simply a result of the team members. The leadership team plays an integral role in influencing team behavior. Thus, successful team coaching engagements must include attention to the team leader as well as the interactions of the members.  

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Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching healthcare leaders and teams to help them succeed. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2023 Kevin Nourse
Categories
Leadership Teams Team Effectiveness

The Misaligned Leadership Team

Leadership team alignment is critical to achieve results

Do you ever feel like your leadership team is out of sync? Do you see some members thriving while others are struggling to keep up?

A misaligned leadership team can quickly become a significant issue when leading an effective organization. In this case study, we’ll look at how one leadership team overcame its challenges with fragmented and misaligned execution by creating greater alignment on successful outcomes and decision-making. Team coaching is a valuable strategy for helping leadership teams achieve enhanced performance by building greater trust, alignment, and collaboration. It differs from team building since the goal is to empower members of the team to develop the awareness and skills to manage their own team processes. This blog presents a case study of a client I recently worked with as a team coach.

 

Situational Background

The leadership team consisted of four leaders in the division of a small consulting company that was recently recognized they needed to meet the needs of their clients better, improve their profitability, and ensure the sustainability of their practice. The senior vice president and team leader enjoyed taking charge and was typically very personable, but tended to overpromise to clients and others and avoid conflict. The other three team members – vice presidents – were frustrated with not having a say in reorganizing their practice. Team members were so focused on delivering client projects that they ignored necessary team functions such as decision-making and communication. Finally, coming out of COVID and faced with challenges to improve their financial viability, the team struggled with diminished resilience.

Team Coaching Approach

For this engagement, I used a multiphase approach to assessing the current functioning of the team, partnering with the senior vice president to help him navigate the journey and coaching the team to develop critical teaming skills. 

Phase 1: Leadership team project kickoff

I started the project by developing a trusting partnership with the team leader. An essential part of any effective team intervention is sustainability once I wrap up as the team coach. Therefore, I explored the leadership strengths and weaknesses of the senior vice president by administering the Hogan Personality Assessment. Using an assessment tool, we identified skills he wanted to develop through the team coaching process.  

Phase 2: Leadership team assessment

I assessed the current realities faced by the leadership team with an electronic team survey to identify team strengths and weaknesses, interviewed each of the four leaders, and engaged lower-level managers to provide feedback about their collective effectiveness. I also attended a regularly-scheduled leadership team meeting to observe their interactions. 

Based on this assessment, I discovered several team strengths:

  • Members felt accepted
  • Viewed each other as being well-intentioned
  • Felt comfortable discussing challenging issues

Weaknesses as perceived by the team included:

  • Issues impacting their commitment include inequitable allocation of resources and overly drawn-out decision-making.  
  • Implementation factors such as a lack of alignment resulted in the fragmented execution of their strategic plans. 

Feedback from middle managers about the senior leadership team noted a need for more alignment on business practices and policies, a lack of clarity about their roles, and poorly managed meetings.

In analyzing the assessment results, I identified several themes impacting alignment: 

  • Ineffective communication, usually taking the form of talking at each other instead of listening
  • Unproductive leadership team meetings that rambled without a timed and prioritized agenda
  • Lots of discussions but no efforts to summarize agreements and action items
  • Team members get stuck on tactics but allocate little time to discuss and align on strategic priorities and plans

Phase 3: Leadership team kickoff retreat

I facilitated a kickoff retreat with the four leadership team members to debrief the assessment results, explore the elements of a high-functioning team, formulate a team vision, and clarify two goals for improving how they function as a team. This session also allowed me to observe how well they explored their challenges and navigated conflict.  

Phase 4: On-going leadership team coaching

The engagement included six two-hour leadership team coaching sessions. The team members and I jointly facilitated each session and invited each member to reflect on their progress and lessons learned in their journey. Most sessions involved team members exploring a business issue while I observed their interactions and provided real-time feedback. In several sessions, I invited them to experiment with new teaming behavior, such as giving feedback to each other. 

Phase 5: Leadership team post-assessment

After the engagement, I administered the same team survey I distributed in Phase 2 to collect additional feedback and determine any improvements. I also interviewed middle managers to assess their perceptions of progress in the functioning of the senior leadership team. In the final team session, we explored the post-assessment results, identified the next steps in their collective development, and celebrated the successes they achieved. 

Leadership Team Coaching Outcomes

Based on interviews with each team member and the pre-to post-survey, the team achieved several gains:

  • Increased trust due to developing skills in surfacing and navigating conflict, enhanced listening skills among team members, and achieving greater team results.
  • Increased alignment in several domains – overall direction, decision-making processes, and outcomes.
  • More synergy and discipline in executing their strategic plan.
  • Strengthened team management skills for each leader.

Finally, the quality and impact of their weekly meetings significantly improved due to greater clarity about their goals shared meeting management responsibilities, and the use of an agenda to stay on track. Middle managers noted similar improvements in the senior leadership team.

Team coaching can be a precious strategy for helping leadership teams achieve enhanced performance and increasing alignment. By building greater trust, alignment, and collaboration within the team, leaders can avoid many pitfalls that lead to fractured execution, inconsistency, unproductive conflict, and wasted efforts. 

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Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching leadership teams to help them succeed. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2022 Kevin Nourse

Categories
Executive Coaching Executive Transition Coaching Leadership Transition Onboarding Leaders

Executive Transition Coaching to Ensure New Leader Success

Ensuring that newly hired leaders succeed should be a top priority for any organization. Successful organizations use a comprehensive approach that includes executive transition coaching, a transition plan, and internal mentors. 

In previous blogs, I introduced the three key elements of a successful onboarding process and the ideal contents of a transition plan. This blog explores my executive transition coaching approach to helping new leaders succeed.

Month 1: Kickoff

It’s critical to start the coaching process soon after a new leader joins an organization to help accelerate their integration and prevent missteps that might derail them. This process includes:

  • Administer a suitable self-assessment for the new leader, such as the Hogan Personality assessment.
  • Conduct an initial session with the new leader to get acquainted, explore leadership strengths and weaknesses, and clarify our coaching agreement.
  • Support the new leader’s manager in creating a draft transition plan.
  • Conduct a job role assessment by interviewing key stakeholders to understand their expectations of the new leader and any advice they can provide on adapting to the organization’s culture.

Month 2-3: Ongoing Coaching

In this phase of executive transition coaching, I meet with a new leader every two weeks to coach them on challenges such as navigating the organization’s culture, building relationships, and creating momentum. Another big focus for this period is finding internal mentors and advocates they can rely on after the coaching engagement is complete. I also provide reference materials on navigating transitions such as The New Leader’s 100 Day Action Plan and The First 90 Days.

Month 4: 360-Degree Assessment

Once a new leader has been in their role for at least three months, I often conduct a 360-degree assessment. Ideally, this assessment surfaces any potential derailers observed by their raters early enough to prevent derailment. It is also tremendously helpful for new leaders to validate early wins and build their confidence in their capabilities. Once I debrief the assessment with the leader client, I will facilitate an alignment meeting with their boss. We then identify any development needs to help them achieve results quicker and update the transition plan.

Month 5-6: Ongoing Coaching

After the assessment, we continue ongoing executive transition coaching sessions every two weeks to build momentum in implementing the leader’s transition plan. 

Month 7: Wrap-up and Next Steps

In month 7, I conclude the executive transition coaching engagement with an abbreviated 360-degree assessment with a subset of the original raters. This assessment helps the leader internalize positive changes in their behavior and continue building confidence. We then conduct another alignment meeting with their boss to validate progress and identify the next steps in the coaching process. Some clients continue coaching, cutting back to once a month, while others ultimately end the coaching engagement.

Helping new leaders integrate into their roles is a critical focus for forward-thinking organizations. Executive transition coaching that addresses newly hired leaders’ unique challenges is a valuable way to help them thrive. 

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Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching leaders experiencing transitions to thrive in their new or expanded roles. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2022 Kevin Nourse