HR and L&D teams will often have plans in place to help new managers become equipped for the new responsibilities, but senior leaders are too often assumed fully equipped to succeed in their new role. Our Aziz Executive coach and emotional resilience specialist Carole Pemberton examines what HR can do to ensure a smooth transition. Read the full article in Personnel Today.
The ability to communicate, motivate and lead across cultural boundaries is paramount in today’s global marketplace. Exceptional interpersonal communication, curiosity and developed empathy, a readiness to adapt and a finely tuned ability to find “common ground” are the foundations for successful international leadership. Our specialist coaches work with your top team to develop a strategic and sensitive approach to dealing with cross-cultural issues.
VUCA is a useful thinking model about the systems and cultures that many top teams find themselves operating in. They are indeed more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The present VUCA environments require a development focus less on traditional leadership behavioural capabilities, to one focused more on developing more complex ‘thinking’ abilities and adaptive competencies. Our specialist coaches work alongside your senior leadership team to boost their agility, increase their self-awareness and comfort with ambiguity and develop a strategic mind set.
Our coaches work with senior teams through large scale business and cultural change programmes including major system implementations, cost reduction and business transformation programmes. They often facilitate a viral change process helping your top team to enhance its performance as a leadership team in a challenging and rapidly changing digital environment following a significant reorganisation. Enhancing their self-awareness, self-confidence, emotional intelligence, relational and leadership skills and their ability to hold constructive conversations enables top teams to become more innovative, creative and future-prepared.
Transitioning into a top team role requires executives who’ve been specialists to quickly turn into generalists who know enough about all functions. Not only do they need strong commercial and financial acumen but they must adopt a strategic mind-set, letting go of the details and empowering others to act by building a spirit of trust, sharing of information and collaboration. Our coaches have had successful corporate careers themselves – they can identify with the relevant leadership capabilities necessary to ensure you function as a high performing team.
Top teams are exposed to more pressure and complex situations; they inevitably have to deal with conflict within team relationships. Being able to resolve conflict whilst maintaining diversity is essential for any high performing team. Our specialist coaches work with your senior leadership team to identify what the conflict triggers are and provide the tools to resolve conflict and tension, ideally before they start.
Our specialist coaches work alongside your top team to increase an overall awareness of the changes required to create greater success. They specialise in coaching and developing top teams in large organisations facing rapid change, complexity and ambiguity. Typically they focus on driving transformational leadership to introduce cultural change from the top as well as helping senior leaders within top teams to adjust to career moves and strengthen their ability to influence with impact.
Successful senior leaders think beyond their function, business unit and division to generate integrated solutions. They share knowledge with colleagues, actively pursuing a joined up approach to business opportunities. When faced with competing demands or conflicting points of view they find shared ground and are quick to act on behaviour that is not collaborative. Our coaches work with your top team to promote team cohesion and build relationships to drive collaboration across boundaries and foster a sense of shared purpose and collective responsibility.
Having a clear vision and direction are critical to building a high performing business. Effective top teams challenge conventional thinking and articulate a clear, long-term vision that others are inspired and excited by. Our coaches work alongside your senior leaders to create this clarity and support them to adapt their plans when faced with rapid changes in the market so they are comfortable with ambiguity and risk.
Visionary leaders are tapping into the trend towards collaboration, whether that is cross-sector or amongst their leadership team or investors. Stakeholder cooperation improves business performance and clear stakeholder dialogues lead to successful shared value creation. Our coaches work alongside your top team to create and manage a stakeholder engagement strategy that adopts a sophisticated approach from brand and reputation management to negotiating with impact and influence, especially to senior stakeholders.
First impressions are lasting judgements. Create a powerful, memorable and successful image that will visually demonstrate your high profile, experience and potential in your chosen sector. Our coaches raise your confidence and profile by working with you to sharpen your image without taking away your own personal tastes and preferences. You will be able to hone your image for your audience on a daily basis and across the different cultures you may work in.
Breathing, mouth movement (articulation) and clarity (enunciation) are hugely important components of a good presentation, as is the use of your dynamic range, pauses and eye contact. Many of our clients are surprised how much difference spending time with our specialist vocal coaches makes to their overall delivery and frequently return for rehearsals.
The dynamics and subtleties of the performance-audience relationship are best observed through the practical performance skills used by actors and singers. Our specialist coaches provide tips and advice on your use of posture, body language, eye contact, breathing, voice and the way you inhibit the space. These can make a huge difference to the impact you have when presenting to an audience.
Whether you write reports and executive summaries, sales bids and proposals or customer-centred letters or emails, creating compelling and well-structured documents is a critical skill for any leader. When your writing is strong, it garners respect; people listen to what you have to say. Our coaches help you to structure your message effectively, choose the right style and tone to suit the reader, write clear and concise copy and proof read with accuracy.
Strengthening your personal leadership brand to become more authentic and impactful involves understanding how others see and value you. Our coaches help you position yourself by choosing your style of delivery and focus to convey a high status vocal, visual and verbal delivery whether on stage or around a Board room table. You’ll develop gravitas and be seen and remembered for the right reasons.
Leaders must be able to influence within a network of key stakeholders, both within the business and with business alliances. Our specialist coaches will empower you to influence upwards and adjust the way you communicate with different audiences. Once you have developed your tool kit for effective influencing, you’ll be more credible and compelling in the way you communicate and gain greater buy-in to your projects, bids and proposals.
Some conversations take significant courage on both sides. These could be conversations about a myriad of issues from performance, difficult behaviours and peer working problems to handling a complaint or an annoying personal habit. Our specialist coaches provide you with the techniques and confidence to have these types of conversations so you can improve the situation for you, the individual, your team and your business.
Having the skills to handle the media not only protects your reputation but boosts your credibility. Our media coaches work with large multinationals and government bodies around the world; they can show you how to get your message across, escape from a difficult corner and understand what makes journalists tick. Whether you’re expecting to be interviewed on radio or television, you will have the confidence needed to gain the maximum impact from any media opportunity.
Delivering a speech in front of a potentially hostile audience can be a daunting task for anyone. Our coaches will enable you to deliver positive, impassioned, audience focused messages, and to handle difficult responses within a public speaking arena. Using a range of communication techniques and styles, your personal delivery will be akin to that of a professional speaker.
Whether in a large auditorium with autocue or around a Board table, leaders need to be able to engage, inspire and influence their audience. You’ll be able to structure your message and deliver it with impact to a range of stakeholders including clients, potential investors, shareholders and colleagues.
A good story told well can cross all kinds of barriers, including cultural ones. They are a great resource for any business leader and for pitches. Our specialist coaches help you create, shape and relate excellent client stories. They cover the structure and mechanics of storytelling and show you how to connect the right story to the right client.
Many senior leaders are challenged to lead significant organisational change, often across multiple locations or globally, in response to, or in anticipation of, major changes in their environment or technology. Our coaches offer helpful resources and to inquire, encourage, support and challenge you to do what it takes to make the lasting and positive changes that you and your organisation want.
We face various forms of conflict, from a conflict of facts, interest, resources and procedure to a conflict of behaviour. Achieving mutual clarity, understanding and trust creates engagement and willingness and allows for progress. Our coaches support you during times of conflict by providing practical tips and advice to help you effectively respond to all types of conflict in the future.
Creating a leadership style that aligns with your personal values is key to becoming a successful leader. Our coaches can help you become a stronger leader, a more powerful agent of change, build your resilience and toughness or how effectively you respond in the face of challenges. Whatever your objectives, defining an authentic leadership style not only helps you raise your performance, it also helps you become noticed and can advance your career.
Strategic leadership roles require an element of becoming more ‘comfortable with the uncomfortable’ and dealing with greater levels of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). Our coaches work alongside you to develop a strong stance from which you can better influence others and more fully own and inhabit your leadership role. They also support your shift from technical expert to take a more generalist view, where knowledge is less important than building key relationships.
Our specialist career coaches have come from their own successful corporate careers. They know what it takes for you to make your next move. Whether they identify appropriate roles and help you position yourself, prepare for interview or help you secure a NED role, their aim is to enable you to achieve your full potential.
Whether returning from an extended break or becoming a new parent, our specialist coaches work with you before, during and after your leave from work. They can also prepare your line manager to support your return and manage expectations. Working with you to re-define your priorities and achieve your professional goals ensures a smooth transition back into the work place for you and your organisation.
Polishing your ability to influence raises the perception of your leadership brand and strengthens people, process and performance outcomes. In modern matrix-style structures, you can no longer rely on positional power to achieve your outcomes. Our coaches motivate leaders to communicate with authority and authenticity and use practical tools that drive ‘buy-in’ to achieve your results.
Stakeholder engagement and management is essential for any successful leader. It is a key part of corporate social responsibility and achieving the triple bottom line. Our coaches work with you to identify the needs and expectations of your most important stakeholders to ensure you collaborate with them and influence them effectively to achieve your goals.
Stepping up into a new role puts you in the spotlight. Our coaches support you to take charge of a new situation, achieve early credibility and cope with the pressures of intense change. They provide a sounding board for you to review your current environment and culture, assess the situation from your key stakeholders’ perspective, devise a First 90 Day plan and much more.
When new to role stakeholders often want to see immediate results. Your first few months are critical to making a good impression, asserting your credibility and making some early wins. Our coaches are supportive, challenging, enabling and pragmatic. They will work alongside you to help you prioritise your First 90 Day plan and enable you to ‘land with impact’, navigate the corridors and deliver some strategic wins that will place you firmly in the spotlight for the right reasons.
Many leaders at some point in their career have experienced the crippling impact of feeling that their successes are undeserved. In almost all cases, you are actually responsible for your success – landing a high-profile project or achieving a promotion, however your irrational thoughts can have a negative effect on your motivation and confidence levels. Our coaches work with you to develop your authentic leadership brand so you regain confidence and recognise your credibility within your team.
Coping with the increasing demands of a senior role can become an issue. Our expert coaches will work alongside you to support you to manage pressure, enhance resilience and wellbeing. You will be able to identify and challenge unhelpful beliefs, distance yourself from self-criticism and control your attitude and response.
