From Leader to Coach

Why I started a new chapter after retiring from Local Government.

I left Local Government a couple of months ago after 40 years’ service – I was incredibly young when I walked into my first job at Manchester City Council. I was so grateful to have a job in the city where I was born. I realise now how important it was to get on the ‘job ladder’ at an early age and I have never looked back since. My career in Local Government brought me purpose, friendships, and more challenges than I could hope for (or opportunities to gain experience).

There are moments in careers that we do not talk about enough, after you have built your experience, you have lead teams and delivered results – something shifts and you start to notice that your best energy comes from helping others to grow. That is when I decided to change and start a leadership and coaching business.

For years I had focused on performance, delivery and results and often neglected to think about people and their well-being and resilience – especially my own. As I look back over my career  there was a time, I was stuck in a role that I had been in for years and was ‘comfortably stuck’ so I did something dramatic and made a change, but it required me to step out of my comfort zone, take a pay cut and learn new skills – I call this time my ‘wildness’ years – unsure of myself, with imposter syndrome – it felt like walking on a tightrope – I could fall any time.

At this time, I asked myself why am I struggling to get to the next level? Where has my confidence gone? Why can I not thrive in what I am doing? – It was only when I asked for help (which I had never done before) that I got some of the answers that I needed – I got a coach and then I got a mentor – this transformed me both personally and professionally, to the point that I wanted to be a coach myself and the I got the ‘big’ job that I wanted.

Starting my new business wasn’t a snap decision, I had thought about it for years and I was starting to see recurring problems, as a Leader you are expected to have all the answers, but no time to think, you are expected to be a high performer but with limited or no support, and most organisations invest in strategy and plans (things)  and not behaviours and mindset (people).

So, my business is going to focus on helping people think and asking people to set the time aside to do that, get healthy challenge into the conversation, and support the person first, as everything else will follow. I’m not here to give advice or tell people what to do or have a quick motivational boost. I want to help people think more clearly, challenge assumptions and limiting beliefs, I want my interactions to be meaningful for people – because you deserve the attention.

What have I learnt along the way:

1. Keep things simple, clarity over complexity (get rid of the noise)

2. Confidence is misunderstood, lack of confidence is often unclear expectation, and

3. Leadership is lonely – let’s create a safe space to reflect on your leadership practice.

If you are a person who is new to leadership, if you are stuck or lack confidence in your role and you want to be more authentic, then I can help. If you are an organisation that wants to move into cultural change I can help.

The blogs I will be writing are a place for me to share my ideas, hopefully it will be a space for exploring the realities of leadership with practical insight and tools, and we can start to have more honest conversations about successes and failures in our careers. Great leaders are great listeners that develop the skills to create the best working environments for people.