Personal and Professional Development expands a coachee’s repertoire so that they can consciously choose to act differently from their ‘automated’ behaviour in their leadership role – if they so wish. Key is the deeper understanding of their patterns’ origins.

A 45-year old Senior Manager enjoys respect for his ingenuity to skilfully direct conflicting business parties toward compromise, like, for example, two regional departments with mutually exclusive interests in an international matrix structure. However, despite the unanimous appreciation for his leadership style, he doesn’t manage to get promoted to executive level. How comes?

Throughout eight coaching sessions, we explored the development of his current relationship competencies in order to honour his career thus far. We gained profound awareness of his family structure and the role he played therein: frequently persuading both his arguing parents to reconcile rather than withdrawing, he learnt from an early age to park his own emotional reactions and instead invest energy into other people’s well-being. He developed an outstanding ability to empathise, think from the other’s mindset, and actively listen, making him the popular colleague and supervisor he is today. Simultaneously, he might have unconsciously learnt through experience that he was not ‘allowed’ to act upon his own stances. It became quite plausible that as an adult leader, he exceled at appeasing other authorities, while exerting his own authority seemed to be out of bounds.

We succeeded at linking his currently felt limitations as a leader to what was deemed favourable behaviour in his upbringing so as to bring alternative strategies of action into his repertoire. His peers and supervisor reported on him having become more present with ideas and reservations in decision-making processes, thereby exerting expert authority and deepening trust in his leadership.