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Are You an Emerging Leader Seeking Next Level of Growth?
Are you an ambitious mid-career professional in tech, STEM, or any high-paced culture? Do you long to make a meaningful, fulfilling impact? Many, like you, sometimes wonder what else they must do to propel themselves to the next level. Given that everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, we can’t scale ourselves just by working more hours. Our brain can’t stay productive like that anyway. So what can we do about it? Like the famous book title by Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here won’t take you there,” there is something else that will prepare us for the next level of growth. After coaching so many senior leaders,…
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Career satisfaction, Coaching, Happiness, Leadership, Self-leadership, Stress Management, Work-life integration, WorkLife balance
Foundation for Growth: Four Simple Practices Make My Clients Successful
People come to coaching for many reasons. Some want to lead a significant change management initiative, while others want to improve team productivity or develop leadership skills for the next promotion. Whatever the reason, one needs to create the foundation for growth to achieve these outward goals. These building blocks – mindfulness, intentional focus, reflection, and self-care – are essential for coaching success. 1. Mindfulness Mindfulness serves as the cornerstone of this foundation. In a world where we often operate on autopilot or react to external demands, we must pause and ground ourselves. By incorporating bite-sized mindfulness practices, my clients gain the capacity to observe their thoughts and emotions rather…
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Preparation, Not Luck: Pfizer’s “Moonshot” Lessons Applies to All Of Us
I’ve been diving back into the pages of “Moonshot – Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible” for the second time, and the narrative continues to captivate me, just as it did two years ago. I was amazed by how their clarity, simplification, and courageous actions prepared them for an otherwise impossible endeavor. Even though it is a story about a corporate giant achieving groundbreaking feats in the face of a global crisis, it is also relatable to our personal and professional lives. I took away these three main points from the story. 1. Clear Priority When CEO Albert Bourla took over, he gathered the top one thousand…
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Three Strategies That Reduced Stress for a Busy Executive
Sheela, a senior executive at a renowned Fortune 500 company, sought my coaching services to improve her quality of life. She said her demanding job was taking a toll on her. Early morning meetings disrupted her morning self-care routine, and recent layoffs added even more stress to her already crazy schedule. As a result, Sheela felt exhausted, overwhelmed, and helpless. Sheela’s story is all too common among high-achieving professionals. Running after work deliverables alone was no longer feeding her soul; she valued her relationships with her family, friends, and team. Balancing these different areas of her life became a challenge, but with coaching, Sheela could find a way to improve…
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Idea Dating: Tap Your Network for Clearer Insights
During a recent coaching session, my client Francis had an eye-opening moment. Despite consistently positive performance reviews, he no longer found satisfaction in his current role. When I asked what he wanted, he sighed and said he didn’t know exactly. However, he did have a clear image in mind: It entitled a broader scope, involving strategy and collaboration with a close-knit small group of passionate people. He thought he should look for job openings in small companies and interview. But the prospect didn’t encourage him at all. Shifting gears, I inquired about his past experiences with making changes. He mentioned that friends and former colleagues had been instrumental in sparking…
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Sustainable Success: The Multifaceted Journey Beyond Social Media Posts
It is the season of job promotions. I’ve been getting several such news through LinkedIn posts from my clients. However, these celebratory posts only scratch the surface of their entire journey. When we see things only from the outside through a social media post, we sometimes fail to grasp the totality of the story. We might even feel a little green with envy or bummed out because we’re comparing our everyday grind to someone else’s highlight reel. We just hit “Like” or write “Congratulations” and move on with our day. As their coach, when I see those announcements, I’m transported back to their journey’s inception, reflecting on the intentional efforts,…
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Redefine Success Through Embracing Imperfection and Cultivating Resilience
The other day, I had a conversation with a woman grappling with her career satisfaction. Despite her impressive credentials, which included a Ph.D. and valuable job experiences, she was not fulfilled. As she inquired about my own career transition, I shared an article I had written. To my surprise, she responded, “You were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time!” Her interpretation couldn’t be further from the truth. But it made me realize how often we perceive others’ lives as easier than our own. One of the reasons could be the prevailing culture of constant showcasing of our accomplishments and accolades, fearing that acknowledging our…
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Beyond “Fake it Till You Make it”: A More Authentic Approach To Building Confidence
During the early days of my coaching career, when I said, “I am a coach,” my facial expression didn’t match it. The truth was, I didn’t feel confident about my new identity. Internally, I still saw myself as a software professional who was transitioning into coaching. And, as you can probably guess, the advice I received at the time was to “just believe it.” However, after 13 years, I’m here to tell you that I recommend a different approach. Recently, I had the pleasure of working with a woman in her mid-30s, a software development manager at a startup. Let’s call her Jessica. She struggled to talk about her strengths…
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How a Small-Group Coaching Circle Helped Mid-Level Leaders Thrive
A recent Harvard Business Review article said, “The benefits of small-group coaching come from powerful learning interactions among leaders who aren’t on the same team but are roughly equal in experience and position, and the process can generate leadership development impacts that exceed what’s possible in one-on-one coaching.” Building upon this idea, last June, we launched the Tech Leads Coaching Circle for mid-level leaders and seasoned professionals in the tech industry to foster a supportive and collaborative learning environment. We were pleased to see that our initial cohort included a diverse range of professionals, including a few staff-level senior engineers, an engineering manager, a product manager, and a business leader with international experience, all bringing unique perspectives and expertise to…
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5 Strategies To Withstand Turbulent Times
The current economic crisis and the layoffs by major companies created anxiety among workers, even those who have not been directly affected. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s HR Chief wrote about a global human energy crisis saying that about half of the employees are burnt out. In addition, UN Secretary-General warned that the next pandemic will be about a mental health crisis. While economic downturns are not uncommon, it is beyond our control. Finding a new job or growing our business is not entirely up to us. But still, when we face a setback like job loss, it may feel personal, “there must be something wrong with me; it must be my fault.”…
