Executive Coaching - A Guide For The HR Professional.pdf

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Maria’s Story
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Maria was a systems designer who advanced to a role requiring her
to manage the redesign of a major portion of her company’s
customer-related software. Her work involved upgrading the
company’s area of competitive advantage. She worked with all major
internal users as well as customers and contractors. She met her
coach when she was about thirty-six years old.
Her story is a good example of how a sensitive manager can help
an employee with timely coaching. In retrospect, a number of coachable
“issues” were present in Maria’s life at that time:
• A new role in a very ambiguous environment, in a fast-paced
financial organization
• A transfer from London to the U.S., with little or no social support
available either at work or personally
• Her history of rapid advancement but without feedback or clarity
about her strengths or limitations
Maria rightly identifies the issue of cultural differences that she
(and everyone else) underestimated. This was true for a woman moving
from one English-speaking environment to another and who had
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