About Richard Black Coaching
I work primarily with senior leaders across the Caribbean, and selectively with leaders elsewhere, who have done well, earned trust and taken on bigger roles, only to find that some of the ways they have always led are no longer working quite as well.
The role may carry more responsibility. More people are watching. Decisions carry greater consequences.
Pressure changes how we lead.
We may step in too quickly, hold on too tightly, avoid a conversation we know we need to have, or stay closer to the detail than the role requires.
Pressure can change relationships too.
You may find yourself more guarded with a CEO or defensive with a board. You may trust your team less than you used to, or become frustrated that people are not taking enough ownership.
Sometimes the relationship itself becomes part of the problem.
Before becoming a coach, I spent more than 40 years in leadership across oil and gas, consulting, commercial banking and credit union leadership, working in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
At one point, I was leading across 15 countries. I learned fairly quickly that I couldn't carry every issue myself or be the person making every important decision.
I also learned to ask myself a harder question when something was not working:
What was I contributing to it?
That question has stayed with me.
It's also part of how I work with leaders now.
Coaching gives us somewhere to examine what happens when the pressure rises. Where do you step in? What do you hold on to? Which conversations are you putting of? What happens to your judgement when a relationship becomes difficult?
And perhaps most importantly: what part are you playing in a situation you want to change?
For one leader, the issue may be carrying too much because letting go feels risky. For another, it may be stepping in so often that the team has learned to wait. Sometimes it is a strained relationship or a need to prove yourself in a role you have already earned.
Once you can see the pattern, you have more choice about what you do next.
That might mean leaving a decision with someone instead of taking it back. Having the conversation you have been postponing. Giving someone room to own a problem without rescuing them too early.
The aim is not to become a different kind of person.
It is to notice when an old response is getting in the way of the leader the role now needs.
I work mainly with senior leaders and executives operating across the Caribbean who are dealing with that kind of transition.
If something here sounds familiar, send me a note.
We can start with the situation that keeps taking more of your attention than it should.