Executive Coaching

- Transition to the Board

The Scenario

A Top 20 European Law Firm launched its new strategy, which led to a number of boardroom changes.  Gordon Cooper Associates were approached to provide an executive coaching programme for a new board member who was pondering a number of challenges.

• His appointment meant that he had moved to the Executive Board for the first time and wanted to make a positive contribution as a new board member
• Success in the role relied on his capabilities to engage a broad range of partners across sectors and service lines.  Some were aligned to the new vision and some were unsupportive.  The leader needed to demonstrated a broad range of influencing skills to achieve a coordinated and sustained approach to market

Our Approach

We first identified an executive coach who quickly generated great chemistry with the leader. After initial scoping discussions we then proposed a coaching programme to focus on specific objectives. The coach asked the leader to complete a number of carefully selected psychometrics and 360 tools to gather information on his personal style and preferences.  This was fed back at the beginning of the programme to identify his overall impact on others in a range of different circumstances, together with a comprehensive analysis of his current strengths and weaknesses as a leader.   The coaching programme consisted of 6 sessions taken over a 9-month period.  Each session built on the previous with the leader experimenting with his leadership and influencing capabilities between sessions.  He also learnt how to manage his learning effectively in order to ground the changes in long lasting behavioural change.

The Results

Feedback from the leader has been extremely positive.  He has gained significant insights into his own behaviour, discovered where and when to use a range of influencing styles and has become a more flexible leader.  During the course of the programme, the client also needed to grapple with other considerable change affecting the firm.  In doing this, the leader disclosed to his coach that he has found having an independent confidential sounding board to be invaluable in developing his ability to manage the enormous changes occurring for himself and the firm.  He learnt about how to manage organisational change whilst developing an authentic leadership style, which engages large groups.