Your tiny shift can move a mountain
You are the pivot: when you shift, so does everything around you.
Time and time again, I hear feedback like this from leaders who have worked with me for at least three months:
CEO: “When I outsourced the work and stepped back, new leads flooded in to put us on track to 2x revenue.”
Head of Engineering: “Talking less worked. My CEO boss now asks me for my opinion, and he’s giving me budget for more headcount. Our 1:1s are actually productive. I’m going to stick around.”
Director: “My VP isn’t as frustrating now that I assert my beliefs. She even gave me a compliment today, and advocated for my idea with another team.”
Nearly everyone who comes into executive coaching names at least one dynamic at work that’s keeping them stuck in a certain business stage, mindset, or emotion.
A leadership habit, or a co-worker relationship, that feels impossible to reset.
Through coaching, leaders discover that they have much more control over their experience than it seems. They come to realize that THEY are the pivot. That when they make a shift, the things around them shift, too.
Ok, you got me: I just introduced another definition of a pivot. Here, the pivot is the leader, the center point on which a system rotates.
A pivot is also a fundamental shift centered in truth, as defined in our first post.
So what’s the work we did to get the outcomes above? We identified a single, fundamental shift the leader needed to make to see the results they wanted.
In these examples, that shift was a behavior the leader could change that didn’t depend on anyone or anything else shifting first.
A shift that may have seemed small to an outsider, but wasn’t small at all. Because breaking out of a default mode takes intention and trust that the effort will be worth it on the other side.
Who else shifted when the leaders chose to shift?
The CEO’s Staff: His staff across functions felt relief that he was letting go of day-to-day execution to focus on the future. They stepped up to fill in the gaps, feeling more empowered in their roles while he started to look long-term.
The Engineer’s CEO: When the engineer chose to listen more than talk, it created moments of silence with the CEO that propelled the CEO into self-reflection. Facing the void, the CEO started to see what he was contributing to the tense dynamic, and how his tendencies were hurting others, too.
The Director’s Executives: Her assertive VP slowly started to respect the director’s newfound assertiveness. Others noticed the shift, including the C-suite. The director was invited to C-level tables to influence the organization’s biggest decisions, which then changed as a result of her input.
You can be a pivot.
I've helped numerous leaders shift impossible dynamics for the better.
If you want to see if your impossible dynamic has potential to improve, email me at info@coachingwithfarah.com and we can chat.