A retail chief financial officer has successfully refocused her communication with board members and shop floor colleagues through a 100-day leadership coaching programme with Mandala Leaders.

She has come out of her shell and assumed board-level decisions for the franchise. More than that, she intervenes more effectively in staff disagreements and motivates colleagues with greater insight and conviction. This career breakthrough came through one-one-one coaching sessions with Mandala Leaders that placed the emphasis firmly on her to take responsibility - for both the way she was perceived and stepping up to board-level operations.

Can a fixer be a strategic thinker?

An executive assuming a leadership role coming from a purely accounting background can face some surprising and delicate hurdles. After helping build profitable operations at a London retail franchise, a female chief financial officer wanted to take on board responsibilities. Despite her lasting contribution to the...

After a period of frustration and anxiety with his role, a senior management consultant at a ‘Big Four’ company’s international development division, refocused on his career priorities with support from Mandala Leaders. Through intensive coaching sessions, the executive has reappraised his job and his ambitions.

Instead of pushing him towards a plan, Mandala Leaders helped him to make his own top-to-bottom appraisal of his role and communications with colleagues while evaluating the wider impacts for government clients and citizens of his career developing national health care programmes.

The challenge

Effective leadership coaching must gain a clear picture of the current state of play before seeking to make changes. A senior director of international development at a Big Four management consultancy has refocused on his career priorities with support from Mandala Leaders, a consultancy dedicated to transforming the life of an individual and the communities they...

We recently asked leaders to gift their wisdom to support a growing community of purpose led leaders. The five key findings show a growing need for investment in time, removal of personal blockages, greater clarity and developing authenticity.

Leaders also told us that sharing their new wisdom is becoming increasing important to help inspire others to follow a similar path.

1. The amount of time leaders spend on their personal development was surprising.

More than half of the leaders tell us that they plan to spend more than a week each year on their own personal development. However only one quarter of the leaders make commitments for certain development opportunities with the majority responding to ad-hoc opportunities.

A useful definition of personal development is spending time reflecting on oneself and learning more about what core beliefs you have and from where these have developed. Then it’s about understanding better how they show up in your life. Personal development...

This is always going to be a challenge for businesses small and large as the traditional recruitment process is simply broken. There is a hybrid model available at the moment split between recruiters and the DIY model and neither has a great track record of delivering consistently great leaders for the average sized business in the UK.

Even the PLC recruiters get it wrong sometimes – then it’s a scandal but its always the board who made the final decision who carry the can and the recruitment firm avoid the spotlight. The current model gives you two options:

1. Go to a recruitment consultant and pay £50K for the privilege for them to do the job.
2. Try and Do It Yourself (DIY) where you have a smaller population to reach but have to do all the hard work yourself.

I have a lot of friends who are estate agents. Any they aren’t everyone’s best friend. But what? Isn’t this about recruitment? That’s true but I know full well when I talk to an estate...

It's important to know how you are performing. There is only one way to improve and that is to know where you are today, have a goal and work towards it. I rate my performance out of 10 and ask my clients to rate me at the end of each meeting, project or workshop. I aim to deliver at a 9/10 or higher. I set my bar high.

What’s your score?   1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10

Did you score 1–4? There are serious issues at play. However, let me invite you to think about it this way: what was your performance last time?  Have you improved or gone backwards? What's really going on. Are you feeling passionate about what you are doing? Maybe it's wort revisiting this with your client and asking for more detailed feedback. Sometimes you may have delivered well but left them feeling bad so that is...