Coaching through the Leader’s Journey (Part 4)

The transition out of the organisation stage

As we know, a leader’s tenure in a senior role is often time limited. This can be due to poor business or other organisational results. Alternatively, it can be because they want to do something different with their lives, such as retire or take up a portfolio career.

Enter the coach

The coach is there to help the leader transition to the next stage with a clear idea as to how and where to focus their energy. The process is usually intensive at the start with sessions quite close together as it is important to ground some of the key issues, enabling the leader to take action. This type of coaching is often called transition, outplacement or retirement preparation.

The precise structure of the coaching process will depend on the leader’s needs and their clarity about their next steps. Elements typically include:

Making sense of the change

If the change is due to an unexpected redundancy or company reorganisation, the initial sessions will help come to terms with the situation and get to a place where the leader is ready to embark on the next stage, albeit a new executive role, a portfolio career, or retiring.

Aspirations/ambitions

The discussions could centre around what the leader wants to achieve in their life and how their professional experience can contribute to it. This could include specific roles/sectors the leader aspires to and what it will take to get there. Alternatively, it could include exploring significant changes of direction and the impact of doing so. For example, retirement and how they will make this interesting and enjoyable through developing existing hobbies, finding new ones or perhaps doing volunteer work.

Talents and style

Understanding the leader’s true talents through reviewing feedback, motivation and past successes. This might include reviewing past psychometrics or undertaking new ones. In the case of new roles, getting clarity on the environment in which the leader will be happiest and most successful

Basic needs

In the case of seeking new roles, the leader needs to be clear as to the minimum level of income required for it to be feasible and any restrictions on location etc.

Marketing and interviews

For the leader who wants to find another role/roles, the discussions will include the following:

• Constructing the story
• CV and Linked In preparation
• Building and accessing the network
• Practice interviews if necessary
• Exploration of opportunities
• Review of interviews
• Support in making the choice

The coach has a key role in this journey, as often the leader has been too busy in their executive career to reflect on the next stage in their life.

Our lives have many stages in them. To quote Lynda Gratton who wrote with Andrew Scott the book ‘The 100-year Life: Living and Working in an age of Longevity’

The transition we are all going through, every single one of us, is greater than the industrial revolution…..firstly, obviously huge technological changes mean that every single one of us will have to either upskill; do what we do differently, better; or reskill, find something completely different to do; and secondly , in living much longer, the three stages of education, work and retirement will be replaced by a multistage life with more transitions . We are in the midst of an extraordinary shift

(Lynda in a PWC podcast ‘The transition to the future of work’)