Meet Transformative Leader Khloe

Summary

Khloe is a Transformative Leader dealing with internal and external reluctance. She was selected to build a new important department, but not everyone supported her. She needs to learn how to get all her stakeholders on her side while recruiting, hiring, and training a new team.

Imagine what it would feel like to 'fail' at your first leadership attempt. You are given an opportunity to build a new team for a new part of the business, and your first hire wasn't a good fit. It feels like your boss doesn't trust you. Do you try again, or do you decide to stay an individual contributor with no people responsibilities?

Meet Khloe. Her organization is currently going through a reorganization that has given her an exciting opportunity to build a new department. Some leaders in her organization believe in her because they gave her a critical role.

However, there's a lot of friction in how she shows up, and she wasn't confident in her ability to lead a team because of her previous attempt. In addition to that, she also has a family and wants to make sure she is present for her partner.

Khloe was dealing with various challenges, including:

Not being sure how to manage upwards and protect her people from unrealistic demands and expectations.
Struggling with setting boundaries and protecting her values.
Her manager's expectations of how she should be running her team.
How to manage experts and people with different perspectives.

What We Worked on Together & Results

Together we focused on cultivating her self-awareness, having difficult conversations, and setting boundaries. She created space to reflect and write out her strengths, gaps, and how she planned to share this information with her new team and boss, who had a different approach to leadership and management. She has also used this insight to help her get intentional and confident about how she wanted to lead. She built a strategy and felt prepared to support and guide her next employees. Now she has been able to grow her team and knows how to protect her time to ensure she is still around to cook dinner for her family.

Why Work With Akua

"I really felt drawn to Akua's energy. Not only that, but being [from a particular part of the world], I know sometimes my knowledge of diversity and sensitivity to others is different than what some of my [other] colleagues have. I feel that Akua will be a tough but fair and understanding coach. I also like that Akua has many tools in her toolbox so that I can continue learning even after our 1:1 sessions have been completed. I found that after talking with Akua, I could be open and honest but also practical in where I need to improve to be the best leader I can be in this moment now and going forward."