The Intermediary – July 2025 - Flipbook - Page 66
B RO K E R B U S I N E S S
Opinion
Change your life,
not yourself
A
er 20-plus years
of helping brilliant
people grow, here’s
my professional
opinion: most leaders
don’t need fixing
— they need permission to become
themselves. Coaching will change
your life, but if done well, it won’t
actually change you.
We spend much of our professional
life hearing feedback about what we
need to change, do more of, and aspire
to. My clients can always reel off their
weaknesses, their faults and their
mistakes, but can be much slower to
respond to the question, ‘what are you
like at your very best?’
When coaching, I have absolutely
no interest in what is perceived to be
‘wrong’ with you. I’m only interested
in your potential to be more fully
yourself. I work with leaders, from
the inside out. Once you have greater
understanding of what makes you
tick, you are beer positioned to
encourage, manage or lead someone
else especially when they are very
different from you as most people are,
even if you appointed them in your
own likeness.
My insights are derived from the
enormous cannon of work produced
by positive psychology. It may at times
sound like motherhood and apple pie –
and what exactly is wrong with either
of those things? – but the research
underpinnings are profound. Playing
to your strengths causes engagement,
which in turn contributes to success,
wellbeing, health and happiness. Who
would not want all that? Yet people
oen deviate far from the activities
that drive them.
So, I always start by establishing
strengths. I ask a client to reflect on
the last time they believed they were
performing at their best. I always
hope they talk about something that
happened yesterday, but all too oen
they reach back into their history. We
then go through and pick out every
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The Intermediary | July 2025
strength, from the blindingly obvious
to the seemingly trivial. They begin to
take pride in an achievement that they
previously took for granted.
We begin to build up a blueprint
of unique strengths. From there,
we can detect the paern that
shows us their five or six signature
strengths – characteristics which
run through them like a stick of
seaside rock. Then we examine how
much they are currently using each
strength professionally.
Job satisfaction
As people advance through their
careers, they risk finding themselves
increasingly distanced from their core
strengths. Seniority seems to demand
different skills from them. They fit
in, toe the party line and become
less authentically themselves. They
become concerned about minimising
error and not revealing their
weaknesses to the world.
As a result, work becomes less
engaging and satisfying. Research
tells us that for someone to be
engaged they must be able to use their
strengths, and that achieving ‘flow’
illustrates the level of engagement and
consequent satisfaction.
We oen have to explore ways of
using their strengths in novel ways
to enliven their careers. Sometimes
it’s a side project, and if all else fails,
taking up an activity outside of work
to activate their particular strengths.
For some, it means reconsidering their
career trajectory.
This scenario is different for
everyone. I have had a finance director
describe a state of near rapturous flow
while engaged in creating the perfect
spreadsheet. Another talked about
time standing still as they painted a
picture of the future in a presentation
to the whole company.
You are much more likely to get into
that desirable state of ‘flow’ when you
are using your signature strengths. In
flow, you can lose all sense of time as
AVERIL LEIMON
is co-founder
of White Water Group
you are caught up in an activity where
the challenge and your strengths are
perfectly aligned.
When faced with a new and
demanding situation, there is only
one fallback position – play to your
strengths. Because let’s face it, this
is all you’ve got. Through coaching,
we get back to establishing what
makes each individual unique, and
how they can be fully authentic at
work. We also look at how strengths
can sometimes get you into trouble,
especially if overused.
Working with a board of directors,
we did a ‘hot seat’ exercise where
people took turns to say what they
most admired and what they found
most difficult to deal with in the
other person. One chap was proud of
his sense of humour, which he used
to great effect oen to defuse tricky
situations. In turn, his peers cited this
as the thing they found hardest to deal
with. It wasn’t a flaw. It was just that
sometimes even as they laughed, they
realised his rapier-like wit had, in fact,
maimed them.
Coaching isn’t about adding more.
It’s about removing the fear that
stops you showing up, debunking
the erroneous beliefs that suppress
your best self, and taking stock
and reigniting your passion for
what you do. ●
WA R N I N G , S I D E
E F F E C T S M AY I N C L U D E :
Stretching yourself by taking
on new projects that activate
those strengths.
Saying no to nonsense (politely).
Leing go of the Overthinking
Olympics.
Finally realising you are
your best self.
