Career Coaching: Despair
Career Coaching: Despair — A client came to me saying these words:
I despise the senior leadership team. What do I do?
.
She was distressed
.
She had worked with the organisation for well over two decades.
.
She had risen from a Saturday girl to a really senior position.
.
A new CEO had joined. The culture had changed. She had been struggling with this for some years – witnessing as all the ‘people orientation’ disappeared in favour of the exclusively financial metrics of the FD. The culture was transformed.
.
I had no agenda regarding her decision as to what to do about this. I had no attachment as to whether she stayed to make good or left to go somewhere more fulfilling. My agenda was her well-being and her happiness in her work.
.
Career Coaching: Despair
She left. She’s content in her new role – once again, she gets to play with people, build teams, gain enhancement, and get the job done.
.
Any organisation that is leaking talent that has been loyal for over two decades needs to look at how its culture is going — This is an organisation that I can guarantee will no longer exist in five years. Put profit over people, and you WILL lose this race.
.
What do you do about the senior management team? Realistically, unless you are the CEO, the one thing you really need to do is take care of yourself. And ONLY once you have done this will you be able to make a good decision on whether you stay and work to influence the culture or whether you go and have influence elsewhere.