In the C-Suite, you can’t sit back and hope your direct reports have the courage to critique you to your face. You have to lead the narrative.

Don't wait for your team to tell you how you're doing. Tell your team where the organization is going, and invite them to build that future with you.

A client recently came to a session with an anxiety level of ten out of ten. By the time she arrived at our coaching session, she had already spent an hour talking to a therapist about the accident. Yet, she still felt like she was, in her words, “surviving but not thriving.”

"Let’s address that anxiety," I said.

When my clients tell me how they spin out in anxious rumination or freeze up without speaking up in large meetings -- I know it ain't because they haven't tried hard enough.

Now that things are slowing down and she has bandwidth… it feels very uncomfortable.

Like people don’t have confidence in her (otherwise, why would they withhold more work from her?).

Here’s how I coached my client.

I used to be a high-strung, high-anxiety high-achiever who was convinced she wasn't achieving fast enough.

Got downtime on the job? I must be doing something wrong.

Got hired at a hedge fund? My job can't possibly be safe, because I don't know enough.

Annie, a Corporate Development Director, shifted from feeling stuck in the “weeds” to “wowing” the decision-makers. She set SMART career goals, devised strategies to overcome obstacles, and articulated her vision to senior leadership. Her story can be yours, too.