Coaching Across Borders

10 years 🎉 such a special anniversary for Coaching Across Borders! As I savor this beautiful milestone, I want to celebrate a key change we’ve contributed to: the rise of women leaders. 🎖 When I first entered the field of leadership 20 years ago (yes, another milestone!), I did get to coach remarkable women. They were already making their mark, but were few in number, often from the same nationality and culture as their company’s headquarters, and typically already close to the C-suite. Most of them fit in the « tough cookie » category - or whatever fighter type adjective was popular in their corporate environment at the time. Over the past decade, we’ve coached more and more women representing a much wider range of nationalities, origins, ages, and organizational levels. As for their leadership style, strengths, and personalities, *diverse* is the obvious qualifier that jumps to mind. So while we still have a long way to go in fully embracing the power of collective leadership, let’s not forget to rejoice at the road we’ve already traveled! ✨ 🎊 ✨ Rejoicing is definitely the right word as I remember our Women Leadership MIT cohort – such a diverse group, yet all deeply engaged and committed to moving forward. Thank you, Elsbeth Johnson, Fiona Murray and Jill McCullough for leading this high-powered week ! And thank you to all for so generously sharing your energy, your stories, your advice – you’ve been a highlight and a true symbol of this 10-year journey! 🌟 #LeadershipDevelopment #Anniversary #CoachingAcrossBorders #CelebratingMilestones #ExecutiveCoaching #TalentDevelopment #CollectiveLeadership

What are the most effective ways to develop leadership skills in emerging markets? I felt intrigued with LinkedIn’s invitation to contribute on a topic selected through AI and LinkedIn community-based criteria. The term "emerging markets" originated in the field of economics and finance to describe primarily non-Western countries in a process of rapid industrialization. While it gained traction in the 1980s and 1990s, it partly lost its relevance given the highly diverse and varied trajectories observed in these "emerging markets." As a result, high growth has remained the only common denominator of these markets. So... does it still make sense to reflect on leadership challenges through this prism?   As a matter of fact, while high growth remains the holy grail most corporations strive for, it does bring recurring leadership challenges we have addressed over the years.   💎 At its root, strategy is your gameplan to win. How robust will that plan really be if market demand is high? How ambitious and differentiated will your customer value proposition be? High growth can easily encourage a form of complacency that gets in the way of long-term sustainable success – whether for yourself, your organization or your ecosystem. As a leader, coaching can help you be more intentional in exercising your strategic thinking skills with discipline and rigor to accelerate your development towards sustainable leadership.   💎 Another trap that comes with high growth relates to the quality of the leadership bench you will build. With so many opportunities, the pressure of recruiting and promoting – how wise versus opportunistic will your talent decisions be? Will you pay as much attention to the capacity of your emerging leaders to deliver as to the way they get results?   However, who you reward in the organization will influence both its culture and your capacity to build true collective leadership. Validate self-focused or even toxic performers, and you’re planting the seeds for a dysfunctional future. As a space where you take a step back to put your decisions in perspective and welcome more complexity in a productive way, coaching can keep you on your toes.   💎 These are just a few examples of the leadership challenges brought about by growth – and we haven’t even talked about the relationship to headquarters, another key challenge for international Executives. Serving as the key interface between markets and HQs, Executives can feel pressured to take sides. Coaching offers a confidential, reflective space where these pressures and conflicting interests can be put on hold and reconsidered. This allows leaders to re-enter the corporate arena recharged and with a different gameplan, ready to stretch for more ambitious solutions that will benefit all parties.   🌏 What else has helped you hone your leadership skills in high growth situations? #sustainableleadership #collectiveleadership #ecosystemleadership #leadershipdevelopment #executivecoaching