Posts

Leadership Coaching at Academic Medical Center

/0 Comments/in /by

Case Study

Role: Senior Consultant (Leadership Coach)
Timeline: February 2024 – September 2025 (19 months)
Organization Size: ~50-person marketing department within academic medical center
Team: Coached 8 leaders from manager to director level

Challenge

A leading academic medical center’s marketing department was transitioning to agile ways of working while simultaneously facing significant organizational upheaval. Leaders struggled to maintain effectiveness amid cascading challenges:

Leadership Issues:

  • Leaders transitioning from peer to manager roles without clear frameworks
  • Managers operating reactively rather than strategically
  • Weak delegation practices creating bottlenecks and burnout
  • Imposter syndrome and low confidence limiting leadership presence

Organizational Dysfunction:

  • Teams not consistently delivering high-value, high-priority work
  • Infighting and distrust between team members
  • Poor cross-functional alignment and communication
  • Organizational reduction in force creating anxiety and uncertainty

Mandate: The AVP of Marketing brought CMG Consulting in to develop leaders who could champion agile practices and effectively lead their teams through transformation and uncertainty.

Approach

Phase 1: Foundation Building (Months 1-6)

Individual Leadership Development

Established coaching relationships with 8 leaders, focusing on self-awareness, leadership identity, and core management practices.

Key Interventions:

  • Built confidence addressing imposter syndrome and peer-to-manager transitions
  • Strengthened 1:1 meeting structure and effectiveness
  • Developed vulnerability-based leadership approaches
  • Increased assertiveness and executive presence

Outcomes:

  • Leaders gained clarity on leadership identity and role expectations
  • Improved delegation while maintaining high standards
  • Stronger tools for coaching direct reports through uncertainty

Phase 2: Strategic Leadership (Months 7-13)

Leading Through Complex Change

Coached leaders through a reduction in force and multiple high-stakes organizational changes while maintaining team morale and performance.

Change Management Challenge:

  • Organizational layoffs created fear and distrust across teams
  • Leaders needed to maintain steadiness while processing their own uncertainty
  • Website governance initiative required 9-month change management approach
  • Multiple competing priorities (Legacy Integration, PWR, Brand Refresh) demanded clear strategic focus

Implementation:

  • Developed people-first communication strategies for difficult announcements
  • Built frameworks for strategic planning vs. reactive problem-solving
  • Coached leaders to create and communicate clear vision through ambiguity
  • Established tools for advocacy and impact reporting

Results: Leaders maintained team stability and performance through significant upheaval, with one director successfully launching a governance initiative that gained senior leadership support.

Phase 3: Organizational Impact (Months 14-19)

Building Capability and Influence

Focused on expanding leaders’ organizational influence while developing their teams’ capabilities.

Key Developments:

  • Implemented GROW goals and OKRs to drive team alignment
  • Strengthened cross-functional partnerships and communication
  • Improved performance documentation and accountability practices
  • Developed coaching skills for addressing performance and interpersonal issues

Results: Leaders demonstrated measurable growth in strategic thinking, team development, and organizational influence.

Results

Leadership Capability

  • 8 leaders developed from reactive managers to strategic leaders
  • Improved delegation practices freeing up 20-30% of leader time
  • Enhanced coaching skills for developing direct reports
  • Increased confidence and executive presence across leadership team

Team Performance

  • Better alignment to high-priority work through OKR implementation
  • Reduced infighting through improved communication and role clarity
  • Stronger onboarding and role definition processes
  • More effective performance management and accountability

Organizational Impact

  • Successfully navigated reduction in force with minimal team disruption
  • Launched governance initiative with executive support
  • Strengthened cross-functional partnerships across university
  • Leaders contributing visibly to university-wide problem-solving

Cultural Shift

  • Moved from crisis management to strategic planning mindset
  • Built vulnerability-based leadership culture
  • Increased resilience and emotional intelligence across leadership team
  • Established people-first management practices

Constraints and Context

Organizational Turbulence: The coaching occurred during a period of significant uncertainty, including layoffs, reorganization, and merger of marketing with communications. This required constant adaptation of coaching priorities to immediate organizational needs.

Competing Priorities: Leaders managed multiple high-stakes initiatives simultaneously (Legacy Integration, PWR, Brand Refresh, website governance), making sustained focus on development challenging.

Agile Transition: The organization was learning agile practices while leaders were developing their leadership capabilities, requiring coaching on both fronts simultaneously.

Successful Transition: Engagement concluded as planned in September 2025 with leaders operating independently and organization entering sustainment phase.

Key Lessons

Leadership Identity First: Leaders couldn’t effectively adopt agile practices until they developed confidence in their core leadership identity. Addressing imposter syndrome and peer-to-manager transitions was essential groundwork for organizational transformation.

People-First Leadership in Crisis: Leaders who maintained empathy and steadiness during the reduction in force preserved team trust and performance. Vulnerability-based leadership proved more effective than traditional command-and-control approaches during upheaval.

Strategic Clarity Through Chaos: The most effective leaders created and repeatedly communicated clear vision, even when circumstances were uncertain. This practice anchored teams and reduced reactive behavior.

Delegation as Development: Teaching leaders to delegate intentionally both freed their time for strategic work and developed their direct reports’ capabilities. High standards and delegation aren’t mutually exclusive when approached thoughtfully.

I was the bottleneck (and I didn’t know it)

/0 Comments/in /by

When I was leading agile strategy for a scaling software company, I had a problem I couldn’t see. My team would complete work, and I’d redo it. They’d make decisions, and I’d second-guess them. They’d solve problems, and I’d explain why my approach was better.

I told myself I was maintaining quality. Being thorough. Ensuring excellence.

Really, I was burning myself out and undermining their work because they weren’t doing it my way.

The breaking point came when I realized I was headed for one of those “exhaustion” rehab situations you hear about with celebrities. Everything lived in my head. Every decision needed my approval. Every output needed my review. I was the bottleneck. And I’d built it myself.

The Uncomfortable Truth

When I finally figured out that the way my team did things was different from mine (and often more effective) it was deeply uncomfortable. Because it meant admitting something I didn’t want to face: I had been confusing my personal preferences with actual requirements for success. Their approach wasn’t wrong. It was just different. And different felt like wrong because I’d never separated “what must happen for this to be successful” from “how I personally do this.”

The Real Problem with “I’ll Know It When I See It”

  • When success criteria live only in your head, you become the mandatory filter for everything.
  • Your team can’t make decisions without you because they don’t know what you’re actually evaluating. They think you’re judging the work, but you’re really judging whether they did it your way.
  • This isn’t a delegation problem. It’s not a trust problem. It’s a clarity problem.
  • You can’t clone yourself until you separate what MUST happen from how YOU happen to do it.

Here’s the Framework

Non-negotiables = Must be true for success (these are requirements)

  • Strategic alignment to company goals
  • Delivery predictability
  • Quality standards that protect the customer

Your way = How you personally achieve those requirements (these are preferences)

  • Your specific planning process
  • Your communication style
  • Your method of organizing information

The trap = Treating your preferences as requirements

When I made this shift, something remarkable happened. I stopped being the quality control checkpoint and started focusing where my brain actually needed to be: long-term vision and strategy. The work still got done. Often better. Just differently.

The Self-Assessment

Ask yourself:

  • When you review someone’s work, what are you actually evaluating? The outcome or the method they used to get there?
  • If someone achieved the right result using a completely different approach than yours, would you be satisfied? Or would you want them to redo it your way?
  • Can you articulate your non-negotiables in 3-5 clear statements? Or do you default to “I’ll know it when I see it”?
  • Are you the bottleneck for decisions that don’t actually require your expertise? What percentage of your day is spent reviewing work vs. setting direction?
  • When you say “I can’t delegate this,” is it because only you CAN do it, or because only you know what “good” looks like?

If you’re struggling to answer these clearly, you’re probably confusing your preferences with requirements. Which means you’re the bottleneck.

The Way Forward

  • Define what winning looks like – the actual outcomes and non-negotiables – not how you personally win.
  • Document it. Share it. Let your team figure out their own path to get there.
  • It will feel uncomfortable. Their way will look different. That’s the point.
  • You’re not trying to clone yourself. You’re trying to clone the results.
  • And that only works when you know what results actually matter.