Coaching for Technical Leaders

Our workplaces are increasingly populated with subject matter and technical experts - many of whom never envisioned “people leadership” as part of their career path. Supporting the development of an extraordinary technical leader to become an equally adept people leader is best done in partnership with an external coach.

Technical leadership is knowledge and expertise-based, making it quite different than people leadership which requires emotional intelligence, comfort with ambiguity, the ability to influence and persuade, and the ability to build strong networks and relationships. A brilliant technical leader can feel quite uncertain when confronted with a new role where the focus is on driving results with and through people. Working with an executive coach can help the technical leader navigate this new territory, focus on the new leadership competencies they must develop, and distance themselves from their self-image as “expert.”

We assess your technical leaders, identify their strengths and areas for development, work with them and their executive stakeholders to set objectives, and set up a structure of ongoing meetings, real-time observations and feedback sessions such that they learn how to coach rather than tell, how to develop their team members and how to create successors such that there is more leader capacity in the overall system.