Cathy Liska Tom is a lawyer and wants to focus on developing his skills and professional identity. He also wants work/life balance. Tom is focused on the partnership track and realizes essential skills including dealing with different people, communication, and strategizing are needed. He hoped a senior partner would mentor him only to learn their schedules were too full to add mentoring time. Tom researched mentoring options for lawyers and saw websites offering coaching for lawyers. With coaching he would choose his own unique path to success while owning the results. With coaching’s positive, forward focus he would be able to move past his self-doubt and habit of focusing on the potential downsides to everything.
He was immediately pleased with the process once he hired an executive coach. His coach addressed his career goals as well as his personal goals to create balance. Tom set clear, measurable goals and then identified action steps to achieve each. He went from feeling helpless to feeling he was in charge and making it happen.
Because Tom’s coach had the very skills he had identified as important for himself, Tom asked about opportunities to learn the skills. His coach suggested Tom explore coach training to develop these and other related skills. As a result, Tom became a Certified Professional Coach and applied his skills on the job immediately.
Now Tom is celebrating his confidence and is on the fast-track for partnership. He has learned goal setting, people skills, communication techniques, and strategizing – all essential skills for leaders. Tom feels that had he been advised what to do his progress would have been much slower. Instead, coaching and coach training gave him a deeper level of learning.
