Kami recognized that changes were coming, and she wanted her team to be positioned for them.
Customer Journey Series: Kami
This article is part of a customer journey series following “Kami,” a sales leader in pharma managing competitive changes and new leadership.
Her journey explores building leadership confidence, managing up, navigating organizational change, and positioning herself for the next level.
Each post explores a real coaching conversation or leadership challenge from that journey.
This is the first post in the series.
“Coaching is my investment in myself. I want to take leadership beyond reading books and TED talks.”
That’s how Kami came to me, wanting to find out more about leadership presence and speaking up at work.
Kami was a pharmaceutical sales leader, managing a remote team of nationwide salespeople. Even in our first sessions, I could see that Kami was thoughtful, self-reflective, and ambitious.
She was one of two managers in charge of nationwide sales, and the two of them worked together very well. A rising career professional in her mid-40s, she had two kids at home in elementary school. She liked being busy, which was a good thing because she had a lot on her plate.
“I grew up overseas. My dad, who was in business, moved around a lot. As a result, I went to three high schools. Growing up like that has made me very aware of people and culture, and I know how personality and environment can really be powerful forces.”
Kami was absolutely right. That kind of awareness is powerful. People with that awareness are more likely to tune into what other people need and to be able to encourage and inspire people in ways that people without it can’t.
Without that self-awareness, many people get caught up in their own ego and their own needs, which makes them less effective as leaders and teammates.
Kami had a lot going for her, and she was ambitious. She and her counterpart reported up to a VP named John. John was at the end of his career and was looking forward to retiring.
But he wasn’t retiring yet, and in fact, had been vague about a date, thinking maybe he’d work a few years more.
At that stage, John wasn’t as open to new ideas as Kami was. He had mentored Kami and was very good about giving her opportunities, but when she wanted to make changes, he always argued against it and said they were doing fine the way it is.
But looking ahead, Kami recognized that changes were coming, and she wanted her team to get ahead of them. For one thing, the patent was running out on their product next year and they would have to start competing with generics, which was a major change on the horizon.
Also, there was talk about going over the counter with their product, but John wouldn’t even discuss it. “We have strong sales now, why dilute our focus?” he would say.
Kami was genuinely grateful to John for his mentorship and also sometimes frustrated with his resistance to new ideas.
When I asked Kami about her goals, she was clear.
Building leadership confidence was Kami’s first coaching goal. Speaking up at work was a challenge for her. Sometimes she admitted that she held back ideas in meetings because she wasn’t sure she felt good enough to speak up.
Her second goal was to learn how to navigate complicated politics. She didn’t want to step on John’s toes, but she didn’t want to be held back either. She wanted to find a way to get visibility above him and position herself in the right way for when he retires. She didn’t want to have to compete with her counterpart for that position when the time came. Her goal was to be the VP of Sales within 5 years.
Her third goal was to learn more about leadership and what works. She wanted to be sure she was positioning her team for success and getting the most out of the people she was working with.
Looking back, I think Kami is one of the most self-aware clients I have had, and that was the foundation of her many successes as she moved forward over the next year or so. It didn’t take her much time to grow her leadership confidence and learn to speak up more effectively.
Kami’s Values
One of the first things I ask coaching clients to do is define their leadership values. Leadership values become a compass during difficult decisions and help leaders consistently show up the way they want to be remembered.
- Listening
- Empathy
- Alignment
- Authenticity
- Coaching approach
- Humility and Learning
You can read more about these values for Kami in Post 7 when it is published.
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