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Plus: It's not what you think — and it's not really about employees. Years ago, I was one of several coaches assigned to individual members of an executive team, while another coach worked with the team as a whole. What surfaced fast: no one on that team fully trusted their CEO to be consistent — or to actually stand behind the ideas he'd championed the week before. Underneath that, something worse: the executives didn't know how to build trust with each other. The CEO, witho

Years ago, I coached a brilliant SVP through a C-suite opening she'd been passed over for. No one had told her why — just that she wasn't ready. So we ran a 360: her boss, her peers, her direct reports, people who'd worked with her for years. The pattern was unanimous. She worked too much. She didn't delegate. She stayed quiet in the room rather than speaking up to the organization when it counted. The last one didn't surprise her — she knew she feared the stage. But the othe

Most high-achieving leaders hit the same wall. Not gradually. Not gently. It shows up as a blunt, uncomfortable realization: “I feel like a shadow of myself.” When I first heard a client say this, I knew there was a lot going on in their world. What they didn’t know is I had just had another client say something very similar - even with global clients. If this messaging hits close to home, this is for you. You're not the only leader who's said it — even if the only place

The Altitude Effect is what happens to leaders as they rise — the higher you climb, the harder it becomes to see yourself clearly, and the fewer people around you will tell you the truth.