Kevin shifted defensively in his seat as his new corporate life coach explained the brief he’d been given to work with Kevin. Kevin would have given anything to throw the man out of his office, but he had no choice but to suffer his presence.
Alaric had been appointed by the CEO herself to address concerns about Kevin that dramatically came to the fore in recent weeks as Kevin had increasingly employed more aggressive tactics to steamroll the leadership transition and stamp out any remaining influence of his predecessor, Gau. Following a contentious start to his working relationship with his new executive assistant Maisie, who had been deeply loyal to Gau, Maisie rallied much of the division’s leadership team to frustrate Kevin’s efforts to streamline and reassign portfolios. It culminated in the direct intervention of the company’s senior leadership after Maisie broke ranks and attempted to instigate a coup.
Fortunately for Kevin, the CEO had affirmed her decision to hire him for his impressive career track record, and Maisie had been reprimanded for fomenting rebellion in the ranks. However, the degree of resistance against her new hire convinced the CEO that Kevin couldn’t be completely trusted to take over such a large and complex team, and had mandated that Kevin undergo further leadership training to help him avoid losing control of his team again so spectacularly in the future. And, despite the trouble Maisie had caused, the CEO had encouraged her to stay at the company and put her initiative and tenacity to better use. The CEO had even tasked Kevin with ensuring the effectiveness and commitment of his direct report, despite their obvious initial dislike of each other. Was this a test?
“Are you paying attention?”
Kevin snapped out of his distracted frustrations to see Alaric smiling patiently at him.
“I can tell that you don’t want me to be here, and I’m guessing that you can’t stop thinking about everything that brought us both to this moment, right now.”
Kevin raised an eyebrow, curious. “And what about you? Do you really want to be here?”
“Don’t try and throw it back me. This isn’t about me, remember? This is about you. You can be as defensive as you want, but eventually you’re going to have to trust the process and commit to your own growth.”
Kevin scowled, “I’ve done great in my other companies. The only difference here is an old guard making trouble-”
“-Let me just stop you there,” Alaric interrupted. “Focus on the now, and the future you want to make. Stop clinging to the past. Maybe you did alright before, but can you truly honestly say it was 100% because of your abilities, and not that no-one had the guts to stand up to your drama until now?”
Kevin’s jaw dropped at the other man’s impertinence. “Now listen here,” he began, but Alaric held up a hand. “Look, I’m not saying that to upset you. But it is fact, or I wouldn’t have been hired to work with you. But I’m not really interested in all of that. I’m more interested in how defensive you became when I brought it up.”
Kevin shifted uncomfortably, not knowing how to respond.
“See this as an opportunity to adapt and evolve into your best self. But to do that, you need to free yourself not only from how you expect others to be, but also how you expect yourself to be, and also to free yourself from whatever it is you think your past entitles you to have, do or be.”
Seeing no other way out, Kevin surrendered.
Food for thought: How might trusting in the well-intentioned support of others help us move past our own self-limiting ideas of ourselves, even/especially if what they say strikes a nerve within us?
