Before the coaching
The Luxembourg and Belgian part of the company were merged together and were now managed by the same regional management. With this new management also came new expectations and new ways of working.
One of those expectations was to create and implement a self-steering, bottom-up, improvement culture within the company.
That asked for a lot of attention, work and changes. Some of these changes and new focus points were completely new to me, and required a new form of leadership to be successful as a company and to meet the expectations of senior management as a leader.

The coaching experience
We have treated a lot of points. First to discover myself, later to identify my habits and leadership styles that didn't serve me anymore in the renewed organization. We did this by doing all kinds of practical experiments, and after reflecting upon them, we determined the impact of my behaviour on the functioning of the organization.
Once it was clear which behaviours and leadership styles actually hindered me more than helping me, it was time to address and change them. In order to change them, I had to know exactly what I really wanted to implement and what kind of collaboration I wanted to create with my team. That has led us to set up a "Why Statement" in which I expressed the true added value of my role within the company and the team, how I could live and work by staying close to my personal values, and how I could radiate that to my team.

The result
At the end of the coaching program, my team gave me a small Buddha figure as a gift and as a genuine appreciation for the changes I have made in my own behaviour and in our teamwork.
For myself, I've become more relaxed, better able to question and challenge the everyday situations, and I manage much more the personal development of each member of my team.
The changes in my behaviour result in more openness in the team, greater willingness to collaborate on cross-functional topics, and an atmosphere of continuous improvement.
AND, because I realise now how important it is to keep myself fresh and alert, I am able to deliver the same business results while going home earlier for almost every day!