Finance Monthly - March 2023

from achieving their goals in life. They will better understand their emotions and develop strategies to manage them better. A coach will first work with the client to clearly articulate their primary goal for the coaching engagement. It could be to secure the promotion, be a better people manager, manage a career transition or manage stress and difficult relationships. Depending on the chosen goal, the coach will work with the client to progress towards the primary goal by taking small action steps in that direction. I often invite my clients to envision what it would look like to them when they have achieved their goals and how they feel about it. It’s to see the reality of their goals as clearly as their current situation. Once they have seen it, they will then be more motivated to work towards it. You don’t need to have all the answers now, just the motivation and desire to take that first step. How do you help them to see their introversion as a strength, and not a weakness? People often mistake introverted traits as shyness or a sense of aloofness. Introverts are not always shy and yes, it is common to know a shy introvert. Introverts tend to find their energy from within, thinking about things, contemplating all aspects of a particular situation, sitting with an idea and considering all angles before going forward with it. Introverts may also be more sensitive to the people around them and have a tendency to be more empathetic. They are naturally geared towards building strong one-to-one relationships and enjoy deep meaningful conversations. If you think of all these traits, these are definitely not signs of weakness. These traits are definitely needed in positions of leadership and authority. In reality, we are all human beings and cannot be fitted in a neat, nice wrapped package. Some introverts may appear more extroverted and even the most introverted of people can have moments of extroversion, especially when they are speaking about things that they are passionate about. How do you help introverts with their visibility in the workplace? A lot of the work that I do with introverted professionals is to help them develop strategies to be more visible in the workplace. It could be that the individual has been advised by his/her manager that in order to step up into a leadership role, the senior management needs to know him/her. It could be that the nature of the role requires this person to engagewith a lotmore stakeholders. The starting point is to understand the reason for the person to want to be more visible and to get really clear on this reason. This will be the anchor that the subsequent coaching conversations will be based on. A common example is that an employee has been asked to network more as her job requires her to interact with other people from various departments in the organisation. When she hears the word “networking”, it puts her off and she ends up feeling that it is a chore. At times, when she is pressured to go to a networking event, she either feels resentful or anxious and ends up having a miserable time. If we worked together in a coaching engagement, I will explore with her why she feels so negatively about networking. It may come up that she feels that networking is very transactional and Bus i ne s s & Economy Finance Monthly. 24

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