António is the fictitious name of someone who used coaching methods to experience a new cycle of growth in his life.

Head of a business unit, having to regularly leave his family to travel abroad, find quick solutions in the name of excellent results and work with teams from different countries, there was little time left for other aspects of life that he also valued.

With the speed he exerted in his work and in delivering magnificent results, he reached his limit when he realised that he was creating not only big admirers but also strong critics. He equipped himself with tools that facilitated his agility in the analyses, which is fundamental to make the right decisions quickly and evaluate the work done by the teams, building a set of sharp questions that sometimes destroyed all their assumptions, having to recreate their strategies without much satisfaction.

After two years impassioned, with a track record of success in the results achieved, it seemed that he no longer had anything to learn and wanted something new, in his role or in another, also in team leadership.

More challenging than being a leader with hierarchical power, is being one without that power. He was recognised for maximum competence, but… he lacked being likeable, something he believed he should develop.

When he came to us, he had a point B to reach… How can I communicate without destroying and still feel that I’m being myself? Is it possible to build what I want through coaching?

After a diagnosis, together we investigated his communication style, his core strengths, the diagram of relationships he established, associating them with the respective quality and degree of influence.

In his communication style, the tendency towards an assertive speech was evident and in situations where he did not see precision in what was presented to him, a more aggressive speech emerged.

His four main strengths were a strong tendency to feel motivated by new learning, to collect valuable information to make more robust decisions, to establish relationships in which bonds of trust can be deepened, and a natural talent in finding uniqueness in people. At the opposite end of his main strengths, he found what bored him.

From the relationship diagram, we realised that some deserved to be conquered.

After this initial work, we developed his journey in work sessions, until we reached point B. In addition to the initial diagnostic tools, we used other valuable techniques, so that António himself became aware of the way he used words and structured conversations. Due to his capacity to understand other people, he found that even when he chose assertiveness, it sounded like he was being harsh, due to the speed with which he answered (less than three seconds after the other person finished their speech) and the tone of his voice, making him also see arrogance and antipathy when analysing himself (for the interested reader, see a study by Rose & Tyron, 1979).

So that he was able to continue to obtain results with joy and enthusiasm, we aligned his motivation for learning with the motivation for teaching everything he knew, furthering the development of each person who collaborated in each of his unique strengths, which was something he enjoyed and believed he was good at.

Marshall Rosenberg wrote: “Words are windows, or they’re walls” and it was windows that we built in those sessions!