Coach Me! Your Personal Board of Directors

24 Establishing Overwhelming Presence as a Managing Director

Takahiro Honda

Mr. Honda is an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC). He has coached corporate executives in more than 2,500 hours of sessions, and he has conducted training in companies more than 2,000 times. Mr. Honda mainly contributes to leadership improvement and human resource development for SoftBank Corp, Panasonic Corporation, Nisshin Food Products Co. Ltd, The Prudential Life Insurance Company of Japan Ltd, etc.

Mr. Inoue is a managing director of a major real estate company with abundant experiences and excellent track records. On the other hand, the president of the company questioned his management as it seems the one by an “Expert General Manager” rather than by a Managing Director. In other words, he is operating at a level below that of his title. The president had hoped Mr. Inoue to get out from the micromanagement to his people, have a bird’s eye viewpoint, and achieve large business results suitable for a Managing Director. Thus, the president had requested me to coach Mr. Inoue, who sincerely accepted this as an “opportunity to change himself.” We were able to build a good relationship from the first session, which allowed Mr. Inoue to speak out his real intention.

While we were working on six sessions in total, 90 minutes each, the following four issues were revealed:

1. A low sense of self-esteem
2. Unwilling to provide recognition to his subordinates
3. Lacking an ideal image while finding a comfort zone of ...