42 A Leader’s Courage for a Team’s Success
Oleg Konovalov
Dr. Oleg Konovalov is a global thought leader, author, business educator, consultant, and C-suite coach. He is named among the top eight global experts in leadership and shortlisted for the Distinguished Award in Leadership by Thinkers50 2021. He is on Global Gurus Top 30 in Leadership, has been recognized as #1 Global Thought Leader on Culture by Thinkers 360, and is #1 Global Leading Coach (Marshall Goldsmith Thinkers50).
I was almost a half-way through a training program on leadership and corporate culture with the executives of a medium-sized software company, when I realized something felt wrong. That feeling became stronger with every team coaching session.
It felt like a well-sponsored football team that is afraid to win. Such a team is afraid of itself more than that, anything could change the status quo.
“The big guys shouldn’t be paying much attention to us”, “We have a great product, but nothing to celebrate yet”, “It is out of our ‘league’”, or similar thoughts were prevalent. “We are not ready for big goals yet” – was the striking statement from a Senior Vice President.
I went for a chat with a CEO, who appeared to be the main source of that fear, who said, “we should not take a risk and grow as it goes.” As a result, the company was not performing to its full capacity. They were even afraid to think about the creation of a strong vision that would drive their company to success. Their growth was limited ...
Get Coach Me! Your Personal Board of Directors now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
