Imagine a state where you can get from big cities to big nature in less than half an hour,

with some of the best quality of life in the nation.

Welcome to Minnesota, America's least stressed state.

Learn more at exploreminnesota.com slash live.

HBR Presents.

I'm Uriel Wilkins, and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Presents

Network.

I'm a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who fit a bump in the road.

My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them.

I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show, we have a one-time

coaching meeting, focusing on a specific leadership challenge they're facing.

Chances are you haven't climbed to a leadership role at your organization without being pretty good at your job.

Today's guest is struggling at a pivotal transition period in her career, where she wants to keep moving up the ladder, but she isn't sure the message is coming across.

To protect confidentiality, we don't use real names on this show, so we'll refer to today's guest as Grace.

She leads a sales team in a pretty corporate environment and has had a number of different

roles at the company before rising to her current position as vice president.

She didn't intend to become a senior executive when she started her career, but it turns out

she's enjoyed it, and she's been really good at charting her own path.

I have kind of made my leadership run by almost being off-brand, you know, being a lone wolf, sort of

anti-culture, like I'm being very real, being very transparent, and I was very resistant to kind of the corporate

culture. And so I kind of got this reputation for, you know, she's not sort of the process

person who follows all the rules. But when we have a product and we need to go big, she's going to go

...