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

I'm a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who've hit 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 so that hopefully they can lead with a little

more ease. 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.

Today's guest is someone will call Chloe to protect her confidentiality.

She's worked across a number of different industries and geographies as she's pursued new professional opportunities and challenges.

And I thought, you know, this is a great opportunity to go from HR director,

which was kind of the level at which I was functioning into that C-suite role and grow it.

I ended up getting to help a couple of companies scale up to go from, say, the mom and pop,

up to, you know, larger corporate structure.

So everything seemed to fall into place.

But Chloe's most recent move wasn't quite what she had planned.

She just became owner of the company that she had joined due to unforeseen circumstances

that put the company at risk.

She's since then been working to stabilize the organization,

but she's not sure whether this level of leadership is really for her.

I guess here's the thing for me that I struggle with is

I don't have any aspirations to be leader of the free world.

I don't necessarily want to own a company, be the president,

be the CEO. I work in public sector, and I was a fabulous cog in the wheel. You know, I performed really

...