HBR Presents

I'm Muriel 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'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.

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, who we'll call Selena, is a senior

level executive who is between jobs after negotiating a post-merger buyout

from her last company. She's in the midst of weighing different options for her next career move,

and in the process, she reflects on some of the challenges she faced in her previous leadership role.

The role that I had was the Executive the executive vice president for external affairs.

And I called myself the executive in charge of relationships.

I enjoyed being the person who built relationships for the organization internally and

externally.

And the challenge that I have is in doing that and in helping an organization be

more proximate and helping people understand how to engage and talk and build bridges,

that it is somehow looked upon in a diminished lower importance than some of the things that create revenue.

This played out in a number of ways in her last position, she says.

She recalls a specific interaction with one of her colleagues.

The most direct incident was a colleague up here. He was on the executive management team. He

literally told me in a meeting that I wasn't an executive. I spent too much time managing my people

and I wasn't an executive. You know, the other executive managers

were at the table and everybody was aghast and I saw my CEO about to say something and I literally

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