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Music 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 Thomas to protect his confidentiality. He reached out because

he's been struggling with making the shift into a people

manager role. I didn't think that I would be in the position that I am today. I moved up pretty

quickly, which was surprising but also fun and motivating because I had gone through a lot of

rough periods in my life. All I do is work now. I put everything that I had into this job just so I could

prove to myself that I could be successful. It's something once I started noticing that there

was opportunities for advancement and things like that. So they gave me a team and I've just been

running with it and doing it the way I know how.

Thomas experienced a series of promotions in rapid succession and now supervises other supervisors,

some of whom are his former peers. And he's facing some challenges.

Because of all the promotions, it's just been one new responsibility after another.

...