I'm Ariel 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 Anna to protect her confidentiality.

She's been in her current industry for less than 10 years after making a notable career pivot.

I'd sort of been doing boutiquey work and sort of non-corporate, you know, really small scale,

small business scale work.

But I'd had a lot of exposure to working with people and other businesses and other industries that were in these pretty large, interesting structures.

And what I wanted to do is work in a central service

and watch a whole lot of people do their jobs

and figure out which one I wanted.

I started on a temporary contract as an administrator

and have sort of worked my way up.

And it's happened really, really quickly.

Like I really found a discipline that I loved and hit my stride.

You know, I spend my weekends and evenings listening to podcasts about it.

And I just, it's been a, I've been a real duck toward it.

Anna had a lot of success in this new field relatively quickly.

...