A successful millennial CEO felt overwhelmed and anxious in their position. To obtain a better understanding of why they were experiencing these feelings, we began with a complimentary session to discover what might have helped cause the crisis and suggest a successful path. After signing on to work together, the CEO took assessments to provide data on their leadership behaviors styles, and their emotional intelligence strengths and challenges. The senior management team also provided honest feedback on the organization, its challenges and the CEO’s potential growth edges. 

 

The results showed the CEO to have a high level of social entrepreneurship, a positive leadership influence of others, a mobile, energetic working style, and a natural tendency to resist organizational structure and systems. The CEO’s emotional intelligence results demonstrated strong abilities to understand and attend to the needs of others, but a tendency to ignore internal feelings of anxiety and stress. The executive team seconded this which led to the organization feeling chaotic and out of control at times, despite everyone’s commitment to its mission. 

 

The CEO and I addressed their leadership styles first by building on their strengths with new learnings, new skills, and new strategies to manage anxiety and stress. Next, in strong collaboration with the executive team and the various departments, the CEO began to tackle meeting the current needs with much more flexibility, focusing on experimentation and weekly feedback. This included a website revamp, increased quality and frequency of the programs and services offered, upgraded tracking system for new and sustaining donors, and transitioning to a coaching model of supervision and management to empower the staff much more.

 

The solutions were easy and fun because all the staff and lay leaders became part of the solution. A year later, every system above was either new and working, or revamped and working. The CEO adapted a more efficient and fulfilling leadership style in which staff members felt empowered to bring up challenges and solutions, and plans for making them come to life. The CEO also began practicing mindfulness, took up a spiritual discipline and, with my guidance, created a better work/life balance.