The following scenarios are drawn from our coaches’ real client interactions.

Defining Leadership for Herself

She sought a coach because she was curious about meeting her company’s expectations for rising leaders.  An established technical expert with a penchant for motivating and managing her peers in the IT services division of a large consulting firm, this client worked with a Fountain coach to uncover and asses the gap between the official messages she received about leadership and the behaviors she saw modeled in the people she personally admired.  After momentary perplexity about making sense out of the incongruity, she authored her own strong, simple creed that she could use to guide her own career choices in the future.

Navigating His Mothership

He sought a coach because he had recently returned to the headquarters of his government agency after a decade honing his skills in the field, and he felt a little lost.  In place of the clear job description he had long excelled at – out in the field, where it had been easy to connect his own actions with accomplishment of the mission – now he faced a labyrinth of organizational turf, sharp personalities, and bureaucratic approaches to programs whose likely impact he could not tangibly see.  This client worked with a Fountain coach to assess his most crucial relationships and to experiment with new approaches to accomplishing what was expected of him while also modeling the values he identified as being most important.

Outgrowing Her “Family” Business

She didn’t seek a coach – a Fountain coach was assigned to her without her consultation, so she figured she would make the most of it.  Plenty of stresses within the small business were gnawing at her: What role did the owner expect her to play now that he wanted to grow the company beyond the size and feel of a family?  This client worked with her Fountain coach to step back and notice how much more capable she was than her small environment was allowing her to be, and to plan to engage her colleagues in difficult conversations about what would have to change if she were to remain.

Discerning What She Was Willing to Sacrifice

She sought a coach because she wasn’t sure she wanted to take the next step from middle management to a senior executive role inside the intelligence community.  Clouding her judgment: A boss who bullied and whose negative example dissuaded her from walking the arduous and uncertain path to promotion that seemed to be required.  This government client worked with a Fountain coach to survive and confront bullying, to clarify the values and principles that she wanted to guide her if she chose to pursue the next level, and to identify the role courage would play in her future career.

Download our two-page brochure describing these real client stories and others here.