Executive Alignment Through Coaching in a Transforming Organisation
The Situation
During a critical phase of digital transformation, friction emerged between two senior executives, one leading technology and the other responsible for commercial and brand strategy. While both were aligned on outcomes, they approached delivery and prioritisation from different perspectives. Misalignment risked slowing progress on member facing initiatives and diluting leadership clarity.
The Task
I was engaged to support both executives through 1:1 and joint coaching. The goal was to improve mutual understanding, reduce cross functional tension and strengthen collaboration to support delivery of strategic outcomes.
The Action / Approach
To enable alignment and reduce friction, I focused on building shared perspective and collaborative leadership through subtle, high trust coaching:
- Held individual coaching sessions to explore underlying values, drivers and assumptions
- Applied models such as ladder of inference and competing commitments to shift fixed thinking and uncover hidden blockers
- Facilitate joint conversations to map overlaps in strategic intent and clarify where dependencies required shared ownership
- Created space for both leaders to reframe their communication styles and strategic language
- Encouraged alignment on what future state success looked like from customer experience to platform capability
- Supported clearer messaging and leadership cohesion across their respective functions.
The Result
The coaching created momentum, clarity and trust between the two leaders, with measurable cultural and delivery benefits:
- Strengthened cross functional decision making and reduced delivery friction
- Increased strategic cohesion visible to reams and the wider business
- Created a more unified leadership voice around digital transformation and member value
- Improved confidence in delivery targets due to better alignment of technology and commercial goals
- Reduced misinterpretation and siloed thinking across their departments
- Reinforced shared ownership of transformation outcomes without requiring escalation or intervention
- Helped reset expectations and re-engaged their teams under a clearer joint direction.
Focus In On: Responsible for Digital Business Transformation
New Areas of Value:
Effective delivery against financial targets
Improved business agility and ability to rapidly respond to change and opportunity
Increased credibility, confidence and influence across the business
More satisfied and engaged employees with increased retention and productivity
Creating a culture of involvement, empowerment and connection to the business
Digital transformation that drives, moves and resets the organisation’s vision
Direct positive impact on internal and external customer satisfaction
Improvements around:
Lack of agreement of transformation governance and stakeholder understanding leading to a fragmented approach
Lack of clarity around existing operating model, internal business ecosystem or cross-functional teams
Conflict between perception and reality of digital skills, tools, methods and talent required and available
Unclear and siloed business strategy leading to misaligned goals across the organisation that conflict with transformation
