Two senior leaders describe how Courtney's coaching changed their lives. One realized his dream promotion misaligned with his values and left. The other, a 30-year manufacturing veteran managing 10,000 people, decided to retire after recognizing unrealistic expectations.
I was working for a big company.
I was leading 10,000 people, a lot going on, high-paced, heavy capital, and I'm in manufacturing.
One of the things that Courtney did as an activity with us on the retreat was the core values exercise. I had never been introduced to that. Courtney helped me to understand what those meant and how I could make decisions both in my personal and professional life through the lens of those core values. Fast forward, I had gotten promoted into my dream job. And about 6 months into my dream job, I started realizing, hey, something's not working for me. I was miserable.
This was my culmination role. I've been with the same company for 30 years. This was going to be the role that I was gonna leave my legacy, and I was miserable.
I went to another retreat and spent some time with Courtney. She helped me to understand what was making me feel like I was letting my team down and I wasn't bringing my best leadership. And quite frankly, the CEO was tearing me up on the regular. So during that retreat, she said, hey, would you mind if I did an exercise with you? It's called context and conditions. So she went through an exercise with me, and I realized that that is how I work. I work with context and conditions, and that's what was making me miserable.
Because I was being put in a situation where they were asking me and my team to do things that physics wouldn't allow you to do. I can't be working for a leader who isn't going to support me and isn't going to listen to what I know to be true. After that, everything crystallized for me. It all came together for me, and I thought, you know what, this is my time. I went in and told my boss I'm going to full retire. I couldn't have done that without Courtney walking me through the steps.
I made some pretty big moves, like big life decisions and changes that I've never looked back and regretted.
