Tag Archive for: Clarity

Your Leadership Development Partner in 2026: How Executive Coaching Transforms Your Career Journey

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leadership development partner - executive coachingThe workplace in 2026 demands more from leaders than ever before. Hybrid teams still require some new management approaches to engage those in the room and on the screen. An understatement is that AI is reshaping how work gets done and will get done in the future. The result is a leadership landscape defined by ambiguity, fast-shifting expectations, and relentless productivity pressure.

Against this backdrop, choosing to engage an executive coach gives leaders the opportunity to think more deliberately about how they lead and how they grow. Research suggests that executive coaching supports improvements in leadership effectiveness, self-awareness, goal clarity, and resilience. Behaviorial flexing to learning, thinking styles and task styles are capabilities and can be learned as skills and have become increasingly important as roles expand and complexity increases.

To offer a comprehensive view of executive coaching, this three-part series explores not only its potential benefits, but also what executive coaching is, how it works, and how leaders can make the most of the investment. Whether you are an executive paying for your own development or an HR professional looking for leadership development coaches and team coaching in an offsite format, we want to hear from you.

Part 1 focuses on why executive coaching matters. It reviews the evolving demands on leaders, and the concrete outcomes associated with a high-quality coaching engagement.

Part 2 looks behind the curtain at how executive coaching actually works — what happens inside a coaching relationship, how the process unfolds, and how to evaluate and select the right coach for your goals, style, and context.

Part 3 turns to how to make the most of your investment, exploring how to actively engage in coaching to accelerate growth and practical next steps to move forward.

Why Executive Coaching Matters

Corporate training budgets today remain heavily weighted toward technical skills, systems training, and compliance requirements. Leadership development, when it exists, is often episodic rather than sustained. Traditional mentorship programs have largely disappeared in remote and hybrid environments. The informal learning that once happened through hallway conversations and after-work gatherings has changed in quantity and also was never a completely consistent practice by or for all.

Meanwhile, leadership complexity has intensified. Leaders are managing teams across time zones, navigating constant technological change, making decisions with incomplete information, and doing it all while maintaining work-life integration that often feels elusive.

Engaging with an executive coach helps leaders chart a path through the complexity. It provides personalized development when organizations cannot, strategic guidance when you are facing novel challenges, and accountability when it is easy to deprioritize your own growth.

This personalized approach matters because leadership is not one-size-fits-all. The skills that make you effective are deeply connected to who you are: your values, your strengths, your communication style, your life circumstances. Coaching helps you develop leadership that is both effective and authentic.

What Executive Coaching Actually Delivers

Let’s move beyond abstractions to concrete outcomes you can expect from a quality coaching engagement:

1. Clarity That Drives Action

Given the many demands on leaders today, it is no wonder that many feel like they are operating in perpetual reaction mode: responding to emails, attending meetings, and putting out fires. Coaching creates space for leaders to step back and ask fundamental questions: What am I actually trying to achieve? What matters most? Where should I focus my limited time and energy? What does success look like for me personally, not just professionally?

This clarity becomes a decision-making filter so that when opportunities arise, you can evaluate them against your actual priorities rather than defaulting to yes or getting swept along by others’ agendas. Research shows that working with an executive coach increases goal clarity and goal attainment, helping leaders move from urgency-driven behavior to intentional, strategic action.

2. Self-Awareness That Transforms Effectiveness

You cannot see yourself the way others see you. You can’t observe your own patterns, blind spots, or the gap between your intentions and your impact. This is where coaching becomes invaluable.

Through powerful questions, reflection exercises, and sometimes formal assessments, coaching builds the self-awareness that distinguishes good leaders from great ones. You discover how your communication style lands with different people, which strengths you’re overusing or undervaluing, what triggers cause you to react rather than respond, and where your assumptions limit your possibilities. Of note, leadership research consistently links emotional intelligence, of which self-awareness is a key component, to leadership effectiveness, team cohesion, and motivation, which executive coaching helps leaders develop over time.

3. Strategies for Your Specific Challenges

Leadership challenges are often maddeningly context-specific. How do you give difficult feedback to a high performer who has behaviors that negatively effect team culture? How do you influence senior stakeholders when you lack formal authority? How do you manage your energy when your role demands constant availability? How do you make the case for promotion without seeming entitled?

Books and training programs offer general principles. Your coach helps you develop strategies tailored to your specific situation, taking into account your organizational culture, your relationships, your constraints, and your goals. Generic advice rarely moves the needle; specific strategies do.

4. Accountability That Drives Change

Knowing what to do and actually doing it are entirely different challenges. We’ve all set goals only to abandon them when the daily grind takes over. Coaching provides structure and accountability that transforms intentions into actions.

Your coach holds you accountable not through judgment but through partnership. Between sessions, you implement agreed-upon actions, experiment with new approaches, gather feedback, and track progress. They then return to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what to adjust next. This cycle of action and reflection is where lasting change occurs.

5. Resilience to Navigate Setbacks

Every career includes setbacks: projects that fail, promotions you don’t get, relationships that sour, or reorganizations that derail your plans. How you respond to these moments often matters more than the setbacks themselves.

Coaching builds resilience by helping you process challenges productively, maintain perspective, develop coping strategies for high-stress situations, learn from failure without internalizing it as identity, and sustain motivation over time. Leadership coaching has been shown to increase leaders’ confidence in navigating their roles and improve trust in their direct reports, both critical factors in bouncing back from challenges.

6. Skills That Compound Over Time

Some professional development delivers immediate returns but little lasting value. Coaching is different. The skills you develop, like emotional intelligence or communication effectiveness, compound throughout your career.

A feedback framework learned today remains useful for decades. Increased self-awareness carries across roles and organizations. Communication shifts ripple through every future relationship. This compounding effect explains why coaching continues to deliver value long after the formal engagement ends.

7. Permission to Lead Authentically

Many professionals feel pressure to conform to leadership stereotypes that do not fit who they are. The charismatic extrovert. The tough boss. The relentless competitor.

Coaching offers a third option: developing a leadership style that is both effective and authentically you. This means honoring your values while building influence, leading in ways that energize rather than drain you, using your natural strengths rather than trying to eliminate weaknesses, and building teams that complement your style rather than compensate for it. Coaching helps you lead from a place of integrity and self-knowledge rather than imitation.

8. A Thinking Partner for Complex Decisions

Senior leadership can be isolating. The higher you rise, the fewer people you can speak with candidly. Your direct reports need confidence. Your boss evaluates judgment. Your peers may compete.

An executive coach becomes a confidential thinking partner, someone without agenda or judgment, providing a confidential space to think out loud, test ideas, and consider implications before acting. Having this thinking partner is not a sign of weakness; it is a strategic advantage that many effective leaders leverage intentionally.

A Deliberate Investment in How You Lead

Executive coaching is about supporting leaders at moments when complexity increases, stakes rise, and familiar strategies no longer suffice. In a workplace defined by constant change, coaching offers something increasingly rare: time, perspective, and partnership focused entirely on how you lead and how you grow. If you are ready to be matched with one of our coaches, please book a free exploratory conversation with our Founder and Head Coach, Nicki Gilmour here: BOOK SESSION

By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO, theglasshammer and Evolved People Coaching

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Heather Plumski: President, Stearns Bank

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Heather Plumski“I lead with integrity and faith,” says Heather Plumski. “That means being honest, thorough, and accountable.”

As President of Stearns Bank, Plumski brings a rare blend of head and heart. She shares how her leadership is driven by values, grounded in purpose, and distinguished by forward thinking with a readiness to own both the good and the bad.

From Part-Time Teller to President

Plumski’s journey started in forensic science before pivoting to accounting, completing her degree in two years. While classmates chased big-city roles, she chose central Minnesota and a part-time teller job that turned into a career.

“I didn’t even know what a credit analyst was,” she recalls. “But it let me work with numbers and small businesses both objectively and subjectively to understand their needs…which I found to be incredibly rewarding.”

Since joining Stearns in 2005, Plumski has led through every phase from underwriting through the Great Recession to helping build the SBA and equipment finance programs. As CFO, she drove strategy. Now, as President, she leads a women-owned, employee-owned institution committed to helping people reach their full financial potential.

“We walk the walk. As employee-owners, we understand the challenges our customers face, and we build solutions that serve them.”

Authentic, Inclusive Leadership

Plumski’s leadership style is rooted in authenticity. “You can’t fake it,” she says. “When you’re aligned with who you are, your decisions get clearer, your leadership gets stronger.”

Her collaborative approach encourages open thinking. “I used to wait until every idea was perfect. Now, I bring it to the table early. It invites feedback and makes the work better.”

She credits her growth to staying curious and stretching beyond her comfort zone. One major stretch? Leading technology. “It was like learning a new language. But I learned I didn’t need to know everything I needed to trust the experts around me.”

Just Keep Going

Plumski pushes back on perfectionism and encourages boldness. “Women often hesitate if they don’t check every box. My advice? Don’t count yourself out – say yes before you say no.”

Her mantra: “Don’t quit on a bad day.” That resilience, she says, has made all the difference.

Coaching, Clarity, and Perspective

Executive coaching has been a game changer for Plumski. “It pulls me out of the weeds. I walk away with clearer thinking, stronger communication, and better perspective.”

Even when she feels too busy to take the call, she never skips it. “I always leave better than I came.”

Empowering Employees, Growing Communities

Looking forward, Plumski is focused on deepening Stearns Bank’s impact from growing employee ownership to expanding inclusive financial solutions nationwide.

“Our Employee Stock Ownership Plan isn’t just a model. It’s a movement,” she says. “When we help our customers succeed, our employee-owners build generational wealth.”

That sense of shared prosperity also drives Stearns’ focus on underserved markets. “We listen first. Then we build whether it’s through our Salaam Banking Division or nonprofit solutions. And by the time the rest of the industry catches up, we’re already on to what’s next.”

Family and the Mountains

When she’s not leading a national bank, Plumski is hiking, running, canoeing and simply soaking in family life with her four kids, husband and extended friends and family.

“There’s something about the mountains,” she says. “They remind me how small we are, and how big our purpose can be.”

By Jessica Robaire

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International Women’s Day: Stay Focused on What Matters to You

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focus on what matters“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
― Pema Chödrön

It can be tough to follow arbitrary advice to be less stressed, do more self-care, and spend more time ‘sparking joy’ while writing emails and trying to eat a salad. Our advice this Women’s History Month is much like Nike’s clever advertising campaign of “You can’t win, so win”. If you want to go all the way, then go all the way in your career in Corporate America, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot succeed. We would go further and say win on your own terms, define your own success however that is to you. Know what you want and what you are ready to do and if it resonates with you to avoid stress, overwork and overwhelm in these strange times then that, too, is a message to listen to.

In a world overflowing with distractions, tapping into your own voice and ignoring nonsense is a powerful act of self-care and productivity. We take in over five times more data daily than we did in 2011 and being stricter about the scroll in our lives allows us to preserve our energy, focus on what truly matters, and build lives that are more fulfilling and less cluttered with irrelevant noise.  According to experts, fear based topics like wars, erratic leaders, fear of layoffs, financial loss and reduction of rights—which seems to be our daily fare so far in 2025—creates more overwhelm and attentional bias than cat videos. Ignore the noise.

Start with You

You learn from others that inspire you and then spend time figuring out how to live your values. This year instead of the hashtags for International Women’s Day, I invite you to spend thirty minutes going deeper with yourself to figure out how to embrace what aligns with your values to create space for growth, happiness, and success.

Is the course you’re following leading you to the destination you want to reach? Are you living “outside in,” following a path where others have set the milestones and dictated how you should take each step? If this works for you, great, but if you find yourself asking “Is this it?” then consider what Bonnie Wan writes in her book “The Life Brief- A Playbook for No Regrets Living!”. She recommends “inside out” living, meaning getting real about what you want, however unconventional. And, if that means being the CEO or a dog spa owner, do everything you need to do to make it happen.

Know your Values

If you listed your values on paper, what would you write down? How would you say you lived those values? Give yourself some examples to test for accuracy as you may find you want to change words. Make your values verbs as it is in the doing of them that matters. What percentage of the time do you spend living those values?

If this feels daunting, then consider a few exercises to ensure you are spending as little as an hour per year on ensuring you know your values and are living them. Imagine you are celebrating your 100th birthday – where are you and with whom? What are you saying about what your life has looked like? What are the people around you saying in their speeches? What do you have to do now to make that a reality?

Increase your Mental Clarity

When we stop allowing ourselves to be distracted by trivial matters or irrelevant opinions, we free up mental space for things that truly require our attention. Focusing on what’s important helps us sharpen our thoughts, increase clarity, and make better decisions. Ignoring nonsense isn’t just about avoiding distractions; it’s about consciously choosing where to direct our energy. It is about being mindful and intentional about what we are doing but moreover, why we are doing it. Ignoring unproductive conversations or toxic comments allows us to maintain control over our reactions, helping us stay calm, composed, and more emotionally resilient in difficult situations. We can spend the time building trust with our colleagues so that we can get to a place of saying and hearing hard things and having radical candor.

Time is our most valuable resource. Every minute spent on trivial or irrelevant matters is a minute taken away from what truly matters. By ignoring nonsense, we reclaim that time and can devote it to more meaningful and productive activities—whether it’s pursuing personal goals, focusing on work, or spending quality time with loved ones. By being selective with your attention, you can cultivate relationships that matter and spend time on people and experiences that energize you. Not everything deserves your time and energy. Recognize what’s important and focus on it. Whether it’s in your personal life, at work, or online, ask yourself: Is this worth my attention? If the answer is no, let it go.

Instead spend time reminding yourself of your personal and professional priorities. This helps you keep perspective and make decisions about where to focus your time and energy. When nonsense arises, you can quickly assess if it aligns with your goals or if it’s something you can afford to ignore. Social media is a breeding ground for nonsense. Whether it’s heated debates, inflammatory opinions, or people airing personal grievances, it’s easy to get sucked into the drama. Consider taking regular breaks from social media or curating your feeds to include only meaningful content.

Strengthen Your Confidence by Being True to Yourself

Letting go of the urge to please everyone or respond to every negative comment builds self-assurance. By ignoring what doesn’t align with our values or doesn’t contribute to our growth, we assert our boundaries and reinforce our self-worth. Over time, this enhances our confidence and makes it easier to focus on our goals without being derailed by irrelevant opinions.

Of course, there are times when engagement is necessary—whether it’s addressing genuine concerns, advocating for yourself, or standing up for others. The key is knowing when something is worth your time and when it’s just noise. When in doubt, pause and evaluate the potential impact of engaging.

At the end of the day, success—however you define it—begins with clarity, confidence, and the courage to ignore the noise. By tuning out distractions and aligning your actions with your values, you create a path that is both fulfilling and sustainable. So, as you move forward, ask yourself: What truly deserves your time? What will you let go of to make space for what matters?

Define your own version of winning—and go all in.

Work with us as you navigate your career. Coaching starts at $300 per session and we offer a fifteen-minute exploratory needs call for assessing how we can help you and for a chemistry fit. Book HERE

By Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com and Evolved People Coaching

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