CASE STUDY
Coaching an Abrasive Male Leader in IT
Joe is a very smart individual working at a tech firm. Joe is widely respected and is definitely the smartest person in the room. Joe can almost see the future – when ideas are shared in meetings, for example, he can see ten steps into the idea and predict with certainty whether it will work or not.
Unfortunately, Joe expressed a lot of frustration towards others, belittled people, publicly shamed them, and more. Many people had transferred to new departments to get away from Joe, and some even quit. After many attempts to help Joe change, Joe’s manager and the VP of HR sought out a coach.
After the first round of interviews, we reviewed his feedback. Out of 271 comments total, 206 of them – 76% – were negative.
Examples of his feedback included, for example (actual feedback):
AGGRESSIVE BODY LANGUAGE
- “It’s his tone of voice and body language—I’ve observed him doing it to others.”
- “He raises his voice and hits things and makes crazy big grand gestures, and he’s making a stink about it and it’s over trivial stuff.”
PUBLICLY HUMILIATES & SHAMES OTHERS
- “He’ll send emails telling you that you screwed up and he’ll cc others – it’s like do you really need to do that? And it makes him look bad instead of the person he’s saying screwed up,”
- “He does it all the time – every time this person said anything he’d undercut them – and everyone’s thinking, ‘he’s really trying to make them look stupid’”
BELITTLES/CONDESCENDING
- “He gets emotional – he gets frustrated – he is emotionally unintelligent and gets snarky and belittling – it’s just a snarky remark that doesn’t add any value,”
- “He has to show he is right – to the point of actually saying, “that’s a stupid idea’”
DRIVES PEOPLE AWAY/PEOPLE AVOID HIM
- “People say, ‘Joe ran me over, Joe bullies me, I’m too scared to bring this up to Joe,’”
- “Everyone that I work with avoids Joe, all my people have a special process for Joe and this really hurts his effectiveness.”
After three months of coaching Joe, we re-interviewed the same group of people. This time only 23 of 131 were negative (18%), meaning he’d reduced people’s negative perceptions by 58%.
For example (actual feedback):
CALMER/LESS INTENSE
- “He seems to be more relaxed and there is more of a pleasant environment,”
- “I feel like he’s not intense anymore, I haven’t seen that for a while.”
NOT REACTIVE
- “He even things more before he reacts – those emotions, he channels them much better,”
- “I think he has become emotionally intelligent – he is using the right way to react.”
CONTRIBUTES RATHER THAN CONTROLS
- “He is a smart guy with good ideas but rather than injecting his ideas on everything all the time he seems to be picking and choosing appropriate times to interject his ideas,”
- “He’s not in conflict, he seems to be contributing and he’s not acting as a bully.”
INTERACTIONS ARE MORE POSITIVE
- “It seems like he’s trying to just have regular discussions and everything’s pretty smooth and everyone’s pretty happy,”
Feedback before and after coaching:
Joe continues to use what he learned in coaching to forge more positive relationships. He’ll always feel strongly about his point of view, but he can now more effectively communicate his ideas.
Joe’s changes are a triple win. He is mentoring and teaching instead of offending people, his team is more innovative and efficient, and his employer has minimized risk for hostile work environment complaints and lawsuits.