My Story

Having faced 3 years of challenges and setbacks in my first management role, I was ultimately asked to resign. It was a humbling and frustrating experience, leaving me wondering how I had reached that point.

From the moment I secured a part-time job at the world headquarters of a fast-growing technology company even before graduating, I felt a sense of excitement and opportunity. As my career progressed, I was promoted to various roles within the company over 10 years, eventually reaching a management position.

Becoming a manager was a dream come true for me. Like most people, I have witnessed both amazing and terrible examples of leadership throughout my career. The exceptional leaders made it look easy, while the awful ones seemed to actively pursue their own incompetence.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that leading teams looked easy until I became a manager myself. The game changed for me and I realized that managing and leading teams was anything but easy.

Despite my efforts to impress my boss and be the leader I believed he wanted me to be, I found myself struggling to earn the respect of my team. When I eventually made the difficult decision to leave that company, I was filled with self-doubt, questioning whether I was cut out for management.

In that moment, I made three promises to myself.

• First, I vowed to never feel such failure and doubt again.
• Second, I promised never to lead teams the same way again.
• Last, I committed to learning the skills and principles of effective management and leadership.

Through reflection and experience, I realized that a significant factor in my management failure was my lack of authenticity toward both my team and myself.

Since then, I have dedicated myself to identifying the key disciplines that new managers need to successfully transform from manager to leader.

Over the past 9 years, while running my business, Authentic Leader™, I have validated these disciplines through coaching and consulting with my clients.