Finding your second career wind

Sometimes when life turns things upside down for you in your career it can actually be a golden opportunity, if you choose to lead the way.

“The same wind blows on us all; the winds of disaster, opportunity and change. Therefore, it is not the blowing of the wind, but the setting of the sails that will determine our direction in life.”

Jim Rohn

Change can be forced upon us in the case of redundancy or in my case a company restructuring which gave me the opportunity to reassess where I wanted to go with the next phase of my career in my 40s. It was a real shock; I still remember the conversation and it was such a bolt out of the blue, but I also know that restructures can be indiscriminate.

I’ve always been in control of changes in my career, including several international moves, so this situation was a first. Suddenly I had no certainty around me. The unpredictability of the pandemic flooded the headlines, I was a new mother, and I was put in a situation where my career direction was unclear.

The less risky decision would’ve been to move on to another well-respected management consulting firm. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this sudden situation was an opportunity to shape the next phase of my career and my life.

Stepping Towards New Land

What happened next served as a catalyst for starting NewlandRock and stepping away from a healthy corporate resume.

It’s exactly two years since I launched my leadership effectiveness advisory business NewlandRock.

This unplanned pause gave me the chance to reassess and double down on deciding what was important to me and how I could create a wider impact. I was focused on combining my business knowledge, talent strategy expertise and harvesting my passion for developing leaders.

Reframing this time away from the pressure of my career gave me the chance to get clarity and the clouds started to lift. It felt important to me to focus on improving ways of working within organisations.

Having gone through the upheaval of moving on from a corporate role with a globally recognised firm which had been a huge part of my identity, I realised the work I had done to boost my resilience, learn how to increase my own mental fitness and find my own clarity for what I wanted to be known for would be of immense benefit to other senior leaders and teams going through a transition of change.

Combining my personal lived experience of change, living and working globally with my twenty-two years of advising leaders on talent strategies and how to get the best performance out of themselves, their teams and organisations I founded NewlandRock.

Developing Success

Two years on and my company is thriving. The name NewlandRock signifies a clear message that you are your own rock and by developing your leadership effectiveness you strengthen your ability to lead yourself and your team to new land.

The immersive programmes I deliver globally have been truly transformative and have fulfilled all those dreams I had two years ago offering a new way to support the development and effectiveness of leaders and help them enhance their path to success.  My signature coaching programme ‘3 Step Reset’ is the ultimate combination of my journey through change and transition combing an inside-out wellbeing and mental fitness focus with best-in-class leadership effectiveness coaching.

What can I say I’ve truly learned and launched?

If anything, it’s to take a more expansive view of midlife. There is an abundance of opportunities and pathways to follow if you choose to see them. Seize this time in your leadership to take meaningful action, own who you are, the skills and experiences that have brought you to this moment then focus on how you want to leave an impact in the second half of your career.

• I learned the power of reframing, to allow the clouds to lift and create clarity for what is most important, now.
• I learned that upheaval and change doesn’t mean losing your identity it means you elevate your identity and maximise its impact to enhance your voice.
• I learned the importance of mental fitness to shake off saboteur thinking, get out of your own way to lead the way forward.

I realised the work I had done to boost my resilience, learn how to increase my own mental fitness and find my own clarity for what I wanted to be known for would be of immense benefit to other senior leaders and teams going through a transition of change.

Aligning these ways to increase leadership performance with the ownership at NewlandRock to design high-touch, agile solutions led to listening and launching more client-centric solutions.

• Launched our signature programme ‘3 Step Reset’. The ultimate combination of my journey through change and transition combing an inside-out well-being and mental fitness focus with best-in-class leadership effectiveness coaching.
• Launched The Coaching Continuum solution. This elite coaching solution talks to the fact that coaching doesn’t start and stop when you are in session. Senior leaders need their executive coach to be connected to their situation, side by side with them and available in the moment that matter.
• Launched an interconnected approach to leadership team effectiveness coaching which blends a 1:1 investment with aligning the team together through heightened trust and recalibrated strategic priorities. This interconnection drives collective, individual, and organisational success.

I’m truly grateful to all those who have supported and trusted me along the way and I’m excited to see what happens next. If you need help with setting the direction of your sail then please get in touch to find out more about my executive coaching programmes.

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Leadership Effectiveness is the rock of every business. NewlandRock increases leadership effectiveness for talent-savvy companies and individuals going through a transition.

Focused on Assessment | Executive Coaching |High Performing Teams  – Internationally