How I became an executive coach
In my early 40s, I had an opportunity to form and lead a ~ 40 member team with P&L responsibilities. After working to develop new markets in Asia, I was assigned by a U.S. energy company to open and lead a new office in Korea. I moved to Korea, my mother country, for this role. It was my first major leadership position, and I felt validated, as if all my past work had prepared me for this moment. I worked hard to build a business around an innovative way to support the electric grid in Korea. I felt proud to bring this new innovative service to my home country. I was especially excited to lead in a new way. With experience in both the U.S. and Korea, I envisioned a company culture that blended Korean drive with American egalitarianism, a team motivated by shared purpose, not hierarchy.
My core team included two expats from HQ and strong professionals we hired locally. Many of them were eager to grow beyond the limits of their traditional career paths in Korea. Together, we navigated many challenges, language barriers between HQ and local staff, building new business processes, educating customers and partners, winning clients, and preparing for high stakes operations. Through dedicated work and a compelling vision, we outperformed expectations. Within a short time, we became #2 in the market and hit major performance milestones.
Then, one day, my president asked me to fly to Boston. He told me that while our financial and operational results were strong, he was concerned about employee engagement and specific comments about my leadership. I later learned that he and the HQ HR team who conducted the survey had withheld the results from me. He had decided to replace me with someone local partly to address the team’s concerns, and partly so I could return to Boston sooner.
I was shocked. I felt blindsided and betrayed. Embarrassed. Ashamed.
And yet, deep down, I knew I had been struggling with leadership, emotional regulation, and stress management. I thought if I just worked harder and pushed my emotions aside, things would improve.
At the heart of it, my biggest challenge was an inner tension: I had lost confidence in two key team members but didn’t know how to either fully bring them in or let them go. The unresolved friction drained me emotionally, and I’m sure others could feel it. On top of that, I was living alone in Korea and feeling isolated. Alongside the betrayal and embarrassment, I also felt a strange sense of relief. Still, I wished my president had asked me how I saw the situation. We could have had an open conversation. Maybe we could even arrive at a mutual decision.
It took months of reflection to see this failure with fresh eyes. While I maintained the appearance of non-hierarchical leadership, through sitting in the same cubicle, chatting with everyone, I struggled with emotional regulation and patience. Especially with team members I viewed as underperforming or misaligned, I avoided giving calm, direct feedback. Instead, I reacted with excessive questioning, raised voices, or sarcasm. Then I beat myself up for it afterward. The pattern repeated.
Ironically, what I intended as egalitarian leadership likely came across as emotionally erratic and, in a different way, just as authoritarian as the hierarchical culture I had tried to escape.
In hindsight, I also see:
I didn’t engage with all key team members with equal respect, care and curiosity.
I failed to see two critical members from their perspectives.
I became overly anxious about speed and results, and couldn’t model calmness, assertiveness, and grace.
I didn’t recognize my own frustration patterns or how they played out in others’ perceptions of me.
And yet, over time, I began to view this failure as a blessing. I first turned to books by Carl Rogers, Karen Horney, Harriet Lerner to understand what had happened. The Dance of Anger helped me name the emotional loop I was stuck in. Then, I started opening up to friends. One of them recommended an executive coaching program. Through coaching education and training, I began to understand myself more deeply not just what I had done, but who I was in those moments. I also began to see similar dynamics in others: how many people are unaware of their emotional habits and impact — even when they’re trying to do better.
Becoming a good coach is a process. My coaching training laid a good foundation for continuous learning and development. I’ve understood more and more about who I am, what I would like to change in my behavior for more effective leadership, and how to make those changes. One of the core development areas for me has been to bring myself with a balance of firmness, respect, and flexibility in disagreements with different personalities. In terms of coaching clients, early on, I felt very awkward and even silly asking obvious but important questions. My brain jumped right into the mode of helping and making judgments based on my consulting background. Now, after reflection and practicing, I am able to use my business intuition as a tool for curiosity rather than judgment.
The question ‘What if I had a coach during my challenging period?’ has been a good motivator for me. My coaching journey started to help myself and people like me. I was - and still am - convinced there are many executives like me. I would like to help these soft spoken, giving, driven, yet hard on themselves leaders achieve their full potential through supporting them to think clearly and bring out their voice. I believe that coaching is an invaluable tool in finding a path to success.