We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melissa Eisler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Melissa, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
Before becoming an executive coach, I worked at a tech company leading a large team at a public company. In my eight-year tenure, I had seven different bosses whom were all at the executive level. Working for seven different powerful personalities was a bootcamp in leadership. I was inspired by the different approaches to leading entire divisions and functions at a large company. I learned how I wanted to lead and impact others, and also learned what I wanted to avoid in terms of leadership.
The most valuable lesson I learned was when I worked for a C-suite executive who was known for being particularly difficult to work for. He had a temper and lacked empathy. He and I could not have been more different, and yet I learned to connect with him and work with him in a productive way over the years by getting to know him — beyond the temper he was famous for. It was an important lesson in looking below the surface.
While there, I led teams during an IPO, mergers, acquisitions, re-orgs, and many phases of organizational change and challenge. This taught me the important lessons of adaptability and flexibility, and how important those qualities are when leading teams through change and uncertainty.
These lessons in leadership have stuck with me as I have coached hundreds of leaders, each navigating their own challenges.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
As an ICF Certified Executive Coach with an MA in organizational leadership, I partner with leaders to develop their resilience, systems thinking, executive presence, and strategic communication skills in order to reach individual and organizational goals. My mission is to help high-achieving leaders show up for their teams and organizations with more emotional and social awareness, steadiness, and compassion. I believe that if leaders can learn to hold kindness and care as priorities alongside results, productivity, and the bottom line, the world would be a better place.
I provide customized solutions for leaders and organizations. This approach includes assessments and inquiry to generate insights and a growth plan based on strengths and gaps. While the specifics of the approach look different for each leader, we always focus on integrating the states of “being” and “doing.” When these two align, profound leaps in leadership become possible.
As Albert Einstein said, “The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size.” I couldn’t agree more. I partner with clients to expand their perspectives so they can design new possibilities for action that will lead to more meaningful results. I play the role of trusted advisor, thinking partner, accountability confidant, and personal board of directors, offering a range of guidance and support depending on the context and challenge presented.
My clients are leaders ranging from C-suite and executive management to entrepreneur, from Fortune 500 companies to startups, and across diverse industries. What my clients have in common is they are all high achievers who are open to investigating their blind spots and discovering new ways to reach and magnify success.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
The most effective strategy for growing my clientele has been to be a great coach and serve as many leaders as powerfully as I can. With this strategy, I have grown my coaching practice to be by referral only, because my clients and past clients are happy to recommend and introduce me to their networks.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The best source of new clients for me are my current and past clients. I learned early in my business that the more value I deliver to my clients, the more likely they will be to refer me. So I work hard to deliver my clients with as much value as I can, and it serves us both.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://melissaeisler.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaEislerExecutiveCoach
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissaeisler/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelissaEisler
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