The Hidden Psychology Behind Executive Communication Barriers
What 40 Years of Coaching Teaches you About Leadership Development
When the president of an important hospital confesses he feels like a “B player,” you realize there’s something off about how he thinks about himself. He’s at the top of his field, has tremendous power and opportunity, and directs hundreds of people. How can he still feel unfulfilled?
This kind of disconnect between external success and internal satisfaction is what Dr. Louise Korver has spent four decades studying. Her career has spanned from instructional design and organizational development to coaching C-suite executives. Her background in psychology gave her the insight that many of the biggest (internal) barriers that executives face trace back to life experiences that formed their mindset and behavior patterns.
Feeling like a “B player” was part of this executive’s life history, but working with Dr. Korver as his executive coach helped him see that the story he had been telling himself was no longer true. But before she could help him, she had to uncover what that story was.
Executive Coaching Practice: Discovering “Life Stories”
Dr. Korver uses what she calls the “life history interview” to get to the root of her clients’ mindset and communication barriers. She was originally drawn to working with Ariel (formerly ECC – Executive Coaching Connections) because of the suite of tools that help to draw this life history map. To plot the journey, Dr. Korver asks the client to tell her about their learning journey, from their first memory of learning until now, to get an accurate picture of how they’ve developed over time.
As clients share these stories, she gets a sense of the narratives that shape their behavior.A childhood experience that may seem insignificant to the client often reveals itself as the foundation of their current professional challenges and strengths.
The real value of the life history interview is understanding why certain executives act (or react) the way they do. Once she gets to the core of why they are triggered by certain situations or behaviors, then they can work on fixing the problem together.
Her approach focuses on understanding the executive at a deeper level, but she’s clear that coaching is not therapy. Dr Korver tells us, “[Coaches] help our clients deal with mindset issues so they can excel professionally and personally.”
How to Change your Mind
Dr Korver shares the experience of coaching one executive with this method. She was coaching a high-performing female executive who was reluctant to network with her CEO and other C-suite leaders. She was technically brilliant and had strong soft skills, but shied away from more informal interactions – the kind of interactions which likely would advance her career.
During executive coaching sessions, the executive shared a childhood memory of her parents. She would attend business functions with them, and while her father worked the room, her mom would fade into the background, always walking two steps behind. She told Dr Korver she was outraged that she would act so passively, especially because before the function, her mom would brief her husband on strategic opportunities and business contacts.
Through coaching, the executive realized that this anger had transformed into a limiting belief: that she wasn’t important enough to engage with senior leadership.
Dr. Korver remembers when she connected these dots, “it was like her hair blew back. She sat back in her chair and said, ‘Oh my God, Louise, I never thought of that.’” Her unwillingness to network with upper executives “instantly disappeared as a problem.”
What This Means for Your Leadership Development Strategy
Executives are often promoted for their hard, technical skills. But, the soft skills, the people skills, are what make them great leaders that people want to follow.
When we ignore the personal dimensions of leadership, we miss opportunities for breakthrough performance improvements. Dr Louise Korver’s method of discovering her clients’ life histories and through them, uncovering hidden behavior biases and mindsets, ultimately helps these executives become better people leaders.
And when they become better leaders, they have more tools to drive organizational success.
About Dr. Louise Korver
Dr. Louise Korver combines a dual master’s PhD in human development from Fielding Graduate University with extensive corporate experience at organizations like Bank of America and AT&T.
Her coaching approach centers on discovering mindsets and behavior patterns that limit executives from reaching their full potential. She specializes in working with C-suite executives globally, particularly those facing complicated situations. She enjoys working with leaders “who are wielding a lot of power and sometimes haven’t reflected enough on why they do certain things the way that they do.”
Her recent research explores Internal Family Systems therapy applications, investigating how executives can address long-standing behavioral patterns without years of traditional therapy.
