Craig Coffey is an ICF credentialed professional certified coach with 30 plus years of senior experience working for a variety of Fortune 300 companies. He’s also a diversity-equity- inclusion champion. Craig works with his clients to identify, unlock, and grow their talents and skills to achieve career ambitions, as well as build strong teams that deliver inspired results.
Our own Michael Neuendorff recently had the opportunity to interview Craig to ask him about his reinvented career as a leadership coach.
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Michael Neuendorff: My first question relates to your prior successful career as a chief marketing officer for some of the biggest household names in business. Why did you give that up to become an executive coach?
Craig Coffey: When I led teams on the corporate side, I adopted a leadership approach where I didn’t view my employees as working for me. I actually felt like I worked for them and my job was to remove their obstacles to enable and empower them. Based on that approach, executive coaching felt like a natural next step for me. I’ve always believed in developing talent and trying to help people achieve whatever their goals happen to be. So, when I thought about leaving the corporate side, it was in the back of my head to become an executive coach. It was really an extension of what I had already been doing for a long time.
Michael Neuendorff: It must reinvigorate your career energy to be working with leaders now in a whole new capacity.
Craig Coffey: Yeah, it absolutely does. And it’s amazing how a slight twist on what you used to do can provide you with a whole new level of energy and excitement.
Michael Neuendorff: You’ve already attained a high level of success getting into Fortune 200 companies, and many coaches would love to get into that space. What tips can you give to other coaches who would like to do the same?
Craig Coffey: You know, I spent 30 plus years in corporate America and I became accustomed to navigating within large corporations, understanding how they operate and how they think about things. Based on that, I would say my biggest tip is really know what value you bring to the table. You have to be very clear on what your value proposition is, how you’re going to deliver that value to the client, and be able to say and share that in a concise way that’s most compelling for the client to understand. Respect that clients are very busy people so you absolutely have to thread the needle about the value you provide. It’s important to establish your niche too.
Michael Neuendorff: I can absolutely see that and having a niche helps to make that value clearer to people. How have you been able to stay in the role of a coach and not stray into the areas of mentoring or training your clients? 
Craig Coffey: As a former chief marketing officer and general manager, I wanted to make sure I never crept into the mentoring and training space. And you know what? I haven’t struggled with that ever. And there are two reasons why. One, I never wanted to be that backseat driver who said things like: “When I was in your job, blah blah blah,” just like when our parents used to say to us: “When I was your age, blah blah blah.” I never wanted to be that person because nobody buys into that approach. And the second reason is that I never wanted to tell people what to do. I think it’s important they arrive at their own conclusions, find their own insights, and reach their own solutions. My job is really to help them unlock those things. If I spent my time in a consultative manner telling people what to do, it would be a disservice to what I value. So, I never felt compelled to go down the path of “do this, don’t do that.” That’s just not what I do.
Michael Neuendorff: One thing I want to emphasize is that you didn’t play that role when you were a CMO. You were much more likely to encourage people to seek their own solutions as opposed to telling them what to do. Is that correct? Craig Coffey: Yes, absolutely. I found that clients are usually very good at what they do, but how they do it is what trips them up. Spending time trying to help the CMO or general manager be a better CMO or general manager in terms of their functional expertise is not really helpful because they’re already excelling at that. But how do they influence others? How do they interact with people? How do they engage their teams? How do they resolve conflict? How do they manage ego? These are the softer skills that often trip people up in their career progression. This is where coaching makes the difference.
Michael Neuendorff: So true. Now you mentioned that to work with leaders in Fortune 200 companies, you have to have a strong value proposition because they’re very busy people. I’d like to dig into this a little bit deeper. How different is it coaching leaders in Fortune 200 companies versus coaching leaders in smaller organizations?
Craig Coffey: Yeah, it’s a great question, and this is probably an oversimplification, but to me, people are people. Even if you’re a CEO today, at some point in time you weren’t a CEO. You were a junior person sitting in a cubicle, crunching numbers, and you had a boss. You are hoping for a raise or trying to work towards a promotion. You may not have even liked your boss. You had conflict with peers. So whether you’re the CEO of a multinational company or the CEO of a small family business, you weren’t born into those positions. You grew into those positions and people are people.
Everyone has to learn the hard skills and the soft skills to help them succeed. The analogy I like to use is that really famous actors and actresses didn’t just become stars overnight. They all started out as extras in movies. Today’s big stars like Brad Pitt, Renee Zellweger. Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck all had first roles as extras. They didn’t get top line billing and they didn’t get paid a lot. And they all hired coaches to help them become better actors. I think that’s no different in the business world. Whether you’re a small business leader or a senior business leader, people are people and we all need coaches. People need coaches to help them get to the next level of their careers, simple as that.
Michael Neuendorff: So, how does that translate into how you work with executive clients? It sounds like you’re talking to them just like you would with people at lower rungs of the leadership ladder. Is that an accurate statement?
Craig Coffey: Yes. You know, the most senior people still struggle with everyday issues. They struggle with obstacles, conflicts, and limiting beliefs that they have about themselves. But, despite that, they continue to carry on and move forward. I think the common misconception about really senior executives is that they somehow have it all. They somehow have it all figured out. But that’s just not the case. I think often they find that they don’t have as many people to talk to or reveal their vulnerabilities to. So, being able to connect with them in an authentic human-to-human way is a really great place to start a coaching relationship. And I don’t think they think of themselves as anything special. They’re just trying to get better at what they do and lead their people in the best way they know how.
Michael Neuendorff: I like that a lot, and I think your answer is really going to help newer coaches who are intimidated by roles and titles. Sometimes they don’t want to try to engage people at high levels in large companies because they’re intimidated by the idea of not being able to coach them. But as you pointed to earlier, it’s not about telling them what to do or even truly understanding their function. They’re already good at that anyway. It’s about talking with them about the human problems we all face at different levels.
Craig Coffey: That’s exactly right.
Michael Neuendorff: I know you’re also very interested in the shift towards leaders needing to have more empathy and emotional intelligence. How have you blended that need into your coaching?
Craig Coffey: The best way I can talk about that is through the relationships I think a lot of employers used to have with their employees, which was a command-and-control transactional connection. Essentially: “I need this report and I need it by next Tuesday so get it done.” That was kind of the end of the conversation that an employer would have with his or her employee. And I think with everything that’s going on, especially during these last 18 or 19 months with the pandemic, we need to transition to a relational connection.
Leaders should ask themselves: “How do I engage with my employees in a way that’s not just command and control but also enables me to let them work on their own and just do occasional check-ins with them?”
There’s also a lot of mistrust that may exist because of all the uncertainty out there. So, what are you as a leader doing to build trust back into your relationships with your employees? What are you able to do to demonstrate you really do care about who works for you and have a constructive dialogue with them? And it’s not a monologue but a two-way flow where you’re checking in to learn how they’re doing. And what do they think? And what do they feel in a given situation? You’re also willing to exhibit some level of vulnerability.
There’s no leader I’ve met who feels like they have a command of everything that’s happening, especially with so much change going on. Therefore, I encourage leaders to say: “Hey, I don’t have all this figured out yet and I admit to being a bit vulnerable.”
I think their team members really appreciate the fact that not everything is ticked and tied off and some things are still a bit ambiguous and their boss is willing to acknowledge that. That notion of a dialogue of respect, trust, and being vulnerable are all game changers for bringing a higher level of emotional intelligence into a workplace that’s more used to the command and control model.
Michael Neuendorff: I completely agree as that’s been my experience, too. Working with some leaders over the last year and a half, emotional intelligence continues to come up in conversations as an area where they need to strengthen their skill set and what they bring to their staff.
Now, another recent shift is the balance of power tilting in favor of employees versus employers. We’re seeing that in the job market. How do you think leaders need to adjust their styles to recognize and embrace the shift?
Craig Coffey: There’s two buckets I think about there. There are some employees that have opted to leave their job because they’re really at this inflection point and they’re trying to figure out: “Who am I, what do I want to do? And there’s a coaching opportunity to help those people sort through those issues.
But there’s the other bucket of employees who still want to work for their current employer despite concerns. For example, they’re not sure where their employer stands on issues like the environment of diversity, equity and inclusion and other important civil liberties. With these employees – and really, all employees today – leaders and companies need to be far more transparent about where they stand on such issues.
The idea of being able to stay out of the fray by saying: “We’re just a company, we’re just a brand, that’s not our issue,” doesn’t cut it anymore. More and more companies are being pulled into the fray as consumers become more activist and even some employees become more activist. People want to know the brand they choose as consumers, or the company they chose to work for, shares certain values with them.
And that’s the place where I think leaders and companies need to be much more transparent and actually have a point of view around some of these really important topical issues, civil issues, environmental issues, diversity and equity and inclusion issues. The company needs to be on board with responsibility. Leaders need to be really clear about where they stand on some of those matters so their employees understand there’s some level of a shared values system in place.
I should also say that no company is perfect. No employee is perfect. But even if you are working for a company that’s not perfect, you’re still willing to stay If you feel like you have a clear line of sight for growth for yourself and the company, or you have some sharing of values.
There’s an old truism that goes “people don’t leave companies; they leave bad managers.” I believe that’s true. Somebody will stay in a situation if they feel like they have a good manager who’s their ally, supports them, and affords them the opportunity to grow. I’d say a lot of what’s going on with the recent “great resignation” trend may be people just leaving bad managers and going someplace else. That’s an unfortunate thing, but it’s an opportunity for leaders to stop and reflect a little bit on why they can’t retain high caliber talent.
Michael Neuendorff: I think that’s a great angle, Craig, the fact that people are leaving bad managers. And that also segues into my next question. What about the leaders themselves? We’ve talked about employees and why employees leave, and you’ve touched on what leaders need to do to prevent that. What are you seeing as the challenges leaders are going through in leading during this most unusual time?
Craig Coffey: I think this pandemic period has really changed the relationship between the employer and employee in ways I don’t think anybody could have predicted, and I’ll give you an example of that and then I’ll get to the point.
The example is this: We’re now conducting hiring interviews remotely, through a video platform. And now that’s how people are doing work too. And when you think about what an employer now knows about their employees, it’s just vastly different from what they thought a year and a half ago.
At that time, you didn’t know a lot about your employees’ personal lives. But because of the advent of video platforms, you understand if somebody’s spouse has been furloughed or laid off, you understand if they have young kids or even a college kid who’s home doing remote learning. You understand if they live in a multigenerational household, you understand what their decorating tastes happen to be. You understand all kinds of things you just never knew about your employees. And, in turn, they know more about you as an employer.
With that comes a responsibility, I think, as a leader, and this may get to the heart of your question. I think there’s a responsibility that comes from the leader’s perspective to say: “OK, I need to take all that in, and it’s why I need to have a more relational relationship or more relational connection with my team members. There’s so much coming at them while at the same time they’re trying to do their job. So, my ability to bring some empathy, some understanding, and some agility into how we handle company rules can have a huge impact in retaining employees and leading them effectively. We can’t be so hard and fast about company rules anymore.”
Yes, results still matter. Yes, we still have deliverables, but we have to think now a little bit differently about how we create a culture that manifests itself in this virtual hybrid world. Our secret sauce used to be: “well, everybody’s in one room.” Now you have to figure out a way to recast what the culture is so that it can work in this new hybrid environment.
Michael Neuendorff: So that begs one last question. When you’re asking leaders to consider a different approach to leadership, how are you finding them in that conversation? Are they receptive to it, against it, or are they already on the way and you’re helping them to accelerate the shift? What’s been the response to leaders you’ve coached to these needs?
Craig Coffey: I think many of them already get it. They’ve started down this path of “we’re going to have to be flexible” because it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen in a pandemic. I think there’s also been a little bit of: “Well, wait, we have to think about this because there’s different circumstances for a lot of different groups of people. So how do we manage those different circumstances?”
I think my job is to mirror and reflect some of what’s going on and to ask challenging questions and to keep pushing on things that might be limiting beliefs or false assumptions. Many leaders I have the pleasure of working with are interested in learning because they recognize that one false edict can have a terrible effect on the company. And I think companies are learning that there does need to be some level of agility and some thoughtfulness. And it’s not going to be an easy or quick solution. Relying on your team members to help you get some of those answers is what many of them are starting to do.
Michael Neuendorff: Well, thank you very much, Craig. I’ve learned a lot from this conversation we’ve had around leadership today, what leaders are going through, and the type of leader they need to be. In addition, I’m excited for you that you’ve now moved on in your career journey and are well on your way to helping so many leaders to navigate these difficult times. You’ve been able to branch out to impact not just one company and its leaders, but many companies. Congratulations on the great work you’re doing!
Craig Coffey: Thank you very much. Michael. I’ve tried to reframe my career. I felt like I had much more to give. And this has been a great opportunity to be a part of some really wonderful companies and be a part of many wonderful leaders and play a role in helping them. And I appreciate your support in all of this as well. So, thank you, Michael!
Michael Neuendorff: You’re welcome, Craig. Thank you very much for meeting with me today. It’s been a pleasure.
You can view the original video interview by clicking this link.
You can learn more about Craig Coffey and his business here.
Take a look at our other Conversations with Coaches here and view the full playlist on YouTube here.
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