![]() ![]() ![]() She set her sights on it and worked with Isberg on honing leadership characteristics, such as making decisions quickly. "I was asking myself, Do I want to stay here?' "įor Corner the answer was yes, but only after she had identified the position she wanted, a senior vice presidency her boss had held. It's hard to find a mentor for a woman at a certain level in the business world," said Corner, 36. "I reached a fork in the road and had to make some decisions. The process also clarified issues for Tina Corner, vice president of marketing and sales at Cable & Wireless USA, a Vienna-based telecommunications company where Corner has worked for 11 years. "She helped me focus on what my vision was for myself and helped me develop some very practical steps for making it possible. "She changed my life," Williams said in a telephone interview. After going to Isberg in January, Williams started expanding her professional practice, getting speaking engagements and doing training in personality testing for corporations. Marilyn Williams, a 44-year-old Falls Church therapist, said she "had felt stuck" where she was. creating their own opportunities," Isberg said. Isberg has them create a personal mission statement as well as short- and long-term goals that fit into the plan they create for themselves. It's the big vision that's more of a struggle for people." The litmus test is asking them to write it down. "They have to know what they want," said Isberg, 46. ![]() ![]() The first step, and in some ways the hardest, is helping each woman figure out what she really wants, not just professionally but personally. But other times she ends up helping women get out entirely - and sometimes find renewed passion in very different fields. Helping women break through that "glass ceiling" is one of her specialties. Isberg said coaching women is an important niche because so many are leaving corporate America disenchanted, burned out or convinced they cannot go further in their companies. Seiffer knows of some other coaches across the country who focus exclusively on women, but he could not say just how many there are. That's what drives them to me."Įxecutive coaching is "skyrocketing" as more professionals feel the need to seek outside career help in a world where people change jobs, companies and careers much more frequently than they used to, said John Seiffer, president of the International Coach Federation, a three-year-old association with 1,300 members.Īs the field grows, so does specialization such as Isberg's. "The fact of the matter is, women have a very different experience in the workplace than men. "We don't want gender to be an issue," said Isberg. In the growing field of executive coaching, Isberg has made professional women her specialty - naming her one-woman company Executive Coaching for Women. It is no accident that there are no men around the table today for this quarterly review session. All of these women - in telecommunications, defense work, computer specialties - have accomplished a great deal in male-dominated fields but now are asking, "What else?" They have turned to Isberg for help transforming stagnant or unchallenging careers into fulfilling ones. Like most of those around the table this day, Flaherty is in a career transition, looking for more and better opportunities at work. I'm waking up, and it's exciting, but have I spent too much time getting here?" They have been asked by executive coach Jean Isberg to write down the first two that pop into their heads and from there proceed to words and interpretations.īarbara Flaherty comes up with the Frog Prince and Rip Van Winkle, and she thinks she knows why: "The word that kept leaping out was change.' My interpretation is that there's magic in change. The seven middle-aged professional women sit around a conference table in a Tysons Corner high-rise, discussing fairy tales. ![]()
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