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Fátima Ribeiro and Susana Azevedo, co-authors of articles on leadership and team coaching

Building Bridges: An Organisational Culture for Success

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This article was originally published in Portuguese in Líder Magazine, in the spring 2025 issue.

The online version was later published on the magazine’s website. The original article can be consulted here link.

A common purpose, a shared vision and dreams allow us to face change more agilely and effectively, and transform leaders, teams and organisations. They create a connection between minds and hearts that enhances communication, collaboration, commitment and teamwork.

Organisational identity provides a sense of community and inclusion and reinforces a set of norms and values that build bridges and contribute to a feeling of belonging.

In one of the organisations we worked with, values such as transparency, autonomy and trust, defined as essential by their leader, were incorporated into their leadership practices and behaviours. This transformed the culture and made the organisation more efficient and better prepared for the future.

Transparency was incorporated to promote clearer communication and proper management of expectations. The structuring of processes and the delegation of tasks reinforced the value of autonomy. Trust, as a way of looking at others, was expanded and integrated into leadership practices to create psychological safety and develop relationships and collaboration.

Authors such as Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark, and studies in companies such as Google—project Aristotle—, show that psychological safety is the basis of the most effective teams. Based on the perception of inclusion and security, team commitment increases, collaborators develop their curiosity and enhance innovation, and productivity and performance become sustainable.

Amy Edmondson explains that psychological safety helps people take the interpersonal risks necessary to achieve excellence in a rapidly changing, interdependent world.

in the book The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, Timothy Clark identifies the following dimensions of psychological safety: safety to feel included, safety to learn, safety to contribute, and safety to question.

Leaders, using emotional, conversational and collaborative intelligence tools, coordinate diverse and inclusive work environments. In this way, they enhance relationships and continuous learning and contribute to the whole being more than the sum of the parts.

Relationships are the context that allows us to successfully face change, and sharing helps to strengthen them. As Richard Boyatzis points out in the book The Science of Change, a shared vision drives hope; In shared compassion we experience solidarity, and through shared energy we vibrate at the same frequency as others.

Through systemic team coaching we work on relationships and connections between people, teams and external stakeholders, building bridges towards a successful organisational culture in contexts of uncertainty and complexity.

Authors: Fátima Ribeiro and Susana Azevedo

Two professionals shaking hands during a meeting

Mapping Change

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We begin each year with the purpose of implementing changes in our lives, but in most cases, for lack of a true plan, our intentions fade during the first weeks of the beginning of the year.

Establishing a change map, with its objectives and action plan, implementing the action plan, monitoring progress, evaluating progress, introducing modifications if necessary and celebrating the successes achieved is, in general, difficult to implement individually and autonomously.

The support of a professional Coach, properly trained and certified, whose objective is to facilitate the change intended by the Coachee, significantly supports the change process.

To define the objectives of the coaching process, it is important to identify the level of well-being and performance at which the Coachee is, the performance and well-being matrix developed by Anthony M. Grant being a very good tool.

Different combinations of well-being and performance levels require different coaching strategies and styles. A client with a low level of well-being and high performance requires different strategies compared for example to a client with a high level of well-being and high performance.

The solution-focused coaching process, with how questions, is more effective than the problem-focused one, with why questions.

A solution-focused mindset has a positive correlation with levels of well-being, self-regulation, and resilience.

A solution-focused process, in alliance with a positive and trust-based coaching relationship between Coach and Coachee, has a multiplying effect on the results of the coaching process.

The process is much more effective depending on the level of self-knowledge and self-awareness developed by the Coachee.

The most effective self-reflection process is one focused on the future, on finding solutions. Reflection focused on the past is reflection focused on problems not solutions.

Solution-focused self-reflection supports monitoring of the action plan and self-awareness supports the evaluation of performance and well-being and the recognition of achievements. If necessary, and for greater alignment at each moment between actions and objectives, the Coachee can implement changes in their action plan.

The objectives established in the coaching process are not limited to objectives defined in a SMART way (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and defined in time), they can also be learning and development objectives, maintaining a positive approach, in solutions that translate into actions.

In my coaching processes we end each session with the recognition and celebration of the learning from the session. The learning is integrated into an action plan, whose actions are consistent with the solutions identified in the session and with the objectives defined by the Coachee.

A coaching process focused on solutions and aligned with well-being translates into greater effectiveness.

Fátima Ribeiro, Associate Certified Coach (ACC) by ICF

 

The article was written based on my interpretation of the presentation in ICF Advance, “Success factors in the coach-coachee relationship and the role of self-reflection and self-insight in Coaching” de Anthony M. Grant, Ph.D., reconocido investigador y autor en Psicología del Coaching.

Two professionals talking in an office

Developing Your Leadership Potential as a Woman

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female leadership

In my article “Female leadership in Panama” I briefly describe the conclusions of a study developed in Panama on “Women in business management: gaining momentum in Panama.”

Among the measures aimed at overcoming the dilemmas and internal contradictions that women face when reaching positions of responsibility, the study identifies mentoring programmes, coaching and career development plans.

Coaching helps identify beliefs that may limit a woman’s professional and leadership growth, and break habits that hold back progress in her professional career, such as a promotion, a successful salary negotiation, or a career change.

The 12 habits that stop you…

In my coaching processes I use, among other tools, the 12 habits identified in the book “How Women Rise” by Sally Helgensen and Marshall Goldsmith:

  1. Reluctance to claim achievements
  2. Expect others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions
  3. Overvaluation of experience
  4. Just build instead of building and leveraging relationships
  5. Do not enlist allies from day one (allies, mentors and sponsors).
  6. Put your work before your career
  7. The perfection trap
  8. The desire to please
  9. Minimization
  10. Too much
  11. Rumiando
  12. Let your radar distract you

These habits often appear together. For example, the habit (1) Reluctance to claim achievements often appears accompanied by the habit (2) Expecting others to spontaneously notice or praise and reward your contributions.

Others that can be found together are the habits (3) Overvaluing experience and (6) Putting your work before your career and the habit (7) The perfection trap.

Plan of action

If you detect some of these behaviours or habits in yourself, the suggestion is that you establish a strategic plan to implement changes.

Align your objectives with your purpose, start with one, maximum two habits, which you fragment into small habits or routines, be specific and concise in your actions and define a time limit to implement them.

Recruit professional help such as a coach or someone committed to your development and who also wants to implement changes and establish “peer coaching”, promote your objectives, ask for feedback, listen, thank and implement changes during the course of your action plan.

In a coaching process, purpose, objectives, objective and subjective reality, visions and options are worked on in an integrated manner and an action plan is implemented.  The action plan encourages the implementation of actions, accompanied by the development of relationships and feedback, which allows the desired changes to be implemented by measuring their effectiveness.

Our beliefs shape our resistance to change, our responses help shape our circumstances, and our behaviours shape how others respond to us.

Organisations can implement coaching processes that support the development of female leadership, or professional women can choose to individually contract a process that contributes to their professional development.

References: Book “How Women Rise”, break the 12 habits holding you back from your next raise, promotion or job, Sally Helgesen y Marshall Goldsmith.

 

 

 

A professional leading a team meeting in a glass-walled room

Women’s Leadership in Panama

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Reality

Panama occupies the position 43 in the world ranking in 144 countries of the World Economic Forum’s Gender Parity Index, but 71% of companies do not have women at the highest management level.

According to the study “Women in business management: gaining momentum in Panama”, the percentage of representation of women in management positions varies by level and becomes narrower as we rise in level.  In the supervisory ranks, we have a level of representation of women of almost 37%, at the mid-level 34%, at the senior level 22% and at the top executive level only 8%.

The difficulties for women to be in management positions (CEO or member of the Board of Directors) increase with the size of the company, reiterating that large companies have the lowest representation of women in senior management positions.

The lesser presence of women is felt in areas of operations and research and development, with women in Panama occupying more relevant positions in areas of marketing, sales and human resources.

90% of companies agree that women lead as effectively as men, but different barriers were identified in the study, the first related to a lack of general or line management experience and the second to stereotypes about the role and skills of women, which seem to reflect a contradictory view with the first statement.

Other important barriers identified in the study were women’s limited availability or time flexibility to travel, lack of support to combine work with relationships/family, and leaders’ lack of commitment to the advancement of women.

In the study’s focus group, women identified the main obstacles as: the dilemma between family/career balance, the organisation that is not very conciliatory, and spaces of power that are not very inclusive.

70% of the companies surveyed declare they have a balanced and inclusive culture, but only 30% of them recognise that, with the same skills and professional qualifications, women find it more difficult to reach senior management positions.

There are limitations such as social conditions and an exclusive corporate culture and there are limitations imposed by the women themselves due to personal beliefs or family conditions.

Important benefits obtained with the implementation of diversity and gender equality initiatives in companies are recognised in the surveys, the most relevant being: the increase in business results, including profitability and productivity, the increase in the ability to attract and retain talent and the improvement of the company’s reputation.

It is important to promote and disseminate these important benefits, promoting successful good practices and working with different actors jointly to reduce the identified barriers.

Among the measures aimed at overcoming the dilemmas and internal contradictions that women face when reaching positions of responsibility, the study identifies mentoring programmes, coaching and career development plans.

 

Coaching supports change

The coaching process is key to identifying beliefs that can limit a woman’s professional and leadership growth, and to breaking habits that hold back progress in her professional career, such as a promotion, a successful salary negotiation or a professional change.

In the coaching process, objectives are identified, objective and subjective reality is reflected on, options are generated and an action plan is implemented.

The action plan stimulates the implementation of actions, accompanied by the development of relationships and feedback, which allows the desired changes to be implemented by measuring their effectiveness.

The coach accompanies the professional in their executive and leadership development and the process can be implemented at the initiative of the company or directly with the professional who is committed and responsible and wants to enhance their professional career. The key indicators or KPI’s They are established case by case. In the case of processes contracted by an organisation, it includes evaluations of leadership growth by the stakeholders or interested parties selected as significant to the process, being a measurable and quantified process.

In my article “Are you a woman? Develop your leadership potential” You can find more information about female leadership development.

 

References: The study “Women in business management: gaining momentum in Panama”, promoted by CoNEP – National Council of Private Enterprise and ILO – International Labor Organisation, and prepared by Stratego and Enred Panamá.