Case study no. 4: Kathy (age 41) Financial Director in a company employing about 100 people

I was already totally exhausted, I was sleeping during the whole weekends and started to be ill. After one month absence I was in a good shape but within four days at work everything returned…

Symptoms:

• working overtime
• lack of free time, untidiness in the house
• no vacation
• no sense of self worth, efficacy
• reluctance towards management
• need to convince others about her skills
• taking on new tasks and activities without seeing the need to hire additional employees
• failure to meet personal commitments
• problems with sleeping
• heath problems : total helplessness, lack of energy and the need to act, inability to think clearly.

Conditions at work:

• conducting periodic evaluation using unknown criteria
• not taking into consideration the need to hire additional employees
• requiring working overtime ( parent company in the USA active during Polish evening hours)
• calling with business matters at any time of the day or week
• time pressure – requiring immediate action without taking into consideration employees free time or needs
• An employee forced the management to show the evaluation criteria and discovered that he met all of them and even exceeded in some yet received a mediocre score. (hence the decrease in self worth and in the ability to evaluate own achievements)

Approach towards employees:

• need to prove oneself and gain acceptance from others
• taking on tasks at the expense of her own free time
• protecting employees –taking on more responsibilities
• believing that only hard work can give her success
• canceling private meetings when the company gave additional tasks
• stopped taking care of herself yet cared strongly about company business

Rescue mechanisms:

• taking up sports
• sleeping the whole weekend
• taking up a hobby
• having good family relationships

Coaching procedures:

• assessing the degree of occupational burnout
• examining the energy gain/loss when dealing with different people from professional and private life
• examining key destabilizing factors
• considering the pros and cons of staying in this work situation ( deepening of burnout, depression, health problems, inability to build lasting relationships/starting a family, loneliness, loss of meaning in life)
• examining the extent to which necessary changes can be made ( minimal)
• making a decision about job change
• working on developing assertiveness , reducing the number of people/events that decrease well-being
• lowering self expectations from 300% to 80 %
• changing beliefs concerning inequality between men and women
• finding a new job ( without the „American” style of worker exploitation)
• fulfilling the inner need to please others by changing it into the pursue of creating good working standards
• creating a balance between the need of taking care of others and own well-being
• fulfilling the dream of changing her job profile
• creating a vision of a smooth transfer from a committed financial director into a coach/lecturer.
• creating rules allowing balance between work and private life

Key actions:

• the person looked for help-in order not to be able to resign paid in advanced for a full coaching cycle.
• looked at her situation and discovered that she was playing the role of a victim and that she expected change to come from her employees.
• took responsibility for her well-being
• discovered that she is trying to give more than it is realistically possible and good for her well-balance
• started to believe that she can work in a company with rules which are close to her idea of good organization