Farrelly-Caizzone & Associates had the honour to interview Sara Sabin a professional, seasoned entrepreneur, career chameleon, and transformation expert.
Sara Sabin is an entrepreneur and a transformational coach. Sara helps companies perform better in the future by optimizing leadership skills. If the leaders and the team have better leadership skills, success in the years to come is assured. All of this together will lead to greater profitability.
Sara works with leaders who want to improve their personal impact but also that of the company. She teaches them to take on a powerful leadership identity and to create a good and strong team culture suitable to face business challenges correctly.
She became an entrepreneur by accident. After a law degree and working as a tax accountant, she decided to follow her desires and step by step she became an entreprenur, even if she calls herself “the Underpreneur“.
Sara is a transformational coach. She helps entrepreneurs and leaders who feel they have potential within them to bring it out. Even though they’ve had good results so far, she helps them build a mindset for success.
Her activity as an entrepreneur began in 2014 with the foundation of a start up. But she has since evolved into much more. Over the years Sara has helped leaders and organization with excellent planning and execution results. She tries to externalize the change taking place within these leaders.
Her approach also consists in making sure that every member of the team embraces the vision and mission of the company. In this way the work environment will be more peaceful, productive and effective and will guarantee better performance.
Her mission is to make his clients the leaders they were born for, leading a thriving team and leading a successful intelligent business.
Read our interview to discover more about her and her job!
Questions for Sara Sabin
- Hi Sara, could you please tell us something about yourself and your work?
- How did you come up with the idea of helping people to develop a leadership style that works for them?
- What inspired you to become a transformational coach?
- Who are your primary clients? Are there common traits?
- Do you work with teams or single people? What do you like more of these two?
- What are the characteristics that distinguish a good leader from another not very competent?
- How do you choose the leadership style that best suits the person and context you are dealing with? And how do you manage the conflict if the leadership style suitable for the content is not the one suitable for the person or vice versa?
- You deal with so many aspects of the people’s life you work with: how is to manage all of these?
- How do you choose a project instead of others? What are the factors that influence you?
- On average, how long does the process of transforming your customers last?
- After having completed the objectives set, how does the relationship with your customer evolve?
- Do you have any advice for new entrepreneurs who want to enter the market with their business idea?
1. Hi Sara, could you please tell us something about yourself and your work?
I am a transformational leadership coach and consultant. I work with leaders of innovative companies wanting to reach the next level of impact and success, by creating more emotionally smart and focused leaders, who are able to embed and maintain a high performance team culture.
2. How did you come up with the idea of helping people to develop a leadership style that works for them?
After years of leading start-ups (I founded two of my own) in a way that I thought I should, I was exhausted and burned out. I knew it was time to find out more about how I could lead in an authentic and purposeful way, rather than trying to emulate old models of leadership. I made it my mission to learn how to get the best out of yourself and others through leadership.
I started really understanding that the old paradigms and perceptions of leadership (top down, authoritarian) were not as effective, in an exponentially changing business environment. We need to be agile, pivot and innovate in line with future trends at light speed, to stay relevant as a business.
The old, hierarchical style of leading with decisions made at the top and lack of diverse thinking, aren’t as relevant any more. We need to lead a high performance company culture, rather than ‘command and control’ style. We need highly competent, purpose driven leaders. And we need to develop the leadership skills of our teams as well.
3. What inspired you to become a transformational coach?
My entrepreneurial journey started in 2014, with my first start-up, that I worked on whilst still in my corporate career. I left the corporate world (the multi family office world) at the end of 2015 and have never looked back. I have founded two start-ups, building them from the ground up, raising funds and managing a team; as well as consulting for various other start-up companies.
I found transformational coaching, for myself, when I was looking for more purpose in my life and in my next business venture, and when I came across it, I never looked back. It opened my eyes to new possibilities for me, and showed me how I could combine purpose with profit.
I realised how changing mindset and beliefs allowed you to achieve your goals on the outside more easily and with greater satisfaction.
I knew that that was how I wanted to work with other growing companies as well. Combining my love of business, with the deep work of coaching.
4. Who are your primary clients? Are there common traits?
My primary clients are the owners and founders of fast growing companies, in industries that are evolving rapidly and innovative, such as tech, IT, and software, or those more forward thinking companies within traditional industries.
The primary traits of the leaders at these companies are that they believe in the importance of personally developing themselves as leaders, they started their business in an area they loved to make an impact and they want to embed and maintain a strong team culture. And they want to grow their business – fast!
The companies I work with are already successful and growing and they need help to reach that next level.
5. Do you work with teams or single people? What do you like more of these two?
I work with leaders on a one-to-one basis and/or on a group basis; and I also run employee workshops, so I can help the leaders to embed a culture of leadership and accountability at the team level.
I have to say though, I love that deep one-to-one coaching with leaders the best! But I recognise that sometimes there is the need for a rounded solution and so, I integrated the workshops as well.
6. What are the characteristics that distinguish a good leader from another not very competent?
The best leaders in the world realise that they are constantly learning, and that learning never stops, no matter how experienced you are. The way that we have always done things may not always be the best way now or in the future.
Great leaders have a strong sense of their purpose and WHY behind what they are doing.
The other key ingredient in star performance leadership is emotional intelligence. It enables you to get the best out of yourself and others.
Travis Bradberry, an emotional intelligence expert, studied the emotional intelligence of personalities within the workplace, and discovered that emotional intelligence was the strongest predictor of high performance in all types of jobs.
In a survey carried out by TalentSmart, of which Dr. Bradberry is co-founder, they found that:
– 90 percent of the top performers were high in emotional intelligence, with a higher average income per year and an increase by one point of emotional intelligence contributing to as much as an extra $1,300 in annual salary.
– 20 percent of low performers were high in emotional intelligence.
– Emotional intelligence also accounted for up to 60 percent of the job performance for supervisors through CEOs.
7. How do you choose the leadership style that best suits the person and context you are dealing with? And how do you manage the conflict if the leadership style suitable for the content is not the one suitable for the person or vice versa?
I encourage leaders to be able to fluidly move between different leadership styles. This becomes easier as you become more self-aware. Next, they start to embody the type of leader they want to be, by taking conscious steps towards that.
Although, we may adapt to a situation or context, when we know more firmly who we are and where our strengths lie, we simply bring out different facets of ‘who we are’, rather than acting from a place of insecurity or needing to control everything.
Sometimes, we need to be tough, but in general, we get more out of people, when we can learn to support them where they are at. Incorporating coaching, into who you are as a leader, means that you are also encouraging your team to begin to think and act like leaders as well.
As a team, we can achieve much more, with everyone working together in their ‘zone of genius’ than we can achieve by telling people what to do and how to do it.
8. You deal with so many aspects of the people’s life you work with: how is to manage all of these?
I look at the whole person, as a human being. Whilst the primary objective may be professional related, if there is something that is going on in their life, that should be acknowledged and worked through, in order to allow that person to bring their best self to work, we work through that. In general, the more satisfied we are in life, the better we are at work.
9. How do you choose a project instead of others? What are the factors that influence you?
I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity of working with amazing clients, who I loved working with.
I believe that for a coaching relationship to really work, there needs to be that trust and resonance between the coach and coachee (especially so for 1-2-1 to work). That is point 1.
I also pick projects for interest – am I interested in what they are trying to achieve? And lastly, do I believe that I am the best person to help them? And do I feel like I want to take up that position of trusted coach/consultant?
10. On average, how long does the process of transforming your customers last?
I work with leaders and companies, usually, over a period of 6-12 months to get the longest lasting transformations.
6 months is enough to see that transformation in yourself as a leader. But sometimes that support over 12 months is key, so that you also have the independent consulting support that you need for business decisions that aid growth.
11. After having completed the objectives set, how does the relationship with your customer evolve?
After working with me, on a one-to-one basis, the client has become more self-aware and has learned to manage their internal environment better. They are more sure who they are as a leader, and have a toolbox with which to approach the way they lead.
I stay in touch with my clients, and often they will make referrals, or there may be group or team work within an organisation that they need help or support on.
12. Do you have any advice for new entrepreneurs who want to enter the market with their business idea?
- Pick a business idea that you love and care about. Purpose will get you through the hard slog that is often associated with starting a business.
- Find your own way – there’s a lot of noise out there. Learn to make your own decisions, try things out for yourself and ultimately, find a way of doing business that works for you.
- Set big goals and make small steps towards them every day – small steps taken consistently add up to big things. Focus on the important things and then, act.
We want to thank Sara for this interview: we had the opportunity to discover more about the leadership styles that suit with the business.
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