Case Studies & Real Results
Technical brilliance is rarely what holds a leader back from the C-Suite.
More often, it’s the shift from functional expert to strategic peer—a transition that requires a complete re-coding of leadership identity. As Marshall Goldsmith famously wrote, "What got you here, won’t get you there."
These mini case-studies represent common "inflection points" I navigate with my clients. Using the Leadership MRI (LCP), we move beyond surface-level symptoms to "debug" the deep, reactive patterns that stall executive careers and organisational growth.
My focus is context, not code. While these cases sit within digital and tech leadership, they are distinctly human-based issues (as most issues typically are). My contribution is to understand the unique pressures of the CTO and CIO roles so we can practice addressing the real-world challenges you face every day. Get the people right, and the technology will become right.
Case Study 1: The Big Step-Up — From Functional Tech Manager to Enterprise Leader
The Client: A high-potential technology manager who has been appointed as interim CIO
The Challenge: Quickly uplift skills, communication and executive gravitas to be successful in the interim role and become the most compelling candidate to win the global talent search.
Following the sudden vacancy of the Group CIO role at a major Australian energy organisation, the CEO appointed a "High-Potential" technology leader as Interim CIO and as a candidate for the permanent position. The Board was not favourable because they didn't see the independent gravitas and strategic mindset required to initiate, plan and execute the large-scale, enterprise-wide digital business transformation that they sought.
The Work: Set a 6-month path to win over the board
Utilising the Leadership MRI (LCP), we uncovered a complex web of "Reactive" tendencies that were stalling his executive evolution across three distinct audiences:
The Board (The Compliance Trap): They perceived him as too "compliant"—simply following the CEO and the former CIO rather than leading with his own convictions.
Peer Executives (The Effectiveness Gap): While liked and trusted, he was viewed as a "pleaser" with low effectiveness—a service provider rather than a peer-level executive.
Direct Reports (The Perfectionist Protector): His team saw a "controlling" pattern. Driven by perfectionism and a desire to protect his staff, he was rewriting board decks at 3:00 am instead of holding his team accountable.
The coaching engagement shifted him from "doing the work" to "building the system." We focused on two critical pillars:
1. Board communication
We re-engineered his interaction model with the Board to move beyond tactical reporting. To keep it at the right level, we developed a framework that literally "piggybacked" on the CEO’s own strategy documents. By adopting the same page layouts, graphic elements, and vocabulary, we presented the technical strategy as the "Technology Chapter" of the business strategy. Communicating through the lens of business outcomes and long-term direction—rather than technical initiatives—allowed him to step out from the shadow of previous leadership and gain immediate, independent credibility with the Board.
2. The Strategic Cascade
We worked intensely on establishing a clear, authoritative "Strategic Cascade" to more effectively communicate with his executive peers and down through the technology organisation:
Purpose & Vision: Aligning the technology organisation’s purpose with the CEO's company vision, and creating a vision of how the technology organisation contributes to the company’s success.
Roadmap & Prioritisation: Translating that vision into a clear roadmap through time, backed by a rigorous prioritisation framework. Reinforcing and embedding this in management cadence and artifacts.
Execution Framework: Establishing a cascading communications framework that ensured every level of the organisation understood their role in delivery.
3. Leadership Team Uplift (Solving the Peter Principle)
We tackled the "Protectionist" habit head-on. He learned that hiding a team member's shortcomings does not do them—or the organisation—a favour.
Accountability is the best long-term protection: He shifted from rewriting his team's work to coaching them to improve, and holding them accountable for that improvement.
Decisive Organisational Design: Where team members had reached their "level of incompetence" (The Peter Principle), he worked to find them roles better suited to their capabilities and interests and replaced them with top-tier talent. He transitioned from "covering" for underperformance to "architecting" a high-performance organisation.
The Outcome: A Strategic Asset Confirmed
The transformation was definitive. By the end of the six-month "interim" trial, the Board’s perception had shifted from scepticism to full endorsement. As a result, he outperformed a global field of external candidates and was appointed as the permanent Group CIO. The uplift he established during this engagement has enabled him to become a successful and effective CIO.
Does This Case Resonate with You?
Case Study #2: Expereinced Executive Mastering the CIO Role
The Client: An experienced CIO at an ASX 50 organisation.
The Scenario: Feeling Stalled and Wanting to Reinvest in Herself to Lift Her Leadership
After two years with a major Australian employer, this leader found that her traditional strengths—technical competence, calm approach and (ironically) interpersonal relationship skills — had hit a ceiling. While she was highly respected for her "surface calmness," she wasn’t getting momentum when attempting to drive high-stakes, group-wide initiatives, such as a new AI strategy. Despite her track record of success, she encountered subtle but sustained resistance and was unsure what was holding back her enterprise-level influence.
The Challenge: Building Relational Trust
Utilising the Leadership MRI (LCP), we identified a specific reactive pattern: Protective Distancing with her executive peers, contrasted with a Complying: Belonging tendency with her direct reports. These were two sides of the same coin:
The Peer Perception (Potential Control): Because she was relationally distant, her peers viewed her push for a centralised AI strategy with suspicion. They feared it was a "power grab" designed to build her own organisation at the expense of their business units' autonomy.
The Direct Report Perception (The "Make Nice" Trap): Her team saw her "Complying" tendency as "playing nice" just to remain in the executive club. When she couldn't get the AI project underway, she would cover the lack of support by telling her team, "The company has a lot of priorities; it’s just not the right time." Her team saw this as her giving up on what the company truly needed.
She was caught in the middle: the executive team thought she wanted too much control, while her own team thought she wasn't fighting hard enough.
The irony in this is that the Fundamental Attribution Error is alive and well: they see a malevolent intent in her behaviour, which is based on a genuine desire to do the right thing for them. She, in turn, sees their apparent resistance as an attempt to minimise and sideline her.
The Work: Moving from Siloed Expert to Trusted Enterprise Partner
The coaching focused on the transition from "Managing a Function" to "Influencing an Enterprise" by addressing the core currency of the C-Suite: Trust.
The Strategic Narrative: We worked on her "surface calmness" to ensure it wasn't being misread as a lack of conviction. We moved her away from the "make nice" approach, which was failing to gain ground with peers and eroding her credibility with her team.
Stakeholder Mapping & Bridge Building: We mapped the stakeholder landscape to identify where bridges needed to be mended. We shifted her strategy from "selling a plan" to "co-creating a future."
The "Co-Discovery" Strategy: A pivotal moment involved her travelling with the CEO of a group company on an AI educational tour. This created a space for them to learn together and discuss risks, effectively replacing suspicion with partnership.
Trust as Currency: We operated on the principle that Trust > Understanding > Support. By allowing peers to see her true intent—that she wanted what was best for the company regardless of where resources sat—she built the relational "currency" required for the business to support her technical strategy.
The Outcome: Operating with Enterprise Impact
The transformation shifted her from a "Siloed CIO" to a "Strategic Enterprise Leader."
Unified Alignment: By building relationships, she secured peer support for her AI initiatives that had previously been blocked.
Internal Credibility: By being more transparent about her strategic challenges and setting high expectations, she regained the trust of her direct reports.
Executive Equanimity: She evolved her "surface calmness" into a deeper equanimity, allowing her to lead through ASX-level conflict and uncertainty with genuine presence.
C-Level Maturity: She successfully internalised the rhythms of an ASX-level role, mastering high-leverage delegation and strategic communication to operate as a true peer on the Executive Committee.
Does This Case Resonate with You?
Case Study 3: Scaling the CTO Summit — From "Diamond in the Rough" to High-Performing CTO
The Client: The CTO of a major Australian financial platform.
The Challenge: Growing from an effective “diamond in the rough” executive to a highly scalable CTO
Having successfully led large-scale "war-time" change projects, this leader was appointed CTO of a newly independent entity. While technically elite, he found "peace-time" executive leadership far more complex than the project-based delivery he had experienced in the past. The CEO identified him as a "diamond in the rough": someone with immense potential who lacked clarity on what a C-level role truly demanded. He struggled with executive gravitas, was overly protective of his time, and an initial assessment indicated low trust from peers, who felt they didn't truly "know" him as a leader.
The Work: Learn to build the confidence and skills to sustainably lead larger-scale change through deeper engagement with peers and stakeholders
We initiated a 6-month engagement (subsequently extended) focused on three core "Level-Up" pillars, underpinned by the Leadership MRI (LCP):
Pillar 1: From Functional Lead to Executive CTO: We moved his leadership style away from "controlling" and toward purpose and clear accountability. Learning to proactively engage peers to continue getting the big results that he has previously driven more unilaterally.
Pillar 2: Building Executive Gravitas: We developed his confidence to participate in difficult, high-stakes discussions within the executive group. The focus was on moving him from a technical silo to being a "broad leader" who contributes to overall corporate success.
Pillar 3: The "Authenticity" Experiments: We planned specific experiments to increase his transparency. This involved articulating "what he stands for" to his team and peers, moving him from a reactive posture to a high-achieving, authentic leadership stance.
The Outcome: The CEO described the progress as moving from "Everest Base Camp to a staging camp high on the mountain." Over the course of the engagement, the CTO demonstrated a marked increase in maturity, resilience, and output. Key successes included:
Platform Transformation: Successfully leading a complex, mission-critical platform transformation program.
Organisational Restructure: Navigating a major restructure while earning significantly increased respect from his executive peers.
Leading Through People: Shifting from a "boss" who manages tasks (and occasionally just does the technical work himself) into an executive who achieves results through his people.
The Strategic Value: By "debugging" the uncertainty around the C-level step-up, the CTO transformed into a strategic asset. The technology function is no longer seen as a bottleneck in delivery but as a high-performance unit aligned with the CEO’s vision. He has moved from "functional expert" to "strategic peer," and is now regarded as one of the firm's most capable executives, fully equipped to meet the Board's growing expectations.
Does This Case Resonate with You?
Case Study 4: Developing Emerging Talent for Future C-Suite Roles
The Client: Head of Content Marketing at a leading digital platform; a master content creator.
The Challenge: Identifying and Overcoming Behavioural Blind Spots
Despite being a "masterclass" specialist and one of the strongest interpersonal leaders in the business, this leader hit a significant ceiling in driving organisational change. She was deeply liked and respected for her empathy and nurturing style, but she struggled to lead people when faced with resistance. A big surprise in the Leadership MRI (LCP) revealed a paradoxical "reactive" trap: while she appeared highly collaborative, under high-pressure challenges, she defaulted to a subtle arrogance. This defensive shield severely limited her ability to influence and her personal satisfaction.
The Work: Reprogramming Self
We used the Leadership MRI to "debug" this specific interpersonal friction, focusing on shifting her from a defensive posture to deeply engage in the discussion, being as willing to learn as to teach:
Pillar 1: Confronting the "Intellectual Shield": We explored the "unusual" irony of her reactive arrogance. By leveraging her natural love for journaling and introspection, she recognised that this defensive posture was a form of "Protecting" that created distance between her and her peers.
Pillar 2: From Expert to Enabler: We worked on re-pointing her high interpersonal intelligence. The goal was to move from "telling" the right answer to "learning" through the conversation. This involved practising “interpersonal intelligence” — approaching a potential conflict with equanimity, being just as happy to learn from the other person as she would have been to win the argument. The upside is that the best idea wins, rather than the most tenacious litigator.
Pillar 3: Leading with Personal Dynamism: We focused on "letting fly" with her natural energy and presence. This meant moving away from seeking "permission" and instead "controlling the dialogue in the room" by leaning into the debate rather than retreating from it.
The Outcome: The "unlock" related to seeing this arrogance was transformative. By accepting and moving past her defensive arrogance, she gained the ability to lead through genuine collaboration and "constructive challenge". This professional maturity enabled a massive career pivot:
Career Pivot and Role Expansion: She successfully transitioned from content marketing into a "Head of Growth" role at a late-stage financial services startup. New role, new industry, new approach.
Broadened Impact: She now thrives leading diverse functions, including Sales, Marketing, Customer Onboarding, and Success teams.
Strategic Influence: She has mastered the ability to take people on a journey by demonstrating a "rare emotional intelligence" that balances standing firm on boundaries with an openness to others' perspectives.
The Strategic Value: This leader has moved beyond being a "service provider" to becoming a core driver of business growth. By decoupling her self-worth from "having the right answer" and re-investing it in "collective achievement," she has unlocked a level of executive presence that allows her to lead complex, multi-disciplinary teams through high-consequence transition
Does This Case Resonate with You?
Case Study 5: COMING SOON
Does This Case Resonate with You?
I limit my practice to only six clients at a time, focusing on each person’s unique goals.
