ISHOO RAJAMOHAN COACHING

There are many names given to the stagnation that women experience in mid-career: ‘mid-career crisis’, ‘mid-career plateau’, ‘the broken rung’, or ‘the frozen middle'. Firstly, what kind of stagnation am I talking about? This is where women’s careers stop progressing after a certain point and they struggle to scale the career ladder no matter how hard they try. The very qualities that they are known for - being reliable, getting things and ticking all the right boxes - no lon

I recently ran a completion session for a client who was celebrating 10 years at her company. And after a decade of service she had one big reflection from that session which I want to share with you: that she gave, gave, gave, but asked for very little in return. In the above video I talk about what having an unhealthy relationship with giving looks like, why this is a common pattern especially in women working in majority male industries, and what it ultimately costs you. M

Most of us would react the same way to hearing a NO in response to a request for a promotion or a pay rise. You immediately shrink down into yourself feeling small and diminished, afraid that others will notice it too. And that NO gets tacked onto the disillusionment from the thousand other NOs you have received in your life previously. So every request you make thereafter will sound less confident because to a certain degree, rejection has somewhat calcified in your mind al

There are two ways to prepare for your performance review or utvecklingssamtal (as they call it in Swedish). One is a less empowered way, almost as a parent-child dynamic: to see that meeting as solely a judgement or analysis of your performance over the past year or six months. Many women I speak to hold that view, and you might too. Then everything becomes about proving yourself and your worth. But if you are preparing for your performance review with this mindset, it has

The best time to prepare for your performance appraisal is not the night before, but the day after your previous one. In this video I share how I am helping my new client to achieve her goal of becoming a Director years before she even gets offered the opportunity. Through a thoughtful, considered, step-by-step process, I am building her up for that next level in her career. I encourage you to also think of your own preparation the same way. This is what I mean by Appraisal S

Your appraisal or performance review is more than just an opportunity for you and your team leader to review and reflect on your performance, as well as the bigger picture of your career and life ambitions, and how they align with those of your organisation. This is a high stakes conversation that can determine your happiness at work, your professional development, and not just your fortunes over the coming year, but it can also shape the rest of your career trajectory. Ofte

This week I had the opportunity to contribute to the Royal Institute of British Architects Professional Feature series on how women architects can improve their confidence in the workplace. Naturally, the article addresses the lived experiences of women architects, but the content is general enough that I hope all of you in my community from other backgrounds will also find your voices resonated here. This feature is in response to some of the findings by the Fawcett Society:

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of delivering another session for The King's Trust Gender Network, this time on the theme of presence in leadership, which was well received.

When I first started working with this particular client, she was in a very difficult position because she didn’t have job security. Naturally, with circumstances outside of her control, she was feeling very powerless in spite of having a great track record at her company. She took every opportunity to receive coaching available to her, showing up weekly, focussed and dedicated to her development. Nothing might have changed in her outer circumstances, but she is transforming

Having coached young women working in majority male industries, I know that a large number of their challenges with confidence emerge as they are still finding their place within those environments. So they predominantly struggle with issues around: - attaining their first leadership role - uncertainty in stepping into new roles, new projects, new responsibilities - navigating difficult relationships with colleagues Although this is a stage when they should focus on learning

One of my clients is currently in the process of carrying out performance reviews for her own team. She is really proud of their achievements over the past year, especially the colleagues she was personally involved with hiring, because they had integrated well with the team. Even though she really values each and every one of them, she is needing to hold difficult conversations with them about their prospects of career progression this year. She recognises that the dynamic h

Just after the pandemic, a client who is at the top of her profession shared her invitation to participate in a campaign for Barbie. She ignored it because we both sensed something very strange about the request. In 2022, my goodie bag at a Hospitality conference for women contained spaghetti wrapped in pink packing, emblazoned with a chef Barbie. When I tagged the organisers on Instagram asking if Barbie wanted female chefs to go back into the (domestic) kitchen, a male past

In the 1960s an American plastic surgeon named Dr. Maxwell Maltz made some unusual discoveries in his work. During his studies in Germany he found some students proudly wearing scars from competitive fencing in their college societies. By contrast, when he opened his practice, he noted that one patient who approached him for treatment had completely lost his confidence, tormented by a scar caused in a car accident. There were others he treated who continued to see themselves

They say that a lack of confidence usually results from fear of the unknown. Your fear tends to be greatest in situations where you have no way of predicting the possible outcomes: what demand your new job might make of you (and how others perceive your ability to handle them), what questions you might get asked by the audience during a pitch or presentation, how likely you are to finally secure the promotion you so badly want. Underneath that lack of confidence lies a sense

In a few days or weeks many of you might be stepping into your annual performance review. What do you intend to say in that meeting? More importantly, how will you say it? In recent newsletters I shared how your self-concept, which is what you communicate externally, speaks louder than any words you convey. No amount of practising a script can override the unspoken words that seep out of you energetically , unfortunately. They can really betray your lack of confidence and wea

Everyday my morning walk takes me through a disc golf course - not the typical golf, but the kind played with frisbees. Almost always I see groups of men of all ages enjoying a friendly competition. Although I have never come across them, I expect that many talented women also play this sport competitively or for leisure. Personally, I am not remotely drawn to spending my mornings honing my skill of hitting a target. Which is why you will find me dodging the flying frisbees t

Many of you might be anticipating your performance appraisal for the past year to be held over the next few months between April - July. Whether or not you are looking forward to a promotion or a pay rise, this meeting also gives you opportunity to take stock and review where you are given the bigger picture of your career and life ambitions. Doing this work before hand allows you to be clearer in your thinking and more confident in your communication when you sit down with

In my previous post on this topic, I addressed how your focus determines your future. (Read it here ). The reality is that it also impacts your fortune, even without you recognising how the status quo has a hand to play in this dynamic. As you might know, I coach women at the three major career stages: young aspiring leaders, mid-career women looking to enter senior leadership and senior leaders who want to make a bigger impact in their organisations. What I consistently see

A recent client hired me from a place of genuine insecurity: she worked for an engineering company in a role that is under risk from becoming obsolete thanks to AI. She was leading on AI adoption and implementation within her team, and her words of despair in our first conversation were, “I feel like I’m cutting off the very branch that I sit on.” Her managers could provide little reassurance or certainty on what the future would hold, and she struggled with calming her own t

Give power to your potential, not your shortcomings. There are whole industries and business models built around the latter: profiting from highlighting women’s shortcomings to themselves and to each other. But there is no benefit or lucre in us playing that game. Moreover, when your focus is on what you lack, you cannot recognise or tap into what you can and do bring to the table. For women working in majority male industries it is all the more important to maintain the righ