A couple of weeks ago, a client brought a set of notes to our session. She had not written them, she had not been consulted on what was in them, and she was expected to deliver them to her teams right away. She is a director at a tech company, based in the UK and responsible for EMEA operations. The notes set out a reorg that leadership at the US headquarters had decided on without involving her or any of her peers, and the change was taking effect immediately. She was upset.

A few months ago I was sitting in a coaching session with a Director at a mid-size tech company — let's call her Layla. Layla is sharp, experienced, and genuinely good at her job. She'd been managing people for nearly a decade. Her team trusted her. Her stakeholders respected her. Her performance reviews were consistently excellent. And then her company rolled out an AI-integrated workflow across the entire organization. Within six weeks, Layla came to a session and said some