What truly characterizes a leader is the willingness to implement a bold course of action, challenge the status quo, and stand out from the crowd. Effective leaders, especially in the IT space, instill confidence in the team, improve productivity, and contribute to the overall growth of an organization. Poor leadership, on the other hand, affects employee morale and impairs the bottom line. Although technology leaders are incredibly talented, passionate, and hard working, they often lack the ability to provide the right direction and motivate their staff. This highlights the significance of a certified executive coach to help technology managers, leaders, and executives tap into the greatness that exists within them to lead their teams to their full potential and live their lives intentionally and unapologetically. This is where Atlanta-based Platinum Level Leadership excels.
Platinum Level Leadership enables IT leaders and executives to supercharge the performance of their teams and elevate their personal and professional lives to the next level—the Platinum Level. Tim Huff, Owner and Executive Coach at Platinum Level Leadership, says, “I help technology managers, leaders, executives, and teams be better versions of themselves by leading them through transformational changes so they can lead powerfully and live purposefully!” Huff brings over 27 years of direct leadership experience to help executives improve their leadership and their lives.
In an interview with the editorial team of Manage HR, Huff discusses at length how he helps technology leaders and teams navigate the high-pressure demands of working in a for-profit company with a Comprehensive Coaching Framework.
What are the factors that spurred the inception of Platinum Level Leadership?
I founded Platinum Level Leadership when I saw a need in the marketplace for a better leadership approach. I realized that technology leaders, executives, managers in medium to large companies were struggling to keep pace with the requirements around maintaining proper executive presence, leading teams properly, and dealing with the whirlwind of responsibilities that is naturally a part of their roles. In the technology space, I saw in action what an executive coach could do to help leaders free up their thinking and creativity so that they can truly be proactive in leading their teams to make a positive impact on their organizations. As an IT executive myself, I have experienced the challenges of IT business leaders and managers first-hand and wanted to introduce them to what it means to be a “high-performing Platinum Level Leader.”
In essence, by delivering competent services in areas like servant leadership, individual and team coaching, delegation, relationship management, stakeholder engagement, and executive presence, we truly help make an IT executive’s or leader’s job easy. With our services, IT managers can focus on more strategic functions without worrying about the minutia of their daily work.
Although our niche is around IT leaders, executives, and managers, we don’t just target technology companies but technology teams of companies within any industry, from construction to healthcare.
Could you shed light on the Comprehensive Coaching Framework you offer and the benefits it delivers to clients?
Our Comprehensive Coaching Framework for Platinum Leaders is focused on seven primary functional layers that build on each other.
• Strengthening Personal Foundation
If you want to really be a good leader, you need to begin with a healthy life. The full-spectrum coaching that we offer through the framework begins with strengthening the personal foundation with a healthy lifestyle and positive outlook. This can be achieved by developing healthy habits and understanding how and when to focus on the right priorities.
• Understanding Values
As values are integral to our personality, they drive us in ways we may not even be aware of. Respecting those values and learning how to incorporate them into one’s leadership style is a foundationally important step.
• Leveraging Strengths
Technology leaders need to understand the fundamental aspects of their personalities that bring value to their teams. Be it strong relationship-building capabilities or technical strengths, we help executives not only understand their values but also leverage their strengths.
• Demonstrating Effective Behaviors
Helping leaders be aware of the behaviors that creep into the way of their success is at the core of our coaching framework. Besides, we enable them to establish a solid brand and executive presence for themselves, understand how they’re presenting themselves to the world, stakeholders, peers, and teams. This layer is more about taking the inward personal leadership trait and starting to bring it outward.
• Maintaining Healthy Relationships
Building and maintaining positive, healthy relationships is pivotal to any leader’s success. This layer focuses on interpersonal connectivity and relationships, understanding how to empathize, emotional intelligence, communication, presentation, and developing and taking the brand to the next level in terms of influencing other people in the team.
• Leveling up Personal Leadership
As we guide leaders through an upgrade path that builds heavily on the other layers of the Comprehensive Coaching Framework, they are in a much better position to lead themselves and positively influence their teams. This layer is about leveraging the knowledge gained to lead a team and identifying the skills that an executive is lacking.
• Leading a Platinum Team
Leveling a team up to the Platinum Level can be a massive gamechanger for organizations. The coaching framework I’ve built is focused on helping technology organizations, leaders, executives, and managers to ensure next-level, high-performing teams.
To further expound on your robust capabilities, could you cite a customer success story?
Our integrated agile processes have proven successful in multiple engagements. I’ve successfully applied the model marked by rapid design, development, test and implementation cycle into the leadership development arena.
In an instance, we helped an IT manager who was challenged with effectively managing his team and solving business problems for an IT operation. The manager was responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of certain technology systems so that their multi-billion dollar business could smoothly deliver services to their customers. However, the manager and his team were struggling to keep pace with the needs of the technology and business, which led to a dysfunctional team that was fraying at the edges. We stepped in and helped the manager level up his leadership capabilities with our sevenlayered coaching framework, specifically focusing on maintaining healthy relationships. We incorporated DiSC profiles, leveraged different assessments (360 engagement assessment), analyzed the data with the manager, and created action plans. Now, we’re in the process of facilitating healthier conversations and relationships between the manager and the team to help the organization effectively and proactively drive and support the business.
What does the future like for Platinum Level Leadership?
We have numerous plans in our pipeline. We are enhancing our seven-layer coaching framework with broader assessment tools to improve each of the layers and the product overall. Currently serving in Atlanta, we are focusing on expanding our footprint nationwide to serve more regional markets. We are also focusing on incorporating our agile approaches in our coaching framework in a much broader way to make it more structured.
Platinum Level Leadership enables IT leaders and executives to supercharge the performance of their teams and elevate their personal and professional lives to the next level—the Platinum Level. Tim Huff, Owner and Executive Coach at Platinum Level Leadership, says, “I help technology managers, leaders, executives, and teams be better versions of themselves by leading them through transformational changes so they can lead powerfully and live purposefully!” Huff brings over 27 years of direct leadership experience to help executives improve their leadership and their lives.
In an interview with the editorial team of Manage HR, Huff discusses at length how he helps technology leaders and teams navigate the high-pressure demands of working in a for-profit company with a Comprehensive Coaching Framework.
What are the factors that spurred the inception of Platinum Level Leadership?
I founded Platinum Level Leadership when I saw a need in the marketplace for a better leadership approach. I realized that technology leaders, executives, managers in medium to large companies were struggling to keep pace with the requirements around maintaining proper executive presence, leading teams properly, and dealing with the whirlwind of responsibilities that is naturally a part of their roles. In the technology space, I saw in action what an executive coach could do to help leaders free up their thinking and creativity so that they can truly be proactive in leading their teams to make a positive impact on their organizations. As an IT executive myself, I have experienced the challenges of IT business leaders and managers first-hand and wanted to introduce them to what it means to be a “high-performing Platinum Level Leader.”
In essence, by delivering competent services in areas like servant leadership, individual and team coaching, delegation, relationship management, stakeholder engagement, and executive presence, we truly help make an IT executive’s or leader’s job easy. With our services, IT managers can focus on more strategic functions without worrying about the minutia of their daily work.
Although our niche is around IT leaders, executives, and managers, we don’t just target technology companies but technology teams of companies within any industry, from construction to healthcare.
Could you shed light on the Comprehensive Coaching Framework you offer and the benefits it delivers to clients?
Our Comprehensive Coaching Framework for Platinum Leaders is focused on seven primary functional layers that build on each other.
• Strengthening Personal Foundation
If you want to really be a good leader, you need to begin with a healthy life. The full-spectrum coaching that we offer through the framework begins with strengthening the personal foundation with a healthy lifestyle and positive outlook. This can be achieved by developing healthy habits and understanding how and when to focus on the right priorities.
• Understanding Values
As values are integral to our personality, they drive us in ways we may not even be aware of. Respecting those values and learning how to incorporate them into one’s leadership style is a foundationally important step.
• Leveraging Strengths
Technology leaders need to understand the fundamental aspects of their personalities that bring value to their teams. Be it strong relationship-building capabilities or technical strengths, we help executives not only understand their values but also leverage their strengths.
As an IT executive myself, I have experienced the challenges of IT business leaders and managers first-hand and wanted to introduce them to what it means to be a ‘highperforming Platinum Level Leader
• Demonstrating Effective Behaviors
Helping leaders be aware of the behaviors that creep into the way of their success is at the core of our coaching framework. Besides, we enable them to establish a solid brand and executive presence for themselves, understand how they’re presenting themselves to the world, stakeholders, peers, and teams. This layer is more about taking the inward personal leadership trait and starting to bring it outward.
• Maintaining Healthy Relationships
Building and maintaining positive, healthy relationships is pivotal to any leader’s success. This layer focuses on interpersonal connectivity and relationships, understanding how to empathize, emotional intelligence, communication, presentation, and developing and taking the brand to the next level in terms of influencing other people in the team.
• Leveling up Personal Leadership
As we guide leaders through an upgrade path that builds heavily on the other layers of the Comprehensive Coaching Framework, they are in a much better position to lead themselves and positively influence their teams. This layer is about leveraging the knowledge gained to lead a team and identifying the skills that an executive is lacking.
• Leading a Platinum Team
Leveling a team up to the Platinum Level can be a massive gamechanger for organizations. The coaching framework I’ve built is focused on helping technology organizations, leaders, executives, and managers to ensure next-level, high-performing teams.
To further expound on your robust capabilities, could you cite a customer success story?
Our integrated agile processes have proven successful in multiple engagements. I’ve successfully applied the model marked by rapid design, development, test and implementation cycle into the leadership development arena.
In an instance, we helped an IT manager who was challenged with effectively managing his team and solving business problems for an IT operation. The manager was responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of certain technology systems so that their multi-billion dollar business could smoothly deliver services to their customers. However, the manager and his team were struggling to keep pace with the needs of the technology and business, which led to a dysfunctional team that was fraying at the edges. We stepped in and helped the manager level up his leadership capabilities with our sevenlayered coaching framework, specifically focusing on maintaining healthy relationships. We incorporated DiSC profiles, leveraged different assessments (360 engagement assessment), analyzed the data with the manager, and created action plans. Now, we’re in the process of facilitating healthier conversations and relationships between the manager and the team to help the organization effectively and proactively drive and support the business.
What does the future like for Platinum Level Leadership?
We have numerous plans in our pipeline. We are enhancing our seven-layer coaching framework with broader assessment tools to improve each of the layers and the product overall. Currently serving in Atlanta, we are focusing on expanding our footprint nationwide to serve more regional markets. We are also focusing on incorporating our agile approaches in our coaching framework in a much broader way to make it more structured.
