Coaching for leaders in motion

Coaching and facilitation to help you lead with clarity,
navigate what's next, and bring your full self to work

Coaching Opportunities

Developing Leaders

"How can I be an effective leader?"

Maybe you're a high achiever making the transition into leading a team for the first time. Or you're in a start-up trying to juggle wearing multiple hats. Or you're an entrepreneur wondering what it will take to get your company off the ground.

Wherever you are on your journey, coaching will help you identify and hone strategies to show up as the best version of yourself and overcome challenges.

Navigating Transitions

"What should my next move be?"

Maybe you're contemplating a career change, thinking about pursuing a promotion, wondering if you should take some time off, or starting to plan for a transition into retirement.

Whatever the change, coaching can help you get clear on your priorities and motivations, and create the space to map out concrete next steps.

Aligning Teams

"How can we work better together?"

Maybe it's not just about what's going on with you, it's about addressing a broader team dynamic or building your team's collective skills.

Team coaching and facilitated workshops can help your team get clear on shared priorities, surface and address what's not being said, and rediscover the fun in working together.

Types of Engagements

About

Photo of True Mica's founder

Hi, I'm Theresa Gilbert.

For the first 18 years of my career, I helped organizations, teams, and leaders communicate more effectively. I moved ambitiously from an internship to an in-house communications role (where I obtained my law degree while working full-time), to a public affairs firm where I gained global experience, to an executive role at an NVIDIA-backed startup. I worked hard and constantly took on more, believing that the only path to success was up. But the climb left me overwhelmed, exhausted, and unfulfilled. I slowly realized the answer wasn't in the next raise, the next promotion, or the next big project.

Working with leadership coaches gave me the opportunity to examine my career, my routines, and my decisions more closely. I gained a deeper appreciation for why certain things were exhausting me, and ultimately decided to fully unplug from corporate life. In my "taking a break" phase, I learned to slow down and reconnect with work that inspires and motivates me. I've always been passionate about creating a positive work environment and culture. As Chief Experience Officer at Utilidata, I got to experiment with different leadership development strategies and communications tactics to cultivate high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction while tripling the size of the team.

Founding True Mica allows me to build on that experience, to get to know people deeply, help them connect and communicate more clearly, and embrace the best parts of themselves.

Why True Mica? I love metaphors as a way to visualize complex concepts and wanted my brand to explain coaching in an abstract way.

Mica is a naturally occurring mineral made of thin, translucent layers that reflect light and sparkle. In our work together, I offer reflections that help you explore your layers and embrace what makes you shine.

A sample of mica, a silicate mineral with thin, translucent, reflective layers

Photo: B. Domangue, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My Philosophy

While I don't expect we'll agree on everything, understanding my views on leadership may help you evaluate if we'd be a good fit.

People deserve to bring their full selves to work. One of the first big projects I led was launching the social media pages for a utility company. As I moderated the comments, I saw employees' family members defending their hard work from customers angry about being without power for over a week. It became clear that lines between internal and external communication were dissolving before my eyes. Our work affects our families and our families affect our work. Trying to draw hard lines between our personal and professional lives doesn't work; as leaders, we need to acknowledge that about ourselves and create space for our team members to share and express their full range of feelings and experiences.

Leadership is hard. And pretending that it's not makes it even harder. As a leader, you're responsible for a lot. The decisions you make affect the success of your organization and the lives of the people you work with. It can be tempting to hide away the stress, anxiety, and imposter syndrome. But being open and vulnerable about the things you're struggling with invites support and connection with the people around you.

We're all a work in progress. It can be tempting to think that once we get "there" we'll have things figured out. But the reality is, "there" doesn't really exist; we're constantly changing and the world around us is changing too. And even when you reach the next milestone, it will come with new challenges. I've seen this described online as "new levels, new devils" and "what got you here won't get you there."

Careers are like Chutes & Ladders. For a long time, I thought careers were like a ladder: you work your way to the top, then slide into retirement. But the reality is that most careers are more like a game of Chutes & Ladders — some moves are upwards, some are lateral, sometimes you take a slide down (intentionally or unintentionally), and sometimes you stay in one place for a while. None of those moves are wrong, and it doesn't have to be a race to the finish line. It's okay to take a nonlinear path and explore a bit.

Life is too short not to enjoy yourself. Most adults spend about one-third of their waking hours working. That's a lot of time. At least some of those hours should include real moments of joy. That doesn't mean everything has to be great all of the time, but it does mean it's worthwhile to find work that inspires you, enjoy the people you work with, celebrate your wins, and have some fun.

Ready to talk?

Schedule a complimentary virtual meeting to explore what coaching with True Mica could look like for you.

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