Partner Story: Marianne Bateup

Where were you born?

I was born and grew up in Germany, and also worked and studied there.

What did you do before becoming a coach/facilitator?

I was working in different industries, in everything from small-, over medium-, to large-sized organisations across five continents. Most recently with Toyota both in Japan and in Australia, working with different levels of leaders around strategy and business transformation.

What do you enjoy doing in your personal time?

I love being out on our boat in nature, unplugging and recharging. I practice what I preach concerning wellbeing, I work hard and then I also take time out to ensure it is sustainable.

Origin Story: What inspired you to become a coach/consultant/trainer/facilitator, and can you share one unforgettable moment from your early days?

I experienced being coached on a personal topic by a University tutor during my studies in Europe. It changed my life and I wasn't even aware that it was coaching. Later on, during my time in strategy and business transformation, I recognised how much coaching can support concerning stakeholder management, and that's when I started to upskill in this regard. Nowadays I am inspired every day by the impact and value my clients receive from their sessions.

Personal Approach to Leadership Development/Coaching/Facilitation

It depends on the client's needs, I customise my overall service provision, and that also includes how I coach, based on what the client is after, do they seek transformation, require support, being challenged, held accountable, etc. 

Superpower: What kind of work do you focus on and makes you unique in your profession/what’s your superpower?

I focus on leadership coaching and training, which includes a variety of leadership topics, executive, intercultural, career and wellbeing coaching and training. These can be in individual, group or team settings.

My superpower is my strong passion to provide value to my clients coupled with my German reliability. I keep re-centring on what provides value to the clients, and they know they can rely on my services and appreciate the value they receive from their sessions.

Learning & Growth: How do you stay inspired and continuously improve your own knowledge, coaching or facilitation skills?

On the one side rest is really important, as I mentioned before, I tend to unplug and recharge out on our boat in nature.

Furthermore, I love learning and regularly participate in coaching and leadership education, also as it enables me to continue to provide high level services to my clients. I just completed my Master Certified Coach training, a significant investment financially, time- and effort-wise. It was a very inspiring experience and has further elevated the value I can provide to my clients and that's what drives me.

Love: What do you love about your career or this industry?

About the coaching career, I love the impact and value my clients receive.
Concerning the industry, it is about the requirement to continuously improve, that's very much aligned with my values.

Insights on Leadership Development

A key concern is that many people are being promoted into leadership roles based on having been great with their technical, task-based skills, and now they are responsible for leading people and haven't received support in how to do this.

As this has been the case for a long time, we have many middle and upper management leaders who are not leading the best they could, unfortunately often demotivating their team members.

It is great to see so many emerging leadership programs nowadays, enabling them to apply their learnings from the start. However, the middle and upper management leaders also require this support, so the organisation can upskill overall and aligned concerning its leadership capability.

Balancing Act: How do you blend serious leadership development with light-hearted moments to keep sessions both impactful and engaging?

I keep focussing on what the client needs. Sometimes it is seriousness, at other times light-heartedness. Overall, leadership development needs to be relevant to the audience. A common leadership journey is both, sometimes serious and sometimes light-hearted, thus integrating both aspects is important and natural.

Dream Leadership Program: If you were to design a leadership program from scratch, what’s one non-negotiable activity or exercise you’d include?

Having attendees reflect on what leadership means to them and sharing it with one another. I often use creativity cards for this purpose, accessing the topic from a different perspective than they are used to. This is a great icebreaker, the participants can get to know each other a little better or in a different way, and start building trust and understanding, opening up for the remainder of the program.

Hidden Habits: What’s one underrated leadership capability you believe can make a huge impact, but is often overlooked or underdeveloped?

Truly listening to understand the other person and seeing them as a human being.

Bad Habits: What’s one particularly destructive/negative behaviour that staff, leaders, teams or organisation can do to undermine achieving their goals? advice to manage/avoid/improve?

Not striving to live by the organisational or team values, it demotivates the team members.
Consider revisiting the organisational or team values together with your team: Are they being lived or are they just marketing jargon, do they need to be adjusted?

Unconventional Advice: What’s the most unconventional piece of advice you’ve given that ended up being a game changer?

A client reflected on how to calm down when receiving pressuring emails at work and that it helps them to feel the wind blowing away their stresses at the beach. I asked whether I could share an intuition and queried how a fan might be useful. This was a massive game changer for the client, a fan at their desk providing them the sensation of wind blowing away their stresses enabled them to remain calm going forward. They ended up sharing with all their friends and family how sometimes an unconventional approach can have such a major impact.