Chapter 2. Boss Whispering

I have a confession to make: I don't call myself a boss whisperer in real life. I refer to myself as an executive coach, the standard term applied to coaches who work with businesspeople. I have mixed feelings about the executive coach label because it suggests that I restrict my coaching to the upper echelons of bossdom, otherwise known as the C-level: CEO, COO, CIO, CFO, and assorted other chiefs. I am distinctly uncomfortable with such an elitist conceptualization of coaching and have to restrain my potentially abrasive comments when other coaches boast that they work exclusively with top executives, as if this were some sort of badge of honor. I'm not terribly impressed with physicians who take pride in treating ...

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