Experience changes the way you see things
I have spent more than 30 years working and leading in international organisations, many of them in senior roles up to C-level.
My career has taken me from operational responsibility and hotel management into international leadership positions and broader management and HR responsibility.
That experience taught me that leadership is about far more than numbers, strategy and processes.
It is about people. Decisions under uncertainty. Conflicting interests. Change. And situations in which responsibility cannot simply be passed on to someone else.
I know that world well.
Why coaching
For many years, analytical thinking was one of my most important professional tools.
Structure. Understand. Decide. Act.
And yet there are situations in which more thinking does not automatically produce more clarity.
That made me curious.
I wanted to understand more about the personal and interpersonal dynamics that shape behaviour and why we can sometimes understand something perfectly well on a rational level without anything actually changing.
That is what led me into coaching.
Not as a departure from my previous career, but as an extension of it.
approach
How I work with people
I work calmly, clearly and directly.
I listen carefully, ask questions and help bring structure to complex situations.
And I am prepared to address things that may not yet have been said.
My role is not to move someone towards a particular decision.
For me, good coaching allows people to see their own situation more clearly and develop a decision that genuinely belongs to them.
Respect, confidentiality and personal responsibility are fundamental to that work.
Two perspectives
My leadership experience helps me understand the reality of people who carry responsibility.
I know performance pressure, organisational dynamics, competing interests, commercial demands and the sometimes lonely nature of difficult decisions.
My coach training added another perspective: greater attention to perception, relationships, emotional dynamics and recurring patterns.
Today, I bring those two perspectives together.
An understanding of responsibility, together with an eye for what is not always immediately visible.
qualifications
Training and qualifications
I completed the Business Coach training programme “Spurrillenwechsel® erlernen”, based on the coaching approach developed by Boudewijn Vermeulen under the direction of Dr. Eva Kinast.
The programme combines sound theoretical foundations with intensive practical application, transfer phases and mentor coaching. Its focus is on the ability to view complex personal and professional situations from different perspectives and make relevant connections visible.
The Vermeulen Analyse Modell® (VAM®) is part of this training and one of the elements of my current coaching approach.
the name
Anja Lenk
You may know me from my previous professional career under the name Anja Hermann.
My coaching work now operates under Anja Lenk Coaching.
My experience and professional background remain the same.
The name is new.