Linda Coughlin: Redefining Leadership in the Modern Business Landscape

October 9, 2025

Today’s corporate environment demands leaders who can maintain organisational cohesiveness and performance in the face of unprecedented disruption. For leaders dealing with digital transformation, market upheaval, and shifting stakeholder expectations, the high impact leadership of transformational change has become a critical skill set. Today’s leaders must master the skill of striking a balance between empathy and results, fostering cultures that are open to change while dismantling toxic relationships and psychological barriers like imposter syndrome. C-suite executives who want to develop their emotional intelligence, imaginative thinking, and true leadership skills are finding that executive coaching and strategic advising services are essential tools. Linda (Lin) C Coughlin, as Founder and President of Great Circle Associates, exemplifies this evolution with over a decade of experience guiding executives through complex organizational transformations.

A Visionary Veteran

Lin is celebrating her 18th year as Founder and President of her consulting practice, Great Circle Associates (GCA). She spent the last 15 years of her 25+ year career in corporate America as an operating executive, leading highly transformative and disruptive changes to the status quo. The experiences included the oversight of several transactions, the leadership of the aftermath integration needs, restructuring assignments, internal start-ups, and rebranding initiatives.

Her signature approach featured strategic investments into the development of high potential leaders seeking to excel at the execution of transformative change, Significant ROI inevitably occurred, manifested in dramatic increases in efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, and innovation.

Having discovered the secret sauce to creating movements for change, Lin decided to redirect her focus from leadership responsibility to teaching leaders how to enact transformative change. She focuses on enabling change-making leaders to develop the following skills:

Visionary and strategic thinking
Compelling and Inspiring Communications
Emotional Intelligence
Taking measured risk
Leading with empathy and transparency
Thinking of the leadership of change as equivalent to creating a movement

Today, Lin collaborates with leaders and leadership teams whose business models need to change and who themselves are at inflection points in their careers. She often starts with the reconsideration of their purpose, deriving high levels of impact and fulfilment. Lin states, “Once a client, always a friend!”

As a c-suite operating leader in corporate America, Lin had always prioritized the need to surround herself with leaders who had the potential to outperform her. She therefore invested heavily in a strategic approach to their development, paying close attention to coaching, mentoring and empowering them to adopt a growth mindset, play to their strengths and learn to take measured risks.

Linda also worked hard to create a full partnership of men and women leaders in male-dominated environments. This required her to master her active listening and collaboration skills, exercising a high level of laser focus on results and ensuring that her team members were recognized for their achievements.

It was therefore natural for Linda to become an executive coach focused on collaborating with leaders and leadership teams who are at big inflection points in their careers. It led her to become a strategic advisor to leadership teams who need to re-imagine aspects of their business models, leveraging her core competencies in strategic thinking, planning, execution, communications and culture development.

Core Values That Inspire the Execution of Disruptive Departures from the Status Quo

Lin articulated six values as a profit center leader focused on the leadership of disruptive departures from the status quo:

The celebration of uniqueness: To welcome and embrace differences in backgrounds, strengths, work styles, problem-solving techniques, life experiences and perspectives, recognizing that the greatness of any enterprise arises out of the unique contribution of each individual
Generosity of spirit and action: An attitude of the heart that manifests in an authentic expression of compassion and willingness to articulate and implement a Mission and Vision for the good of all stakeholders including customers, shareholders, employees, partners and the local and global communities organizations operate in.
Professional and intellectual humility: The awareness and outward expression of our individual fallibility as we drive to the achievement of breakthrough results.
Reciprocity: An eagerness and prowess at giving as well as receiving toward mutually beneficial outcomes (“to whom much is given, much is expected”)
Transparency: A commitment to making visible, in truthful candid ways, processes by which conclusions are drawn, decisions are made, problems are solved and opportunities are envisioned.
Passion for the elimination of the status quo: A commitment to embrace change, not for change’s sake, but for the breakthrough and sustained well-being of all stakeholder groups.

These values have endured, and she has practiced them for 30 years. They are the bedrock foundation to the success and growth of her consulting practice.

Guiding Leaders to Break Through Barriers

“I had the privilege of collaborating with a CEO of a growth company who has overcome imposter syndrome resulting in the promulgation of a bold Mission, Vision, Values and Cultural Norms whose practice has put the organization on a steep growth trajectory,” shares Lin. She worked with that CEO to put into practice eight coping mechanisms as follows:

Recognizing imposterism when it emerges. Awareness is the first step to changing. Remember where you came from — your roots. Remember the long journey and the hours you spend working to achieve your goals. Embrace and leverage the strengths you already have.
Remembering that you’re not alone. Research has shown that the likelihood is high that peers and superiors also have or have had feelings of being a fraud. When it came to leading a major company, Starbuck’s Howard Schultz admitted to feeling undeserving and insecure. In an interview with The New York Times, Schultz said, “Very few people, whether you’ve been in that job before or not, get into the seat and believe that today they are qualified to be the CEO. They’re not going to tell you that, but it’s true.
Talking about it. Most of us experience moments when we are less confident, leading to feelings of “uselessness.” Open dialogue with trusted colleagues (most of whom have experienced imposter moments in their personal and professional lives!) will help to reframe the context rather than harboring negative thoughts alone
Conquer fears in the moment. Find an inner source of strength that you may yearn to last for the rest of your life. Accept that you may never completely get over fears of being found out. This is critically important to overcoming imposter syndrome. We must become uber self-aware of those moments when we are slipping into the trap of feeling like a fraud and go to the root of it. We must tell ourselves that we are not frauds and why. List those reasons and go for it! Tell yourself, “If I’m going to doubt something I’m going to doubt my limits!”
Set bold but attainable goals. Celebrate the accomplishment of each goal and use the celebrations as motivation to keep going.
Visualize successful outcomes: Whether it’s completing a task or pitching a challenging departure from the status quo, imagine the change you want to see. It will help to maintain focus, calm and a sense of possibility.
Reimagine failure as a learning opportunity: Be open to and embrace lessons learned and act on them.
Change your mindset: The only way to stop feeling like an imposter is to stop thinking like an imposter! Instead of telling yourself that you are going to be found out or that you don’t deserve success, be aware that it’s normal not to know everything. Setbacks happen to everyone. Honor your vulnerability and have faith that you will learn as you go — as you always have!

Overcoming Challenges Impactfully

Throughout her 18 years of coaching and advisory work, Lin has identified two significant barriers to effective leadership, especially throughout the process of executing transformational change:

1) Toxic workplace cultures and 2) Imposter syndrome.

The biggest challenge leaders and managers face is with politically motivated toxic work cultures, especially at large organizations. This challenge emerges especially when a leader has, at best, a passing appreciation for dysfunctionality and/or when leaders are in denial.

To address toxic cultures, she has developed a five-step methodology for operationalizing values and cultural norms:

Inclusively codifying values, cultural norms and associated desired behaviors
Benchmarking the extent to which employees are practicing codified values and cultural norms and desired behaviors
Tying the practice of values and cultural norms to performance management protocols
Creating robust internal communications that feature positive outcomes achieved through practicing values, cultural norms and desired behaviors
Holding senior leadership accountable for role modeling the values, cultural norms and relevant desired behaviors

According to Lin, a nagging inner voice that whispers to leaders that they don’t deserve their achievements, or that they don’t really belong – is called Impostor Syndrome. “When leaders dismiss their core skills, competencies and leadership strengths and are unable to internalize their accomplishments, they worry that they’ll be unmasked as a fraud,” states Lin.

Seventy percent of men and women leaders are shackled by the scourge of Imposter Syndrome, severely limiting their ability to grow and advance apace in organizational settings.

Linda opines that the only way to stop feeling like an imposter is to stop thinking like one. Instead of telling oneself that they are going to be found out or that they don’t deserve success, leaders must acknowledge their vulnerability and reach out to subject matter experts like trusted colleagues, executive coaches and mentors.

Showing vulnerability will build high levels of trust and respect. Also, leaders should not be afraid of setbacks. They are invaluable learning experiences. They should be confronted in an inclusive and empowering manner.

Maintaining a Balance that Reaps Massive Outcomes

Lin believes that balancing empathy with performance and results focus in transformational situations is one of the hardest, and most important, leadership challenges. “The two aren’t opposites; in fact, they can reinforce each other when approached intentionally,” she quotes. Here are some ways to integrate both:

Reframe Empathy as a Performance Driver

Empathy isn’t “soft”; it creates conditions for high performance. When people feel understood, they’re more likely to stay engaged, take risks, and adapt during change. Acknowledging fears, stress, or resistance doesn’t lower the bar—it raises people’s capacity to meet it.

Example: In a transformation, leaders who listen to employee concerns about new technology adoption often discover barriers (training gaps, unclear processes) that, once addressed, speed up results.

2. Set Clear Standards While Showing Care

Empathy: “I understand this transition is disruptive, and it’s stressful to change how you’ve worked for years.”
Performance: “At the same time, this change is essential for us to compete, and you are needed to embrace and master this new system in the interest of our customers.”

This combination makes expectations explicit while honoring the human impact.

Use the “High Support, High Challenge” Framework

Think of leadership in two dimensions:

Support (Empathy): Listening, coaching, adjusting workloads, celebrating effort.
Challenge (Performance): Holding people accountable, setting stretch goals, measuring progress.

Transformation succeeds when leaders offer both. Too much challenge without support creates burnout; too much support without challenge leads to complacency.

Practice Situational Empathy

Not everyone needs the same kind of empathy. For some, it’s listening deeply; for others, it’s removing obstacles or advocating for resources. By tailoring empathetic gestures, you avoid diluting performance expectations.

Model Transparency and Resilience

Leaders can acknowledge their own struggles while showing commitment to outcomes:

“This is tough for me too. I’ve stumbled learning the new process—but I’m committed to getting it right, and I know you can be too.”

This fosters psychological safety and a performance mindset.

Anchor Conversations in Purpose

Empathy resonates most when linked to the “why.” Connecting performance demands to a meaningful vision (“so that we can serve clients better,” “so that we remain industry leaders”) transforms pressure into shared purpose.

Lin concludes by stating that in transformational situations, empathy and performance are not competing values. “Empathy gives people the psychological capacity to rise to demanding goals, and clear performance standards provide empathy, direction and purpose,” she expresses. She adds, “Leaders who can flex between the two, meeting people where they are while holding the vision of where they need to go, unlock transformational results.”