“Leaders are great, not because they have power but because of their ability to empower others.” John Maxwell
Today’s leaders face a critical question: How can they drive transformative change without creating chaos? Much of the answer lies in the cultivation of empowered and empowering cultures. Adaptability and innovation are essential for success, and empowering employees at every level is key to driving lasting change. A Harvard Business Review study shows that organizations with robust empowerment practices see a 50% increase in employee engagement and performance.
True empowerment involves providing autonomy, clear expectations, resources, and coaching. Empowered and empowering organizations typically experience reduced attrition, enhancements to their brand reputation, and high levels of trust and collaboration. Empowered teams are proactive, accountable, and aligned with the organization’s Mission, Vision and Goals —positioning the organization for continuous innovation and long-term success.
As Founder and President of Great Circle Associates, Linda Coughlin guides C-suite executives, high potential leaders and leadership teams through strategic transitions that necessitate challenging the status quo. A former operating executive and qualified financial expert, Lin possesses a decade of experience serving on public, private company and not-for-profit boards. Her career is distinguished by extensive general management expertise, particularly in scenarios that necessitate disruptive departures from the status quo. Coughlin’s experience spans over two decades, during which she has successfully navigated various complex transactions and strategic initiatives.
Expert Guidance at Driving the Execution of Disruptive Strategic Initiatives
Linda Coughlin operates a management consulting practice that provides advisory services to C-suite leaders (including principals of entrepreneurial endeavours), high potential leaders and their teams. Among other services, she enables the excellent implementation of strategic initiatives that demand disruptive departures from established norms at the enterprise, team, and individual levels.
Lin leverages her core competencies at developing and implementing operating, organizational, communication, and risk mitigation strategies to facilitate enduring transformational change. Her expertise extends to mentoring and executive coaching.
Linda Coughlin also provides Executive Coaching services to leaders at pivotal inflection points in their careers, such as:
- Planning transitions into new and different roles
- Strengthening leadership skills essential for achieving strategic goals
- Onboarding new CEOs and other C-suite executives
- Developing succession plans
- Identifying, planning, and facilitating the implementation of exit strategies
She also assists in planning and driving closure to various types of transactions, including, for example, post-transaction integrations and consequent rebranding initiatives. She also guides organizations through critical decisions related to planning, executing and communications in support of downsizings, turnarounds, restructurings, and new market entries. Her approach is designed to empower leaders to navigate complex strategic shifts and achieve lasting operational excellence.
Championing Women’s Leadership on a Global Stage
Linda Coughlin is a distinguished leader with extensive board experience, recognized for advancing women in leadership, and has a strong background in economics, philanthropy, publishing, and athletics:
- Member of the Women’s Policy Group at the Council on Foreign Relations
- Member of the Economic Club of New York
- Served as Treasurer on the board of The Committee of 200, a global organization of top female entrepreneurs and corporate C-suite operating executives
- Served on the Executive Committee of the Women’s Leadership Board at the Harvard Kennedy School
- Served on the Executive Committee of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club of New York
- Former Chair of the Board at World Pulse, the world’s largest nonprofit digital media network empowering women leaders in over 190 countries
- Co-edited Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming the Practice of Leadership, introduced by David Gergen, highlighting the importance of achieving the full partnership of women and men leaders.
- Named one of “20 Board Members to Watch” by Directors and Boards magazine
- Earned a B.A. in Economics, summa cum laude, from Fordham University (1982)
- Former professional equestrian
- Former marathon runner
- Competitive ballroom dancer
Journey of Resilience and Strategic Mastery
Linda Coughlin transitioned from a career in professional equestrianism to the private sector after a serious injury. She rose through roles in top firms like Booz Allen, American Express, Citibank, and Scudder Investments—becoming the youngest partner and second woman Managing Director at Scudder. Known for leading large-scale strategic transformations, she later held executive roles in consulting and corporate restructuring, ultimately founding her own practice to help leaders drive bold, strategic change.
Her accomplishments include the planning and execution of mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, joint ventures, and divestitures, as well as the establishment of both internal and stand-alone start-ups. She has demonstrated proficiency in developing and launching new products and services, and in making critical decisions related to restructuring, downsizing, rebranding, and market entry. Her industry experience is broad, encompassing electronic payments, banking, asset management, financial planning, travel, hospitality, vehicle rental, real estate services, healthcare, healthcare technology, heavy manufacturing, and professional services.
Lin is recognized and sought after as a collaborative and visionary thought leader, adept at navigating high stakes situations. She brings to the boardroom and her consulting practice a robust skill set, including highly developed analytical, problem-solving, conceptual thinking, strategy development and implementation, risk management, change management, and coaching and mentoring abilities.
Cultivating Leadership Excellence
Throughout her career as a C-suite operating leader in corporate America, Linda Coughlin surrounded herself with high-potential individuals who had the potential to do circles around her. She made strategic investments into their development, focusing on coaching, mentoring, and empowering them to cultivate a growth mindset, leverage their strengths, and embrace calculated risks. She also dedicated herself to fostering inclusive environments, ensuring the full partnership of men and women leaders in male-dominated industries. This involved honing her active listening and collaboration skills, maintaining a laser focus on results, and ensuring her team members received due recognition for their achievements.
This experience naturally led Coughlin to become an Executive Coach, collaborating with leaders at critical career junctures, and a Strategic Advisor to leadership teams seeking to reimagine aspects of their business models. She leverages her expertise at strategic thinking, execution, communication, and culture development to guide them through transformative experiences.
As an operating executive, Linda Coughlin articulated six core values that guided her approach to driving disruptive change:
- Passion for the elimination of the status quo: Embracing positive disruptive change, not for change’s sake, but to support the realization of sustained game-changing individual and organizational performance
- The celebration of uniqueness: Embracing diverse backgrounds, strengths, work styles, problem-solving techniques, life experiences, and perspectives, recognizing that such diversity fuels competitive distinction
- Generosity of spirit and action: Demonstrating compassion, empathy and a commitment to articulating and implementing a vision that benefits all stakeholders, including customers, shareholders, employees, partners, and the broader community.
- Professional and intellectual humility: Acknowledging individual fallibility while pursuing breakthrough results.
- Reciprocity: Cultivating a culture of mutual benefit through giving and receiving.
- Transparency: Committing to honest and candid communication regarding decision-making, feedback and problem-solving processes.
These values have remained core for over three decades, shaping her leadership style and defining her work as an Executive Coach and Strategic Advisor.
With over three decades of experience guiding complex organizational change, Lin is humbled by the reality that only about 30% of corporate transformation efforts succeed. Drawing from her extensive work as an operator, advisor and coach to changemakers, Lin emphasizes that successful, lasting transformation requires a structured, multi-phase approach—one that cannot be rushed or shortcut without risking serious setbacks.
Cultivating Trust and Vision for Effective Integration
According to Linda Coughlin, the successful implementation of enduring Change at Core™ lies in the creation of strategy specific cross-functional teams of passionate, resilient leaders—individuals she refers to as “Passionate Champions” in positive anticipation of the opportunity to pursue Change at Core™. These leaders inspire, communicate with clarity, and earn trust across the organization. They are also equipped to listen actively, face difficult challenges with courage, and engage sceptics through empathy and transparency.
Lin shares a real-world example from her own career, where she led a complex integration following a corporate acquisition. In the face of cultural tensions and stakeholder resistance, she focused on cultivating relationships, leveraging strengths from both organizations, and unifying teams around a shared Purpose, Vision, Goals and Strategies. Within 18 month, a new highly coalesced leadership team consolidated key operations and drove the implementation of bold strategies that turned two struggling business units from loss to profitability.
To achieve Change at Core™, Coughlin has developed and continuously refined a tried-and-true methodology that positions cross functional individual stakeholders, their leadership teams and the enterprises they represent for sustained game-changing outcomes. The nine-step process follows:
- Develop and communicate a bold, compelling vision for the future state focused on the “why” in support of an organization’s Mission
- Codify and operationalize Values and Cultural Norms/Desired Behaviours that reinforce the organization’s Mission, Vision, Goals and Strategies
- Create a sense of urgency by engaging stakeholders and assessing market realities, organizational capacity and core competencies
- Build a coalition of empowered Passionate Champions who model teamwork, cross-functional influence and high levels of social and emotional intelligence.
- Use clear, frequent communication to teach and reinforce new behaviours.
- Empower others by removing obstacles and encouraging measured risk-taking.
- Generate and celebrate short-term wins to build momentum and trust in the possibility and its achievability
- Consolidate gains to drive deeper, broader transformation.
- Institutionalize the changes through systems, leadership development, and succession planning.
Lin also stresses the importance of humility in leadership. She believes that great leaders serve the Mission rather than seek control. They create space for others to contribute, and act with conviction while remaining open to new ideas. For Lin, successful transformation is about more than strategy—it’s about fostering accountability, inspiring belief in what’s possible, and building an enduring culture of empowerment and growth.
The Roles of Mentoring and Executive Coaching
Linda Coughlin views mentorship as a vital element of career development and growth, offering targeted guidance on business, communication, and personal challenges through structured, outcome-oriented relationships. Drawing from her own journey—balancing a fast-paced career with raising four children—she also strongly advocates for the benefits of access to executive coaching expertise.
In today’s VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, she believes leaders must develop high levels of self-awareness, strategic thinking prowess and exceptional communication skills. Effective Executive Coaches, sometimes seasoned operators themselves, bring structured methods, real-world insights, and continuous support to help leaders drive purposeful, transformative change.
The outcomes of Linda Coughlin’s collaboration with seasoned and high potential leaders features the achievement of:
- Visionary and strategic thinking acumen
- High levels of emotional intelligence
- An eagerness to seek and provide constructive feedback
- The ability to take measured risk
- Leading with empathy and transparency
- Approaching the leadership of transformative change as tantamount to creating a movement
- The courage of your conviction to inspire others to move beyond the status quo to position for sustained competitive advantage in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world
