Career growth in leadership does not begin with a title or a plan. For Courtney Intersimone, it began with saying yes to things she was not sure she could do and discovering that figuring it out was the skill all along.

Courtney spent 26 years in financial services, ultimately leading a global HR team of 200 people at a 50,000-person organization. She never planned to stay that long. She never planned to lead that many people. And for years, she actively avoided managing others, calling herself, with full self-awareness, a reluctant leader. What changed was not ambition. It was a mentor who refused to let her play small, and a series of assignments that forced her to lead before she felt ready.

In this conversation, Courtney shares what it truly takes to lead people well at scale from the non-negotiable practice of the one-on-one meeting to the art of having honest career conversations with people whose aspirations may not match the current moment. She talks about what she learned watching senior executives up close early in her career, why getting curious about human behavior will do more for your leadership than any MBA, and what it cost her to stay out of her own way long enough to finally start her own firm.

Four and a half years into running her executive coaching and consulting practice, Courtney works with leaders who have achieved the title, landed the role, and are now asking, now what? She meets them in that exact moment and helps them figure out what comes next.

In This Episode:

● Why making yourself available in a one-on-one is not optional and what "present" actually means in that room

● How to have honest career conversations with ambitious people even when you do not have the answer they want to hear

● What Courtney's mentor did that she credits for unlocking her best leadership years and how to apply it to the people you lead right now

● The mindset shift that made leaving a 26-year career not just possible but necessary

● Why the only real security available to any of us is the belief that we can figure things out

Connect with Courtney Intersimone

Connect with Natalie Davis and Leadership That Shines:

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠leadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠themagic@leadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: Flamingo Files on ⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠and ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠

Listen & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and iHeart Radio.

New episodes every Wednesday.

*Natalie Davis is a licensed real estate agent with Keller Williams Downtown, LLC.