A Chance Meeting in Kigali.
We met him the way we meet most people who end up changing how we see our work, by accident.
Earlier this year, a leadership conference took place in Kigali. The event felt formal, with polite hallways and guarded sessions.
We noticed him before we spoke to him. Arms were folded at his back, and he half-listened. The posture suggested a man dragged somewhere he didn’t want to be.
However, during the coffee break, he made a joke that landed wrong. A few people laughed out of courtesy. He didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he did and had simply stopped caring.
We ended up at the same lunch table, and somehow we still don’t know how we started talking.
Additionally, we talked about leadership coaching for difficult employees.
Not about leadership.
About frustration.
When Your Manager Is Always on Your Case
He told us, without much prompting, that his manager was “always on his neck.” Missed deadlines he swore weren’t his fault. Colleagues who asked not to be paired with him. A performance review that used the word “inconsistent” three times in two paragraphs. He wasn’t defensive about it, which surprised us. He was tired. Tired of being the person meetings got quieter around. Tired of being right about the work and still losing the room.
“Honestly, I don’t know what I’m getting wrong here,” he said. “I show up. I put in the work. So why does it feel like I’m always the problem?”
That’s usually the moment people either walk away from a conversation or lean into it. He leaned in.
The Question Nobody Had Asked Him
We didn’t diagnose him over lunch; that’s not how real change starts. But we asked a few questions. How he communicated under pressure. What ran through his head right before a deadline he knew he’d miss. He wondered whether anyone had shown him how his working style landed on people. Instead of merely saying it landed badly, he wanted real examples.
He admitted no one had. He’d been told what to fix — be more consistent, more cooperative, more of a team player; but never why those things kept slipping. Nobody had handed him a mirror. Only a list of complaints.
Starting the Coaching Process
We kept talking after the conference.
Over the following weeks, he agreed to go through a coaching process with us.
The process starts with understanding yourself before it ever gets to fixing your calendar.
Early on, he took a Maxwell DISC personality assessment.
Reading his own report, he said it felt strange.
It named things he’d felt but never had language for.
This described how he communicated under stress.
Thus, leadership coaching for difficult employees becomes practical.
It described what actually motivated him, and why cooperation didn’t come naturally.
The real shift wasn’t the report. It was the debrief that followed, sitting with us as we helped him translate insight into behavior. Coaching sessions where he stopped asking “why does my manager hate me” and started asking “what do I do the moment I feel cornered, and what could I do instead.” It wasn’t instant. But something in him began to steady and soften at the same time.
The Turnaround at Work
Months later, he told us his manager had noticed before he’d said a word about the coaching. Fewer follow-up emails asking where things stood. Colleagues looping him in early instead of working around him. “Inconsistent” hadn’t come up in his next review.
That’s when he did something we didn’t expect; he brought up Jayn Leadershift in a team meeting, unprompted, and told his manager and colleagues they should look into it.
Not because anyone asked him to endorse us.
Because he’d been the hardest person in that office to work with, and he knew exactly what had made the difference.
Why We Still Think About Kigali
We think about that lunch in Kigali often. Nobody had a breakdown or a cinematic turnaround. It’s a quieter story than that, about a man tired of being misread, who didn’t know there was another way to be understood, until self-awareness gave him one.
For any part that sounds familiar, a team drifted apart or a tense relationship. Moreover, the barrier is why our personality consulting and coaching services identify and work through issues. They’re missing a mirror.
Is There a “Him” on Your Team?
So, be honest, is there a “him” on your team? Maybe it’s your top performer who somehow empties every room they walk into. Maybe it’s you, and you’re just too polite to admit it out loud (we won’t tell). Either way, you don’t have to wait for an accidental lunch in Kigali to find out.
Come find us at www.jaynleadershift.com and let’s get you, or that one colleague everyone’s quietly side-eyeing; a mirror instead of another memo.
