When the role gets more demanding
Michael Shiner works one-on-one with healthcare and life sciences founders, CEOs, and senior leaders as the demands of leadership increase.
The work is practical and grounded in the leader’s real circumstances. Insight earns its keep in more skillful leadership behavior: better communication, collaboration, conflict resolution, decision making, and team leadership.
Between sessions, Michael is available to help think through important decisions, relationships, board issues, and other matters as they arise.
The work often begins in situations such as these:
A need for the right coach. A company, board, investor, or HR leader is looking for a coach for an executive, or adding a coach to a trusted bench.
A larger role. A leader takes on substantially greater responsibility, such as becoming a first-time CEO, moving from a functional role into the C-suite, or taking on enterprise-wide responsibility.
A more demanding company. The title stays the same, but the company grows around the leader. More people, capital, complexity, visibility, or board expectations make the job materially harder.
A consequential moment. A financing, clinical or regulatory milestone, restructuring, acquisition, board conflict, succession, or other high-stakes event raises the consequences of leadership decisions.
A strong leader who is getting in their own way. A valuable executive is succeeding in many respects, but a behavior such as poor listening, difficulty delegating, avoiding conflict, or communicating uncertainty is beginning to limit their effectiveness.
CEO development. Being CEO can be isolating. A confidential sounding board gives the CEO a place to think through pressures, uncertainties, and decisions that may not yet be ready for the team or board, while testing assumptions, widening perspective, and becoming more skillful in the role.
Michael began his career as an entrepreneur and investor before turning to doctoral research at Harvard on leadership effectiveness in biotech R&D.
His research examined how even excellent leaders can undermine themselves in particular situations and contexts. Under pressure, attention can narrow, important information can be missed, and strengths can become blindspots.
That research now informs his coaching, along with his experience as an operator, investor, teacher, and advisor. His work combines close listening, sound judgment, confidentiality, and a focus on understanding the whole person and building from the client’s strengths and experience.
Michael has worked with leaders at Biogen, Vertex, CVS, and Massachusetts General Hospital, and more broadly across technology, professional services, and defense, including Microsoft, Amazon, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and the U.S. Navy.
He teaches the psychology of decision-making at Brown University and has also taught at Harvard and MIT. He served as Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College.
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The
work
The work is evidence-based, grounded in the leader’s social reality, confidential, and candid. It combines reflection, new perspectives, and practice: understanding what is happening, deciding what to do differently, trying it in the real world, learning from what follows, and beginning again.
How an engagement works
Every engagement is tailored to the leader and the situation, whether the focus is on specific changes in leadership behavior or broader growth and effectiveness in the role.
Most engagements include the following elements, adapted to the leader and the situation. CEO development may place greater emphasis on ongoing reflection, perspective, and judgment.
Initial conversations. Michael begins by understanding the organization, the leader’s responsibilities, and what the leader and, when appropriate, the sponsor hope will be different as a result of the work.
Learning about the leader. Michael begins with in-depth conversations about the client’s background, experiences, self-perception, and the demands of the role. He also conducts confidential interviews with people who know the leader from different vantage points, including peers, direct reports, senior colleagues, board members, and often a spouse or partner. Assessments, performance reviews, and observation can add further perspective.
The aim is to understand the whole person: how the leader sees themselves, how others experience them, what is working, and where change could make the greatest difference.
Feedback and Planning for Change. In most engagements, Michael and the client review interview feedback, identify a small number of specific behaviors to work on, and develop a flexible, practical plan for change.
Working on the real job. Coaching conversations draw directly on what is happening: an important decision, a difficult relationship, a board meeting, a conflict, a delegation problem, a presentation, or a question about how to lead the organization. The work may involve examining assumptions, considering different perspectives, rehearsing conversations, or deciding what to try next.
Regular one-on-one work. Conversations are more frequent at the beginning, then typically every two weeks, depending on the leader’s schedule.
Seeing the leader in action, if useful. When useful, Michael observes meetings, presentations, or other situations in which leadership can be seen directly. Observation often reveals things that neither the leader nor colleagues can easily articulate.
Between sessions. Michael is available between sessions to help think through important decisions, relationships, board issues, or other matters as they arise.
CEO development. For some CEOs, the work is less about a formal behavior-change plan and more about having a careful listener and confidential thinking partner, with room for personal development as well as the immediate demands of the role. These conversations provide a place to think through pressures, uncertainties, relationships, and decisions that may not yet be ready for the management team or board. The aim is to strengthen judgment, broaden perspective, and grow in effectiveness as a CEO.
Confidentiality
The substance of coaching conversations remains confidential. When a sponsor is involved, Michael and the client agree in advance about what may be shared, typically goals, participation, and overall progress. The work depends on that trust.
What changes
The aim is not simply greater self-awareness. It is better leadership in practice: clearer decisions, stronger relationships, greater steadiness under pressure, and more skillful handling of the moments that matter most.
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The research behind the work
Michael’s doctoral research at Harvard examined leadership effectiveness in biotech R&D — an environment defined by scientific complexity, high stakes, and sustained uncertainty.
He found that even excellent leaders sometimes undermined themselves in particular situations and contexts, though the patterns differed from one leader to another. Unconscious biases, gaps in self-awareness, lapses in emotional intelligence, and a failure to see the situation from a wider, more integrated perspective could all contribute.
Under pressure, these patterns can become more pronounced. Important data go unexamined. Attention narrows. Emotions become harder to use constructively. Self-regulation and interpersonal skill become harder to access. Strengths can become blindspots.
Behavioral science helps explain why these patterns occur and how they can be interrupted and changed. Michael applies that research directly, helping leaders recognize what is happening, understand why it is happening, and create the conditions for a different outcome.
He teaches the psychology of decision-making at Brown University and has previously taught at Harvard and MIT. He also served as Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College. His coaching draws on that academic work — and on his own experience as an operator and investor who has seen these patterns up close.
Even excellent leaders sometimes undermine themselves. The patterns differ, but they can be recognized, understood, and changed.
About
Michael Shiner is a Boston-based executive coach who works with founders, CEOs, and senior leaders in healthcare and life sciences.
He began his career as an entrepreneur, building and selling a company before becoming a family-office investor in mid-market companies in Canada. Working closely with senior leaders, he saw how the demands of leadership increase as organizations grow, and how consequential problems can remain difficult to see until they have already affected decisions, relationships, and trust.
That experience led him to doctoral research at Harvard on leadership effectiveness and psychology in biotech R&D. He found that even excellent leaders sometimes undermined themselves in particular situations and contexts, though the patterns differed from one leader to another. Unconscious biases, gaps in self-awareness, lapses in emotional intelligence, and a failure to see the situation from a wider, more integrated perspective could all contribute.
That research now informs his coaching, along with his experience as an operator, investor, teacher, and advisor. His work combines close listening, judgment, confidentiality, and an effort to understand the whole person: how leaders see themselves, how others experience them, and what will help them become more effective.
Michael teaches the psychology of decision-making at Brown University and has also taught at Harvard and MIT. He served as Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College. He is co-authoring a book with Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D., on destructive leadership and its consequences.
He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
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