Case Study: How Fiki Shifted from Pushing Harder to Leading with Ease and Impact

When Fiki first stepped into management, she did what so many of us do. She pushed harder. She signed up for every leadership course she could find, determined to prove herself. For 18 months she studied relentlessly. On paper, she was about to graduate with distinction.

But two weeks before the end of her program, a quiet, unsettling truth rose up:

“If I keep going like this, nothing will actually change.”

That moment of honesty became the seed of transformation. Fiki didn’t need another qualification, she needed a new way of being.

It wasn’t the first time she’d had to face truth head-on. Growing up in a big family of sisters in Zimbabwe, she’d learned to be courageous in the face of honesty. They used to play what they called “the truth game”. A tough, unfiltered kind of love that shaped her into someone who could handle raw self-reflection. And now, it was time to turn that same honesty inward.

Fiki hired a coach. Her organisation didn’t fund it (most still don’t understand the value of coaching for managers) but she knew she couldn’t afford to wait. Over those three months, something shifted. As she began to change from the inside out, her team began to change too.

She started sharing what she was learning through leadership webinars for hospital managers, blending African storytelling with practical wisdom. Her message was simple but profound:

“Managing operations isn’t enough. To lead well, you must lead yourself first.”

But she wanted tools that could go even deeper. That’s when she discovered One of many. When Fiki picked up Dr. Joanna Martin’s book Superwoman: Escaping the Myth, she read it in two sittings. For the first time, she had language for something she’d always known in her bones. She could lead with power and softness. As a woman of Christian faith, a healthcare leader and raised in a culture rooted in connection, the One of many values especially collaboration resonated with her.

Joining the One of many coaching certification didn’t just add skills to her toolkit, it gave her a whole new paradigm. The Cycle of Creation helped her dismantle old beliefs. Naming the cultural paradigms she had been swimming in set her free. Whether it was the male-dominated leadership culture or the quiet pressure of being “the only” as a woman of colour.

Today, Fiki is no longer just a manager, she’s a catalyst for change. She coaches her colleagues. She has run leadership webinars for radiology managers across 38 hospitals, and has spoken to managers in larger organisations of up to 17,000 people. She has seen what happens when leaders are supported from the inside out. Stress reduces, teams thrive, and most importantly patient outcomes improve.

And she’s not stopping there. Fiki is on a mission to make coaching for managers the norm, not the exception. Because as her late mother, a farmer, used to say:

“Every living thing must grow. Whatever is not growing is dying.”

Coaching helped Fiki grow and now, she’s planting the seeds for a new generation of leaders to grow too.

If you’ve ever felt that no matter how hard you push, something still isn’t shifting, maybe it’s not about working harder. Maybe it’s about learning a new way of leading yourself, so you can lead others with ease and impact.

Join us inside One of many’s Coaching Certification and discover the tools, community, and support that transformed Fiki’s leadership. And could transform yours, too.