Ilona Lott

My story is about knowingly looking for challenges.

I am a world citizen whose mission is to encourage the positive self-development of people. As a life-long learner, I constantly need to do something new to change the world.

I had just got my degree in business management from the Estonian Business School and was hungry for a challenge. I noticed an advertisement where a service point of an insurance firm was looking for a manager. In earlier years, I had experience leading smaller teams, and I decided to apply. To my surprise, I was chosen and ended up leading an branch
with 70 employees. The only thing settled was the goals. Everything else I had to invent by trial and error.

Despite all my trials and errors, I was successful and we easily achieved all the set goals. After that, I realised that there is no challenge that is unachievable and that anything can be done. I felt I wanted challenges in other cultures, and I enthusiastically adopted new paths.

Headfirst into an unknown culture.

I have had the opportunity to work in various international teams and experience life in a
whole new culture where people and their temperaments differ a lot from Estonia. I lived and
worked for a long time in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkan countries, Central-Asia, Turkey, and France. These experiences have broadened my worldview and increased my awareness of diverse cultures and helped me to achieve results out of my comfort zone. The
more complicated the challenge, the more you grow while achieving the agreed results.

My (working) life is my doing.

When I returned to Estonia, I was at a crossroads. I was asking myself how to create a meaningful life full of developmental professional challenges and also have time for volunteer activities. I decided to share my professional skills in my field of speciality at the Estonian Human Resource Management Association PARE, and to change the world in the Let’s Do It World community. I also wanted to spend more time with my family. It was important to me to be responsible for my time and to decide on my own what projects I wanted to be included in, and with whom. Another decisive factor was working in a multicultural environment.

About the team and leadership.

The quality of leadership is what I take to heart, you might even say that it is my passion. During the many decades of my professional life, I have experienced various management styles, and I have grown as a leader myself. This is a field that is developing fast, and to stay in shape, one has to step out of one’s comfort zone and practise new ways of leadership. Working with teams and managers is my strong suit. I approach the
development of people’s skills with awareness. I can find the bottlenecks and move towards the goals. Unknown and new situations give me the strength to move on, and also encourage others.

In teamwork, it’s vitally important to know how to assess people’s capabilities and their will to
contribute. Every average team has their power button and with the right moves, it can be
found easily. To find it, you need a trustworthy work environment, humane understanding
and a letting go of restrictive beliefs. Great teams can, through an arising awareness, reach
new goals. A development coach who actively participates in heping to solve the challenges of the team can give a valuable contribution to magnifying the strengths of the team, thus creating values that help to achieve the goals and prevent the emergence of problems, the decline in motivation, or burn-out. It makes sense to include a development coach during pivotal times e.g., the merger of companies, rapid growth or decline, change of owners, entering new markets, and a change of the business model. Value-based leadership, together with a developmental coaching style, has proven to be the most successful working tool that paves the way to the development and dedication of talents.

As a coach or a development partner, I follow my values – honesty to oneself and others, the belief that every person has got a talent which must be found, and professionalism, which makes me constantly learn new things, take action and put myself to the test. Developing organisations through value-based leadership and encouraging the strengths is my passion and my calling. I will help you and your team give up any restrictive beliefs and behavioural patterns and reach the results you could only dream about before. It will enable your team to reach the set goals goals and create a meaningful, colourful life without
boundaries.

What I liked most about Ilona’s coaching was the creation of space, which happened without forcing, but at the same time with very clear boundaries. Ilona can remain pleasantly neutral as a coach and make you see different situations from a completely new perspective. Different exercises are what I have practiced independently after our coaching sessions and I see that they are of great help. Ilona’s life experience and rich professional background gave coaching a deeper dimension. It was an extremely positive and empowering experience for me. Thank you for everything, Ilona!

Moonika Oras

I had the pleasure of being Ilona’s coachee during an ICF project in which we both participated. I really embraced the opportunity and used my time with her to develop a strategy for a business project. Her insightful questions, challenging approach , friendly personality and excellent intuition helped me in achieving my goals and in being very happy with the overall experience. Thank you very much Ilona

Johanna Parnis England

If you are eager to raise awareness about yourself, take on some new challenges, overcome a fear or two, increase self-confidence, become a better person, you are already closer to your new life by reading this text as you are exactly in the right place.

Packages

What does our journey look like?

There are many possibilities for that:

Personal Coaching

I will help you map the present situation, set a goal, and develop a concrete plan of action to reach this goal. If needed, we will correct the plan or adjust the goals as we go. With clear-set goals and mindful activity, you can create for yourself a future that you will like!

Team Building

As a coach, I will help your team to turn over a new page. Depending on your needs, I will put together a one-day or multiple-day training to support the areas that need development in your team. A training day is an interactive study day with practical exercises.

Retreat – a Journey to Yourself

We will leave civilisation for a couple of days and go to a beautiful place in nature to listen to our internal wishes and thoughts. Our goal is to have a restart – we will focus on creating our life vision, let our thoughts pass by us undisturbedly, and (re)create contact with our true selves.