About Nadine Duong

I Was Born Into Complexity

I grew up speaking Chinese to my dad, Vietnamese to my mom, and English to my siblings and at school. Straddled between cultures, I have a keen sense of navigating different relationships throughout my personal and professional life. I have 20+ years of experience as a coach, business partner, change agent, facilitator, and instructional designer in both nonprofit and corporate environments. My ability to navigate complexity is key, no matter how complicated or chaotic my current situation is.

Because of my multicultural background and ability to navigate complexity, I’ve helped others look at their life and leadership from a new perspective. Get the results you want…

Be seen and heard and fully express yourself.
Develop healthy relationships with yourself and others.
Find the courage and leadership style to be the change and have a greater impact on your world.

“No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders. So the point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, to use yourself completely – all of your skills, gifts, and energies – in order to make your vision manifest.”

—Warren Bennis, author of ‘On Becoming A Leader’

My Coaching Journey

I was a high performer, and everyone knew my name. My management gave me opportunities that expanded my leadership capacities. Then I took a new position in another division of my company. It seemed like a dream position.

The skills that enabled me to thrive in the past weren’t enough to navigate the complex and psychologically unsafe new environment. I was unhappy. I felt stuck. Every time I felt stuck, I looked for another position. It worked out well in the past. This time, my current operating model wasn’t working for me. And something inside was drawing me towards a different path altogether…

I had always wanted to pursue coaching, but I had to get past my narrative of what a coach was. After some deliberation, I signed up in February 2020 for my first coaching class. Classes were canceled because of COVID, although I knew the world would not get out of this pandemic soon. Undeterred, I took a leap of faith and had my first Zoom class in July. I was hooked on coaching by the end of that introductory class.

Amid a pandemic, my manager took on a rotation, and her position became available. I applied for this internal position because my peer would become my manager if I didn’t step into it. I was unhappy and wanted to see where I could pivot. Being a manager seemed logical because I was a manager before. Yet I didn’t have a strong desire for it. During the interview, I experienced many unsettled feelings (“butterflies in my stomach”). I told my management I wasn’t happy. So I asked them to allow me to lead and make the changes that could improve the team’s morale. It was a bold move, and it could be inferred from my answer that I wasn’t happy with their leadership. I didn’t get the position, nor did I regret giving that answer. So the universe was leading me to something else.

Against my wishes, my peer became my manager. After each coaching course, it became apparent I didn’t want to be a manager again. Yet I saw myself as a leader. Coaching validated what I knew intuitively about leadership. Leadership is less about our title or position. Instead, it is more about how we show up and care for others, allowing them to be their best selves. Being a coach is the type of leadership that resonates with my values, style, and strengths. I found my tribe in the company of coaches, and I’m at my best when I coach others. As Leadership guru Warren Bennis puts it, “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.”

My division eliminated the middle management layers a year later due to a re-organization. My coaching certification positioned me to become an internal coach in the new organization!

Founding Member, Coaching for Everyone

Some of us have access to leadership, life, and career coaching through work, or we can pay for the coaching ourselves. For many, transformational coaching is too expensive and out of reach. Coaching has been more readily available to the white and privileged. As an executive and integral coach, I want to use my privilege and connections to advocate for others. Coaching can be a powerful catalyst for organizational diversity, inclusion, and equity. Therefore, I became a Founding Member of Coaching for Everyone, a nonprofit that provides coaching and leadership services to traditionally under-resourced populations, particularly BIPOC young adults, K-12 educators, and nonprofit employees.