The REAL Wheel:
A free guide to navigating difficult workplace relationships
You’re not imagining it. That one difficult relationship at work is taking up 80% of your emotional energy. It’s stopping you feel creative and strategic, and that has to change.
The REAL Wheel helps you to map your emotional and practical journey through difficult workplace relationships – from the stuck, draining, exhausting place you’re in now, to leading from a position of clarity and confidence. There is zero generic resilience advice or vague self-care suggestions here. A real, honest process developed by me reflecting more than a decade of coaching senior leaders.
DOWNLOAD NOWWhat’s inside?
A collection of short, impactful exercises – some to navigate emotions, some to get practical and make a plan. All of which are designed to help you feel calmer, and lighter and knowing a way forward.
The REAL Wheel explained
A clear, visual guide to the four stages of the wheel — Release, Explore, Act, Lead — and what each one looks and feels like in practice. Because knowing where you are is the first step to knowing what to do next.
Where are you right now?
A simple self-assessment to place yourself on the wheel. Are you stuck in Release, not yet ready to Explore? Have you jumped to Act without doing the reflection work first? This helps you find your starting point.
Stage-by-stage prompts
Practical reflection questions for each stage of the wheel, designed to move you forward without skipping the bits that actually matter.
Who’s this for?
✦ THIS GUIDE IS FOR YOU IF…
- You’re in a difficult relationship at work — with a boss, a colleague, a board — and it’s taking up more headspace than it should
- You’ve tried ignoring it, managing around it, or telling yourself it’ll improve — and it hasn’t
- You’re a senior leader who knows the emotional stuff matters but doesn’t always know what to do with it
- You’ve either tried to have a direct conversation with this person OR it’s not possible, or safe, to do so, so this is something you need to work out how to manage on your own
- You’re willing to try something a bit different
- You want clear, practical tools, not a pep talk
✦ CREATED BY AN EXPERIENCED LEADERSHIP COACH
This isn’t a generic template pulled from a textbook. The REAL Wheel was developed by Jennifer McCanna — a PCC-credentialled leadership coach with over 15 years of experience working with senior leaders, directors, and CEOs. The framework draws on Jen’s coaching, her insight into Resilience Dynamics® tools and her work as an Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) practitioner. It reflects the crunch points where Jen finds herself doing most relationship work with real life coaching clients.
What clients say about working with Jen:
I wasn’t sure that the EFT would work, but I honestly cannot tell you what a difference it made- immediate and lasting. I felt able to explain a really difficult situation without worrying about judgment, and i felt my body relax, and I felt like I was really able to move past it.
I truly loved working with you. You were friendly, supportive, non-judgmental and full of positive energy. No matter what I said (following months of built-up emotion and resentment!), you never once judged me for feeling a particular way; you just let me feel it and then encouraged me to let it go and let something more positive in. Such a positive and transformative experience.
Jen is a kind and thoughtful coach with a great way of helping you access your truth, even in the depths of overwhelm. She helps you reach insights that transform your thinking, and in turn propels you to (appropriate) action. I went from anxiety to assuredness in just one session and am so grateful to her.
Founder
Jennifer McCanna
✦ A NOTE FROM JEN
I created the REAL Wheel because I kept seeing the same pattern. Brilliant, capable leaders absolutely floored by one difficult relationship at work. The impact on their confidence, their sleep, their sense of self was enormous. And the advice they was either non-existent or focused purely on thinking their way through the situation, whilst ignoring the emotional side of leadership.
I coached a wide range of leaders in different contexts for hundreds and hundreds of hours before coming up with this model, so it reflects genuine experiences of leaders at all levels, and the kinds of tools I’ve used with them to help them unstick a tricky relationship, and feel better.
Does it include every approach or tool I might use in a 1-1 coaching session?
No, of course not. That would irresponsible of me, because some work you can’t do in front of a work book (or AI!) you need a qualified professional in front of you to pick up on your responses, your energy and meet you where you’re at right now and support you accordingly.
But it does include a collection of very powerful exercises that have given breakthroughs to real life leaders, that you can do on your own – no difficult conversations with tricky colleagues here!
This framework gives you a map, and a place to start:
Instant download — no waiting
Free, with no strings attached
Questions? Drop me a message — my inbox is always open
Why does this matter?
Most senior leaders dealing with a difficult workplace relationship are managing it completely alone.
They’re performing in situations where they don’t really feel safe to be vulnerable or ask for the support that every senior leader deserves.
They’ve been told to “just be more resilient” — without anyone explaining what that actually means.
Leadership development rarely addresses the emotional cost of difficult relationships at work.
Most frameworks are transactional.
None of them help you process what you’re actually feeling
But the REAL Wheel does.
For more information about Jen’s 1-1 coaching work click here.
Finance sector
CEO, Bread & Water for Africa, UK
