Leadership and Executive Coaching

Leadership coaching is defined as a structured, confidential partnership focused on improving self-awareness, decision-making, communication, emotional intelligence, and overall leadership effectiveness, concentrating on real challenges and actionable change. The key word here is partnership. I’m not in charge, we do this together.

It is intended for managers, senior leaders, executives, or emerging leaders seeking faster growth, handling greater responsibility, navigating change, or overcoming specific leadership blind spots, and is ideal for high performers preparing for the next level, or those who have got ‘stuck’.

Unlike training (which gives information) or mentoring (which offers advice), coaching helps you to discover insights, build new habits, and develop a unique, personalized, strategic, and deeply reflective leadership style.

Common topics include building confidence, communicating clearly, handling conflict, delegation and time management, influencing stakeholders, leading through change, executive presence, and managing stress and resilience. It can also get you out of a rut!

Leadership coaching is broader and applies to any management level, while executive coaching focuses on senior leaders who have high strategic responsibility, manage complex teams, or influence organizational direction. Though the methods are similar, the context and complexity differ.

This is something we will design together, but typically we will meet about once a month, either online, or in person, for 45 minutes to an hour. How the conversation is structured will be built around your needs. We start with a contracting discussion, where we agree what that looks like.

Meaningful impact typically requires clients to work with a coach for three to six months, though engagements may extend to nine to twelve months for major transitions or long-term growth. The whole point is to give you the autonomy and tools to be your own agent for change, and to avoid dependency on me.

Sessions usually last 45 minutes to an hour, and involve reviewing successes and obstacles, exploring behaviours or patterns, working through a real challenge, creating an action plan, or practicing new skills or between sessions. For example, that difficult conversation you need to have at work? How did it go, and what did you learn? You should expect to do most of the talking. My role is to listen really carefully without judgement, and ask good questions to help you find a way forward that works for you. You should also expect to do some ‘homework’ after each session to develop some of the themes and ideas that evolve.

Let’s start with a free discovery call to understand where you are, what change you want to see, and what that might look like. Importantly, in our conversation, we need to see if there is a good fit. There are many coaches out there, and it’s important that you feel that we can work together. I won’t take any offence if you decide I’m not the right coach for you. If it does feel right, then I will send you some preliminary questions for you to reflect on, from which we can develop a personalized coaching plan, and a clear schedule and some ideas on how you might track progress. Typically, while the moment is fresh in your mind, people like to start within one to two weeks. You can get in touch here to have that first conversation without obligation and at no charge.

I believe that people have astonishing power in themselves, and fundamentally want to feel in control of their own lives. Broadly, people find themselves in a position of needing to change either because they’ve had enough of present circumstances, or something has happened to them. In essence, I work with people who need to change something in their working lives, which may of course be impacting their personal lives. In our contracting conversation, I will work with you to gauge how much challenge you want, and we take it from there. I also lean on a supervising coach to support me, so I’m not operating in a vacuum.

I have worked with senior leaders in a number of industry sectors, and have found that the challenges for leadership can be similar, regards of the sector. Although my own career spans the arts, media, culture, education and charities, as a coach my role is not to be your industry sector expert – that’s what mentors are for. That said, I do have a hinterland of experience in governance and in the board room, and if I do have particular knowledge that I think might be useful to you, and that you might not be aware of, I will flag this as a side bar. I do also have a duty of care to you if I think you are about to make a decision that might get you into difficulties. For example, if you’re feeling tempted to fly off to the media to tell your story, or that you might inadvertently misfire on a safeguarding issue. In the end, decisions you make, are yours.

The key measure is how you feel the change beginning to take effect in you. While formal assessments and metrics can be useful, I’ve not found them to be especially helpful in coaching scenarios. If in your professional life you have been subject to such things as psychometrics or strengths finders, then by all means bring these into the conversation. A touch of scepticism can also be enlightening, so treat such things as aides to thinking, not as defining tools.

Clients typically experience a range of changes, which might include stronger presence and confidence, better communication and influence, clearer decision-making, improved team engagement, greater resilience and emotional intelligence, faster career progression, increased productivity with less stress, or, a major life change and a sigh of relief.

The sessions are about you, not me. So, expect to do the work, not just in the sessions but between them as you reflect or try things out. Being open-minded, and accepting of challenge and feedback, is a prerequisite. Be honest with yourself: this might not be the right time to engage a coach, and don’t be forced into it by those around you. When you are ready, jump in and engage with the adventure.

Honestly? You won’t know, yet. However, if you need or want to change something badly enough, and you’re open to reflection and motivated to grow, it could be just the thing you need right now. If these conditions are met, coaching is considered one of the highest-ROI investments possible.