Executive Coaching

space to enjoy a robust thinking Partnership

Executive Coaching is a conversation, a dialogue between people to unearth what is meaningful, to yield the thinking that serves. I use a conversational framework that invites change. Clients leave each session with a renewed sense of purpose, clarity and ease. I am privileged to partner & be a sounding board for the many seasoned executives I have coached over my tenure as an Executive Coach. To me relations matter and confidentiality is key.

“Work is a very serious matter indeed. We freight our work with meaning and identity, and fight hard and long for some kind of purpose in our endeavours. Vocation is a moveable frontier between what we want for ourselves and what the world demands of us.”

David Whyte, Poet

I am very conscious of the reality faced by many of my executive clients, pressurised and always on, full of complexity, challenge and change often confounded by the many relations & distractions they encounter daily. I am more than aware of the interrelated systems in which they operate, political, social and economic, the ambiguity and uncertainty that prevails, certainly as we move through this current Pandemic. The last 10 years has seen a relentless pressure to focus on digitisation, to deal with Artificial Intelligence, Automation and an increasingly a Diverse Workforce. Themes like humanising the workplace, re-inventing our ability to learn to Lead differently and be conscious of the rise of the social enterprise are pervasive.

Executive coaching is a modality where clients can step back, pause temporarily and reflect. The approach allows for wide ranging conversations, in a risk free environment to address the challenges clients face at work & in life. Each conversation allows for self- awareness and insight becoming conscious of the cognitive, emotional & social intelligence needed for a more mindful, connected leadership. This is where I help. I ask questions to get at unexpected & often unintended but surprising outcomes and results. I then help my clients chart a course or direction that is more purposeful, true & satisfying.

By employing the right kind of question, open, curious, evocative & sometimes slightly provocative but never judgemental, I can have a meaningful dialogue for change. The questions I ask slip under and around the barriers between people which makes it easier to illicit the new and different. To me relations matter.

“Sometimes it’s simple, sometimes its messy, but it’s a process that’s designed to get there.”

Tara Nolan, MCC

Coaching Conversations

The hard truth

The simple truth is that I work with ambitious executives, individuals & teams who are keen to evolve. The hard truth is that there are hard truths and challenges to face. Denial, delusion, blindness & tolerance for the uncomfortable are just some of the defences I meet. Some conversations are decidedly uncomfortable, circuitous even as change is resisted. That is the work. The result is transformation.

“My questions serves as a lever to pry open the stuck lid on a can of paint.”

Fran Leavy

This quote by Fran Leavy, a pioneer in Strategic Questioning , sums up the brilliance of Executive Coaching. Opening the can is not the objective, it’s about opening the can to release what’s stuck inside. A future, a new emerging thought or idea, a feeling, a whole host of possibility.

Executive Coaching Process

01. Discover

Contracting forms an integral part of my approach. I am seeking to appreciate the client’s current story/narrative or position. I look to understand what informs decisions or actions, what beliefs are held, what strengths exist and what perceptions others have of the person I am coaching. I conduct in-depth interviews with stakeholders, use psychometric assessments and typically have a depth conversation with the person concerned. I then work to help a client make sense of what is presented and to articulate their desired change.

02. Define

Armed with increased self-awareness and a desire to achieve stated objectives my clients are typically primed to engage in developmental change. We explore tactics and strategies and experiment with different options to strengthen a client’s repertoire, to stretch and to move in a cycle of action for learning. Each session is a build and also often a different take on a previous concern. I believe nothing changes unless behaviour changes and key to that is working with assumptions, beliefs and values, thoughts and emotions that drive us.

03. Refine

All conversations I encounter with individuals deal with the natural and real phenomenon of resistance, resistance of thought, emotion, and will. My skill as a coach supports indivuals or leaders move past this apparent impasse by facilitating the integration of future thinking, feeling, and will in the context of practical applications and learning by doing. These last few sessions are devoted to consolidating, reviewing, evaluating and reinforcing new ways of being and doing.

For Executive Coaching Services please contact me here