Coaching for senior leaders through transition, integration and sustained pressure
For chief executives, partners and directors, when the role changes under you or the pressure stops easing.
Most senior leaders can run the role they’ve grown into. The test comes when the role changes, or when the pressure stops easing and starts to show in how someone is thinking and leading. I coach at chief executive, partner and director level, mainly in professional and financial services and in organisations that answer to a mission rather than a market, and I’ve carried a senior role through an acquisition myself.
What people come with
A step up into a broader role
The job that got you here was about being right. This one is about other people being right more often, and the habits that made the first job work are now in the way.
Leading through acquisition, integration or restructure
Holding a team together, and yourself, while the ground moves and the people you answer to change.
A change of strategy
Leading something you didn’t design, or designing something your own team isn’t yet behind.
Sustained pressure
High visibility, little margin for error, and a long stretch where the pace doesn’t ease. When someone is in that place, performance coaching on its own is often too narrow, and I work with the whole picture: how you’re thinking and deciding, how you’re relating to the people around you, and how sleep, recovery and physical load are affecting all of it. Where something sits outside coaching, I say so and help you find the right support.
Presence, influence and senior relationships
Peers, the board, clients, and the one or two relationships that decide whether the rest work.
How an engagement runs
It starts with a chemistry conversation, no charge and no obligation, so you can decide whether I’m the right person. A typical engagement is six two-hour sessions over about six months, in person in London or Brighton or by video, booked as needed so each session has room to land. If more is needed beyond the six, we agree it together.
You’re in charge of your own development. We start by getting clear on what needs to change and the context, professional and personal, it has to survive in. From there the work is focused conversation: reflection, challenge and practical commitments, with enough space between sessions to try things. I use Hogan and Insights Discovery where they add insight, and 360 feedback where the organisation wants it. I don’t run a fixed model.
Confidentiality
I don’t report on the content or progress of sessions, to anyone. I encourage you to own that conversation with your line manager or people team, and I’m glad to join three-way meetings at the start, mid-point and end to agree goals and review progress. Commercial terms are agreed with the sponsoring organisation at the outset.
What clients tend to take away
Clearer thinking and steadier decisions in high-stakes situations. Stronger relationships and more influence with peers, boards and clients. Working habits that reduce overextension. And a better understanding of their own triggers and patterns, so the changes hold once the coaching ends.
Credentials
Coaching
Fellow, Association for Coaching
Fellow, Learning and Performance Institute
ILM Level 7, Executive Coaching
Systemic Team Coaching, Academy of Executive Coaching
Over 3,000 coaching hours
Clinical & systemic
PG Diploma, Systemic Leadership and Consulting Practice
PG Diploma, Humanistic Counselling
Systemic Interventions, Gestalt Institute of Cleveland
MSc Clinical Nutrition, University of Aberdeen
Psychometrics
Hogan accredited practitioner
Insights Discovery accredited practitioner
I trained in humanistic counselling and Gestalt psychotherapy. I don’t practise as a therapist in the coaching room; what the training gives me is a way of seeing the whole person.
Further reading
When a senior person under sustained pressure needs something other than a better conversation about goals: When performance coaching isn’t enough.