Leadership Coaching
To be a better leader.
Leadership coaching is primarily about being the best leader you can be. Your coaching program will be designed to meet your individual needs. In coaching we will focus on your strengths and explore any shifts you might need to make to enhance your performance or improve your wellbeing (because wellbeing is a prerequisite for performance) and explore positive strategies for managing the challenges you face at work.
Anyone can call themselves a coach… but they may not have even done one day of coach training.
Anyone can call themselves a ‘Professional Coach’ or ‘Master Coach’… this is a credential awarded by coaching bodies like the International Coach Federation and Association for Coaching, so beware those who use such titles and cannot provide evidence of their credential.
A coach gets you from where you are now to where you could be, or where you want to be, more efficiently that you can on your own.
Leadership coaching is bespoke and focused on your individual needs: my role as coach is to help you work toward whatever it is you want to focus on in coaching.
When you are working with a great coach it should feel like your coach is truly in “your corner”. They will listen deeply to what you are saying (and not saying!), ask you questions to get you thinking more deeply or broadly. Questions are the coach’s most valuable tool and asking the right question at the right point in the conversation is ultimately what creates awareness and leads to change.
Through a process of inviting introspection and self-reflection, I will help you navigate a way through what’s in the way of you achieving what you want and being the best version of yourself.
Every coaching session is unique and between sessions I will provide relevant resources (these could be articles, books, podcasts, or information sheets) to assist you with your specific coaching objective.
Standard executive/leadership ‘coaching engagements’ are generally 6-10 coaching sessions, spread over a period of 6-12 months and there is a specific objective/change that you work on throughout the engagement.
You will decide what the focus is for each coaching session and you will decide what actions/experiments you are taking away from the session – with a lot of hard work done by you between sessions.
While people may choose to return to the same coach for another engagement, coaching isn’t meant to be a relationship that continues indefinitely.
My areas of coaching specialisation:
- Making the shift from operational to strategic.
- Developing your confidence, resilience and self-care.
- Overcoming your inner critic (self-criticism) and managing self-doubt.
- Reducing unhelpful thinking, ruminating, and worrying.
- Building better relationships and influencing others.
- Giving and receiving feedback and having difficult conversations.
- Better time management – learning to say no (and when to say yes!)
- Responding (instead of reacting) to conflict.
- Transitioning to a new role, or to retirement.
- Making important decisions about your career (direction, impact & legacy).
Leadership Coaching Packages
Before commencing a coaching engagement, we will meet for a brief 30 minute ‘chemistry meeting’. This meeting is a chance for you to learn a little about me and my coaching style, and for me to understand what you are hoping to get out of coaching. We both need to ensure we are a good ‘match’ before commencing a coaching engagement.
If you decide that I’m the right coach for you and I feel I can help you with what you want out of coaching, I will send you information about the various options: I have 6-hour and 10-hour packages available.
Coaching sessions are normally scheduled every 2-3 weeks, so a 6-session coaching engagement (based on 60-minute session length) would run over a 3-5 month period, or a 10-session engagement would run over a period of 6-10 months – but there is no specified time period and the coaching relationship can extend well beyond a year.
At this point I will also send you a Coaching Agreement – once this is signed I will send you a link to my online calendar so you can book your coaching sessions well in advance.
If you are in Adelaide coaching sessions can be face-to-face and I also work virtually using Zoom (or Teams).
When coaching engagements are completed, you may wish to continue booking and paying for ad hoc sessions on a ‘needs’ basis and this is certainly possible.
“I very much looked forward to meeting with Julie and spending the time with her. I very much valued her style in working with me, listening, reflecting and guiding me to the places. She has provided me with enhanced thinking and behaviours to enhance my capability. I will miss not having any more sessions with Julie – I found each and every session extremely valuable.
I highly recommend Julie as a Coach.”
Asset Manager, Multinational Corporation (2021)
“Julie is highly perceptive and deeply insightful. She helped me identify critical issues that I needed to address personally, as well as the issues that were affecting my working relationship with my teams and issues within and between my teams. She suggested practical approaches and actions that I could take – which I did – that led to fruitful and helpful conversations and interactions in the organisation, which in turn led to positive results in staff morale, behaviour, and performance.”
Australian Head, International University (2020)
Examples of Previous Coaching Engagements
- Executive Director, Higher Education – Team Coaching with a group of senior professional staff. This resulted in increased trust within the team and improved communication.
- Associate Director, Global Bank – Skills Coaching to build leadership capability in delivering effective feedback and conducting performance conversations. The client began to work on developing a feedback culture, enabling the growth of individuals and lifting team performance.
- Deputy Principal, Education – Developmental Coaching to shift mindset and behaviour, as part of preparing for a role at the next level. Confidence increased and client successfully secured a Principal role.
- Senior Defence Scientist, Australian Defence Organisation – Skills Coaching around difficult conversations, managing behavioural issues and poor performance within the team. The client was more impactful in their new role, which involved leading significant change.
- General Manager, Global Media Company – Executive Coaching to regain focus and reignite passion for leadership. The client developed renewed confidence in their ability to manage an inter-generational team, which reduced anxiety levels and increased cohesiveness within the team.
- Program Manager, Health Not-for-Profit – Developmental Coaching to grow emotional intelligence and acquire new skills in emotional agility, following a difficult workplace incident. The client returned to a challenging role with improved interpersonal skills and greater wellbeing.
- Senior Manager, Digital Marketing – Developmental Coaching, with a focus on personal brand. Client began to flex their leadership style, which led to increased authenticity and greater impact.
- Senior Project Manager, Multinational Engineering Firm – Career Coaching to uncover long-term career aspirations. The result was increased clarity and focus, combined with the motivation and confidence to pursue the identified goal. The client successfully achieved a promotion to Lead Planner.
- Professor and Centre Director, Higher Education – Developmental Coaching to manage workload and mitigate burnout. The client made significant changes and improved their work-life integration.
Want to understand more about Executive and Leadership Coaching?
The origins of coaching date back a very long way, but its roots appear to be in sports coaching. In the 1970s and 1980s other types of coaching developed and by the end of the 20th century coaching was being widely used. There are now many different types of coaching: life coaching, business coaching, career transition coaching, organisational coaching (including executive and leadership coaching), and many other types of coaching!
Coaching differs from other development interventions (such as counselling, mentoring, therapy etc) in that a coach does not advise or train. A coach will never say “you should…” or “this is how you should do it…”. In a coaching relationship the client decides what needs to be changed and why the change is needed.
Coaching will only be successful when both parties are committed to the process. As the coaching client, you must be prepared to strive for change and your coach must be able to provide the support that’s right for you.
This might find this blog post useful when you are trying to choose the right a coach.
“The opponent within one’s own head is more formidable
than the one the other side of the net.”
Quote by Timothy Gallwey, ‘The Inner Game of Tennis’
If you’re still struggling to get your head around what Executive Coaching is, I highly recommend listening to this podcast called The Coach in Your Head (Against the Rules with Michael Lewis). Even if you only listen to the first 12 minutes, you’ll learn something valuable.
Just about anyone today can call themselves a coach. Michael traces this trend back to its source and finds out that the secret to effective coaching lies not in retraining the body, but the mind. We meet the original guru of “the inner game”: Timothy Gallwey, author of the 1974 classic, “The Inner Game of Tennis.” We find out how mental skills coaches only need one coaching toolkit to work with everyone from New York City firefighters, youth softball players, professional musicians, and even writers with a podcast.
