Evidence-based Leadership coaching to help you to develop and thrive in complex organisations.

Step up to your next level in leadership.

Here at Coaching Leadership, we believe you are the instrument of leadership. Who you are, creates a distinct leadership presence. Like your DNA, no one else has the same leadership impact.
Therefore, our developmental leadership coaching focuses on who you are and how others experience you to develop your leadership to lead in more complex settings.

If you are the instrument of leadership, developmental leadership coaching is like piano tuning for leaders. We want you to be able to create music that others want to be part of and follow.

We apply the latest coaching psychology research to help you develop more significant insights into how you are experienced as a leader. We use cutting-edge leadership development assessments, one example being the Leadership Multi-Rater Assessment of Personality, to give you greater awareness of how you show up as a leader that helps in accelerating your leadership development.

We have zero tolerance for leadership fads or pseudo-science such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming. We don’t promise to make you rich or reprogram your mind. We can, however, help you to become a more effective leader. This we know how to do well.

Who do we help?

We specialise in coaching curious leaders from new leaders to middle level, senior executives, and C Suite leaders. At this level, it’s less about what you are doing and more about how you are doing it.

Our coaching helps leaders who have usually hit the ceiling with their current leadership capability and are keen to develop a greater perspective-taking capacity to see more and make a more significant impact.

Our coaching engagements are specifically designed to meet each client’s unique needs.

  • New and Emerging leaders
  • Middle and Senior Managers
  • Executive and C-Suite Leaders
  • Entire Leadership Teams

We partner with our clients supporting them each step on their developmental leadership journey as they confront the challenges they encounter along this road.

Executive Developmental Leadership Coaching

One-on-one executive coaching provides insight into your current mental models and what those models permit and prevent. The aim of coaching here is to develop more nuanced models that allow greater perspective-taking capacity to be better able to lead through complexity and change.

We also focus on developing high-performing leadership teams. Individual executive capability is essential, but without the capacity to build a high-performing leadership team, it’s a boat with no engine.

We use evidenced-based leadership development tools to help accelerate the process.

Next Level Leadership

One-on-one coaching for middle managers and senior leaders. We take a detailed history of your leadership journey to date and work with you to understand where you want your leadership to take you.

Using a wide variety of evidence-based assessments. We focus on helping you to develop the thinking and leadership behaviours needed to take that next step to the next level of leadership.

Leadership Team Coaching

Individual leadership capacity is essential. However, the organisation can not perform at the required level unless leaders can collaborate. Our leadership team coaching utilises evidence-based diagnostic tools that measure the properties that make leadership teams high-performing. Team coaching then focuses on developing a plan to build internal capability to become a high-performing leadership team.

What our clients are saying

Gail White
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STUDENT ENGAGEMENT & REGISTRAR at Macquarie University

I chose to work with Simon because he was described as a hard taskmaster, something I felt I needed to help address some of the ingrained behaviours I was seeking to change.
I worked with Simon for just over a year, meeting for an hour each month either in person or by Zoom. Simon also coached some members of my leadership team, which helped to confirm shared goals and accountabilities. It also promoted a culture of team collaboration.
Simon could indeed be a hard taskmaster but deceptively so; his practical and thought-provoking advice was wrapped in a package of funny personal stories and genuine interest in both my wellbeing and ambitions.
Extensively trained and highly qualified in his field, Simon has the unique ability to combine the science of his profession with empathy and practicality to provide effective support to address the everyday challenges facing leaders in the workplace. Simon’s coaching has given me confidence in my leadership approach, developed my range of leadership skills, and validated my ability to set goals and achieve results.
The coaching sessions gave me a regular opportunity to vent frustration, test ideas, seek help to resolve issues, address shortcomings in my behaviour, relieve stress, and reset goals.
I have no hesitation in recommending Simon to others. He is a knowledgeable, engaging, and effective coach who supported me to continually refining my focus on the goals I was seeking to achieve.

Paul McDermott
PRINCIPAL at Blue Haven Public School

In 2020 I was looking for a leadership coach to work with the Blue Haven Public School leadership team. We have a dynamic and diverse group of leaders that range in experience and personality. After making contact with Simon, I was immediately impressed with the lengths that Simon went to in order to understand our context and tailor a leadership program to the needs of our team.

Simon was incredibly personable and earned the trust of our team immediately. The reflection tools that he used challenged our team to reflect upon their leadership, celebrate strengths, and challenge ourselves to grow in order to improve both individually and collectively.

Simon was able to adapt his coaching relevant to the experience and capabilities of each staff member. All of our leaders reflected that they benefitted greatly from the coaching and expressed a desire to continue working with Simon.
Several other schools have now shown interest in working with Simon as a result of the positive impact that Simon had at Blue Haven.
I would not hesitate to recommend Simon’s coaching to leaders in any field.

Answers to common questions about developmental leadership coaching.

Q. How can developmental leadership coaching help your next career step?

What got you here won’t necessarily get you there. The leadership behaviours you leveraged successfully to get you to where you are today have worked well for you. Still, they are unlikely to serve you in a more senior role.
Getting noticed for great work is key to early leadership success; however, more nuanced leadership skills are required to lead more complex functions and situations.

Developmental leadership and executive coaching set a clear pathway to more effective leadership capability.

Think of developmental leadership coaching as personal fitness training for your leadership capability. If you want to get fitter and faster developmental leadership coaching is an evidence-based approach to get you there.

Q. What does leadership coaching include, and what can I expect?

Developmental leadership coaching is a confidential, supportive and challenging dialogue between a coach and a leader. Both coach and leader meet for usually between six and ten one-hour sessions between 4- 10 months.

On many occasions, the coach will suggest utilising varying evidence-based leadership development tools such as 360 assessments to gain deeper insights into how you as a leader are experienced by others.

This helps to accelerate the process and also provides an objective third-party view of how your leadership is experienced by others.

The coaching centres around real work challenges. Your coach will help you develop developmental goals to build the leadership capability you can employ in your daily leadership as the coaching progresses.

Q. When should you engage a leadership coach?

As they say in temporal mechanics, no time like the present! Working with a coach might mean a one-off session to help you develop a career direction or a longer engagement to develop your leadership capability to become the leader you want to become.

If you were going to learn to play the piano, I’d suggest working with a skilled teacher. The same can be said for leading. There is no better time to work with a coach. It’s the right time when you are ready to take the first step.

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