Olwyn provided executive coaching for me through a period of key career progression. This time was incredibly valuable in extending my awareness, consideration and strategies for a number of valuable leadership principles: how to motivate and inspire, delegation, resilience, communication, development of personal leadership style, and many more. Outside the tangible benefit of having the chance to bounce ideas off someone as experienced, personable and insightful as Olwyn, I found the pace, structure and quality of learning at our sessions incredibly powerful for my personal and professional development. Thank you Olwyn!
Working with leaders
Many of our leader clients have a successful track record in their area of expertise: technical, medical, scientific, commercial, financial and legal. Now, they are responsible for driving results, building high performance teams, communicating and collaborating with key people across their organisations. They hold influential positions at director, divisional or board level.
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Leadership and Executive Coaching
Executive coaching is a highly personalised form of learning, to bring about effective action, improved performance and personal growth – as well as better business results for the organisation
Global Leaders
Global leadership brings its own challenges and opportunities. The successful global leader needs to be mindful of cultural, geographic and personal considerations
Leaders In Transition
The first 100 days in a new leadership role is critical. We provide a road map that will help you develop a transition acceleration plan that is tailored to your situation.
Your Journey
This is a simple but powerful approach to behavioural change in leaders which has been tried and tested worldwide by the world’s top leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith. Highly respected leaders such as Allan Mulally of General Motors testify to the results that can be achieved using this. Like any journey it is the rigour, the discipline and the commitment of the leader to such a process that makes all the difference.
Step one
Assess where you are and where you want to go using sophisticated diagnostic tools
Step two
Involve key stakeholders in the planning using both quantitative and qualitative measures
Step three
Review feedback and create an action plan which is practical, actionable and sustainable
Step four
Communicate the plan so that key stakeholders can support these new behaviours
Step five
Prepare and practice new habits and behaviours in a confidential space with your coach
Step six
Measure Progress against your plan renew focus on any area that needs greater attention
Step seven
Celebrate achievement, review next steps and check sustainability
Case Study
Finessing your executive presence as a leader
The Challenge
Anne was a highly capable technical leader who despite being an excellent manager and achieving high scores in assessments and interviews, was not securing the high level appointments that were expected and deserved.
The Result
Within five months, Anne was appointed MD of a global service delivery division with significant responsibility and profile within the business.
Case Study
Tom – Succeeding as an enterprise-wide global leader
The Challenge
A highly driven results-focussed global sales VP who was highly respected but deeply feared. Tom’s reputation was limiting his career progression. In danger of being stuck in the same role, he wanted to evolve to take on a wider remit with even greater impact.
The Result
Having secured a highly visible and impactful new leadership role, Tom is still results-driven but much more collaborative and much more effective at driving those results through other people and influencing decision-making at the executive table.
Case Study
Transforming from Technical Expert Leader to General Manager
The Challenge
John was considered technically excellent in his field. He was ready for promotion to general manager, but had some leadership challenges that would affect his success in that position. He was losing key talent and not being collaborative with his peers which resulted in low morale and tension.
The Result
After 18 months John was appointed general manager, and led a significant turnaround for the business. He became a highly respected, inspiring leader and improved the relationships among the executive team.
Testimonials
“Over the last twelve months, Olwyn’s coaching style has achieved a great balance between providing me with the rigor and challenge to ensure that I got things done with the practicalities of doing these tasks alongside the demands of a very busy “day job”. She has opened my eyes to individual issues that I need to address, providing practical advice of how to challenge these issues and where appropriate, help to back this up. There has always been an honest and open exchange of views and this has helped to cement a close working relationship that has enabled me to get real benefit out of our time together. I’d have no hesitation to recommend Olwyn to anyone considering an external coach”.
“When I started the coaching process, I decided to fully engage with what it offered but I wasn’t really sure what to expect. But a year on, as I look back at the time that I have spent with Olwyn as my executive coach, I realise that it was extraordinary. It has truly accelerated my learning. I took the feedback and rather than getting defensive about it, I digested it and found new strategies to deal with challenging situations and people. I have grown and evolved as a leader and feel more confident in how I lead others. I have built capability and bench strength in the team and sought ways to develop them too. I start my new leadership role wiser, more confident with greater resilience to tackle what lies ahead.”
“Olwyn is a really great coach. Very direct, open, honest and clear with “asks” – lots of value-add. She is a superstar! The coaching experience was a great way to pause and think about myself and take time to act based on this. You also need to be ready for coaching. I recall having done some previous coaching sessions and was probably not ready to learn and act upon it then.”
“The coaching with Olwyn provides an external perspective in addition to those from my work colleagues. It provides a ‘safe’ environment to discuss current issues and evaluate courses of action to move forward. The coaching has given me more confidence to move forward with tough conversations and business decisions. It has helped me to plan communications with subordinates, peers and superiors to get the best from each of these interactions.”
“My time with Olwyn has helped me enhance my leadership style with my Direct reports- team meetings have become much more inclusive and engagement has increased significantly.”
“I was fortunate enough to select Olwyn from a pool of coaches used by HSBC to coach senior and executive managers. She is very personable and professional, having a very clever insight into establishing your development needs and helping you to improve them. I can honestly say that Olwyn’s coaching helped to provide me with insight regarding my behavioural patterns and natural tendencies. I grew so much under her guidance, more so in confidence in my own abilities than ever before. This was key in helping me to become a competent and effective senior manager. I cannot recommend her highly enough.”
“Olwyn is a super listener, and is a very experienced business leader. Combining her past leadership experiences alongside the leadership coaching models/tools she deploys really helps to ensure that her coaching advice is rock solid and very practical. She always provides very clear guidance and perspectives (when asked) when dealing with various leadership scenarios/challenges”