Thinking About Coaching?
– FAQs
For those exploring whether coaching is right for them, and the value it brings.
Considering working with a coach but not quite sure if it’s right for you, or whether the value justifies the time and investment?
You’re not alone, these are the questions I’m asked most often. Read through them honestly. If something resonates, that’s usually a signal worth paying attention to.
A quick note on where I’m coming from: I coach from lived experience, not just theory. I’ve spent the best part of three decades operating in high-pressure, high-stakes environments including as a Global COO and Strategic Change Expert, leading and creating high-performing, inclusive global organisations.
I’m also a Growth Expert Coach with the GS10k Small Businesses Programme, delivered through Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, and an accredited member of the Association for Coaching.
What that means for you: when we work together, you’re not getting frameworks from a textbook. You’re getting a thinking partner who has actually sat in the seat and who knows what it takes to challenge the status quo, create change plans and execute.
What actually is coaching — and how is it different from therapy, mentoring, or consulting?
Fair question. The word “coach” gets used so widely it’s lost some of its meaning.
Here’s the short version:
- A therapist helps you understand your past so you can heal.
- A mentor has walked the road you’re on and tells you what worked for them.
- A consultant is hired for their expertise — they diagnose your problem and hand you the answer.
- A coach does none of that. A coach creates the space where you can take a step back from the day to day and answer the questions you’ve been avoiding. We don’t give you the answer; we help you uncover the one that’s already inside you and then partner with you with perspective to take courageous action on it.
Coaching is forward-focused, action-oriented, and built around you. You’re not broken. You’re not behind. You just need a thinking partner who can hold a psychologically safe and brave space and isn’t afraid to challenge you with kindness.
How do I know if I actually need a coach?
Most people don’t need a coach. They reach a moment where they realise they’ve outgrown their current way of operating and continuing on the same path is going to cost them more than getting help would.
You might benefit from coaching if:
- You’re successful on paper but something feels off
- You keep hitting the same wall in your business, career, or leadership
- You’ve got the strategy figured out but can’t seem to execute consistently
- You’re a lone leader: C-suite, founder, or entrepreneur with nowhere to think out loud and no trusted sounding board
- You know you’re capable of more, but you can’t quite see what’s in your blind spot
If you’re nodding at any of these, that’s worth a conversation.
Leadership can be a lonely place. Is that something coaching helps with?
Yes. And this is one of the most under-spoken truths about senior leadership.
The higher you climb, the fewer people you can genuinely think out loud with. You can’t fully unload on your team as they’re looking to you for steadiness.
You can’t always be transparent with your peers as there’s politics, optics, sometimes competition. Your partner at home loves you, but they’re not in the boardroom with you. Your friends mean well, but they don’t always grasp the weight of what you’re carrying.
So you carry it alone. You make the big calls alone. You sit with the doubt alone. Over time, that isolation quietly becomes one of the biggest taxes on your performance, your wellbeing, and your judgement and most leaders don’t realise it’s happening.
This is exactly why I help leaders build what I call a Kitchen Cabinet: a small, intentional group of trusted people who help you think, grow, and stay grounded when the pressure mounts. A coach is often a key seat at that table: a confidential space, with no agenda, where you can be fully honest. Somewhere to:
- Pressure-test a decision before you make it
- Say the thing out loud you can’t say anywhere else
- Talk through a relationship, a conflict, or a worry without it leaking
- Process the wins as well as the wobbles
- Be reminded who you are when the noise gets loud
You don’t need to be in crisis to need this. The best leaders I work with build it in before they need it because they understand that the quality of their thinking determines the quality of their leadership.
You don’t have to do this alone. (Read more about the Kitchen Cabinet approach.)
I'm a founder trying to scale my business. How can you help me with that specifically?
This is where my background as a Strategic Global COO becomes particularly valuable.
When you’re scaling a business, leadership development on its own isn’t enough. You need someone who can sit with you across the whole picture: the strategy, the operations, the team, the numbers, and you as the leader. Most coaches can do one of those well. Few have actually operated in the front line.
I have. And as a Growth Expert Coach with the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Programme at Saïd Business School, Oxford, I work alongside founders to build a customised Business Growth Plan; a clear, executable roadmap for where the business is going and how it’s going to get there.
Together we work on:
- Where the business is actually going — vision, strategy, and the decisions that will shape the next 12-36 months
- What’s getting in the way — operationally, structurally, or in your own leadership
- A Business Growth Plan you can execute — not a 60-page document that sits in a drawer, but a clear, prioritised roadmap with the right milestones, the right people, and the right rhythms to make it real
- You as the leader the next stage of the business needs — because the version of you that got the business here is rarely the version that will take it where you’re going
If you’d like to go deeper on the operational side, I also work as a Fractional COO for selected founders sitting alongside you in the business itself, not just coaching from outside it.
I'm sceptical coaching actually works. What results can I realistically expect?
Good. Healthy scepticism is a sign you take your time and money seriously and you should.
Truth is coaching only works when you are willing to put in that deep work. There’s no secret framework that transforms your leadership on its own.
What I bring is decades of operational and leadership experience, empathy, the courage to tell you the truth when no one else will, and a partnership rooted in trust, integrity, and kindness.
Clients who show up, do the work, and stay open typically will experience:
- Sharper decision-making with fewer second-guesses, more conviction
- Stronger leadership presence the kind people genuinely want to follow
- Better results in less time because you stop putting off the hard conversations
- Greater clarity about what you want, why, and what’s getting in the way
- A different relationship with stress, self-doubt, and high-stakes pressure
- The freedom to show up as your full, brilliant self — and the courage to lead authentically
The Coaching journey is about compounding small shifts into very different outcomes.
Isn't coaching expensive? How do I think about the investment?
Let’s be honest about this one.
Coaching is an investment and like any investment, the right question isn’t “how much does it cost?” It’s “what’s the cost of not doing it?”
Consider:
- The opportunities you’ve already missed because you keep playing small
- The decisions you’ve delayed because you weren’t sure
- The team you can’t quite get to perform the way you know they could
- The ceiling you keep bumping into year after year
Leaders without a Coach or Kitchen Cabinet make slower, costlier decisions because they’re processing everything alone. When clients zoom out, the maths usually becomes clear: a single better decision, one stronger hire, one harder conversation handled well, one offer made with confidence. Achieving the dream goal you didn’t think was possible. These things often pay for the coaching engagement many times over.
How long does coaching take to see real results?
You’ll feel a shift in the first few sessions usually clarity, relief, or a new way of seeing something you’ve been stuck on. Real, durable change typically takes a few months of consistent and honest work.
That said, I offer a range of engagements depending on where you are:
- Pick My Brain: a single session for a specific, immediate challenge
- Project Based Coaching: focused work on a defined goal or transition
- Thinking Partnership: regular insight and perspective for time-short, action-oriented leaders
- Trusted Advisor: long-form partnership for lone leaders, founders, and C-suite who need an ongoing confidential space
The value of coaching compounds the further in we go, the deeper the work gets, and the bigger the shifts become.
What does working with you actually look like?
We meet regularly 1:1 or in group format, depending on what’s right for you.
Between sessions, you’ll be doing the real work: noticing, deciding, having conversations, taking action. I often share homework or small challenges to make sessions land in real life, not just in the room.
Sessions are confidential, focused, and direct. I’m here to help you achieve the growth you want and that often is in that space beyond your comfort zone. So will challenge you to stretch and go that extra step but always with respect, always with kindness, always in service of you.
You’ll leave sessions clearer than when you arrived. That’s the bar.
What if I'm not ready?
Then you’re not ready. And that’s okay.
Coaching only works when you actually want to do the work. If you’re being dragged into it by your boss, your spouse, or a vague sense that you “should” then pause. Get clear on what you actually want first.
But if you’ve been thinking about this for a while, if you’re tired of staying where you are, if some part of you knows it’s time then readiness arrives as a decision.
How do we get started?
If it does, we’ll map out what an engagement could look like. If it doesn’t, you’ll leave with clarity either way.
Contact Me
To get in touch and find out more or book a session, please use the form below:
“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”
Sir Charles Darwin