After more than 15 years leading one of Perth's most prestigious ​K-12 schools (with over 250 staff and an annual turnover of $45 million) I have launched my own business with a strong emphasis on empowering leaders, experienced, new and aspiring to flourish. With a fresh and dynamic thinking style that challenges the status quo and a strong track record of developing successful leaders, I endeavour to support clients across a range of industry groups to achieve desired outcomes. Building human capacity is critical to successful leadership and change management initiatives and this is done most effectively in an open, high trust, one-to-one environment where learning and development can be personalised and in context. 

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Over the course of 2019 I have worked with over 30 middle and senior leaders across five metropolitan and regional school settings.

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COACHING PHILOSOPHY

 

My coaching philosophy is to support and challenge you to be the best possible version of yourself. You have the internal resources at your disposal and the power and capacity to make desired changes or improvements to any component of your life. Sometimes you just need a little bit of help to recognise and clarify that, and to forge a pathway forward. 

 

As a professional coach I focus on building rapport and trust early on in the process. This is an essential building block to any coaching process.  I will do this in part by being respectful, non-judgemental and by listening actively to what it is you are saying. I will take a strengths-based approach to our sessions as I believe this is most effective but will also challenge you in other areas.

 

You are the captain of your own ship. You are in charge of what goals you want to set and focus upon. It will be my role to understand that and to help keep you focused on these overarching goals. We will work together to map out a course of action and set markers to measure progress throughout the course of our work.

 

Failure is feedback. In fact, you will grow and learn more about yourself if you set stretch goals and are prepared to embrace the risk of making a mistake or even 'failing'. 

 

My coaching approach is holistic in nature so that while our work together may be predominantly professionally-focused we will also be attentive to important relationships and life balance, this way you are more likely to see your goals achieved successfully.

 

FOUR PRINCIPLES OF COACHING

 

There are four key principles of coaching (adopted from the International Coach Federation) that set the foundation for the manner in which I approach my work with a client. Effective communication is an overarching principle that is infused into each of these four core principles. They are as follows: 

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1. Establishing trust and intimacy with the client – the initial priority is the development of a safe, supportive environment based on mutual respect and trust. Trust must be developed before the coaching process can really take its full effect. Early on in the process I will endeavour to kick-start the trust-building process by sharing my story with you and encouraging you to do the same (to the extent with which you feel comfortable). 

2. Maintaining a coaching presence – during our sessions I will remain fully focused on you and where you are at, that is, being present and adaptable based on your perceived needs as the client, rather than taking a coach (pre-) determined approach. 

3.  Setting the ground-rules and boundaries – being clear about what you as the client can expect from the outset and sticking to it; it also means being clear (and gaining agreement) around aspects of confidentiality up-front (and when I might need to breach that), and what I am not as a coach (ie counsellor or therapist).

4. Understanding the client’s situation and needs – knowing where you are at, what you want out of the process (and checking in on that if in any doubt) and how best I can support you to get to where you want to be (not where I think you should be).

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