Why Coaching?
Do you have a clear motivation to be a great leader AND you want to stay authentic?
You want to make it, but self-promotion’s not part of your plan.
Right now you’re struggling to get on top of the everyday challenges and it’s preventing you from feeling authentic and successful.
You’re not getting the opportunities that deep down you feel you deserve.
Worst of all, you feel like you’re spinning plates, you struggle to devote enough time to anything – being strategic, developing your team, looking after yourself and your family – you’re so busy spinning that you feel like you don’t get to be your very best.
Your efforts don’t seem to get noticed; yet they should be obvious.
I get it. I know what it’s like.
You might’ve tried changing the situation by finding a mentor, with little success. You invested a lot in making it work, they didn’t have the time; what a waste!
I’ve met a few leaders trying to take the ‘easy route’ when it comes to their leadership development.
They get corralled by their bosses into hiring coaches who are just not the right fit – and they have the added worry that their conversations might not be confidential.
Or they attend half-day seminars, hoping to find a quick and easy solution, with little success.
These kinds of ‘magic pill’ solutions rarely work.
Mental Roadblocks
One of these 5 mental roadblocks might be stopping you from getting the support you need to take the next step:
You think you can leave this til you're less busy, even though there seems to be no let-up in the busy-ness
It's hard to articulate what the benefit would be – that takes yet more precious time and effort – even though you just know it’s right
You're worried that if you have to argue to your boss for coaching he might reduce his opinion of your competence
You're worrying that being in the spotlight 1:1 with a coach might feel uncomfortable
You sometimes think you might be better off just to give up your career dreams and opt for a simpler life
When you’re confronted with these roadblocks, you feel defeated and lose energy for a while. Then you come back and try even harder to prove your value to your boss and your team.
What really gets under your skin is when you see incompetent people getting supported with coaches, or being promoted ahead of you.
It just isn’t fair!
You are the person who doesn’t want to take the easy route or play it superficial. You are looking for something more inspiring that helps you take your next step.
You need an experienced leadership coach with a proven track record, who can offer personal support. Someone who truly understands what you’re going through, and who will challenge your thinking and your fears.
Someone who will help you go higher up the ladder and stay authentic. Someone who will help you get the recognition you deserve, fulfill your ambition, shift your team’s performance and have a better balanced life into the bargain!
Well, this is where I can help you
With my unique coaching framework, you will be able to:
Speak confidently about your ambitions and strengths, and be taken seriously
Approach leading differently, feeling renewed, more congruent and powerful
Stop getting caught up in the day-to-day busy work and focus on the key strategic issues
Manage your relationships with your boss and peers so that you feel more in control and have better support
Get your team(s) off your back and delegate much more to them, which will free up your time and your brain power!
With my Executive Coaching Program you can expect guaranteed growth.
We’ll get right to the heart of your issues in a way that liberates you to try options you’ve never thought of.
My extensive insights from working with leaders, and my own leadership experience, mean that I know how to help you transform into the leader you want to be.
I know what the hard work is like, and I know how much difference it makes to have someone in your corner – I’m here for you!
My unique mix of challenge and support will allow you to grow at a much faster rate than you would expect to. That’s just what you need.
My Executive Coaching Program helps you to work smarter, influence more authoritatively, and use your talents to their fullest.
I coach leaders to amplify their impact.
You will go from feeling confused to insightful about who you are, what you want to achieve, and how you are going to do it.
You will have a clearer belief about your own authority, and how to use it to influence others and to get things done.
You will create a better balance between the longer term vision and strategy, and what needs to get done day to day.
With that clarity, you will have the ability to delegate more, and more effectively, which means that the pressure is relieved AND your team does better work.
You become more mindful, more detached from the challenges of leading.
I will help you accelerate your professional development and make leadership easier to do.
What Executive Leaders have to say about Karen’s coaching program
I had the pleasure of having Karen as a coach and she taught me the importance of coaching in building and leading an effective team. At the time, I had just started a new role in a field which I was not familiar with, leading a new team with people from different backgrounds, a wide range of experiences, capabilities and varying degrees of ambition. Karen helped me to use coaching as a way to build trust in the team. I realised that the more I used a coaching approach, my team also started to coach each other. We started engaging and communicating a lot more and ultimately worked a lot more effectively as a team.
Karen gave me a number of very useful techniques that enabled me to maintain my objectivity and my equilibrium at a very challenging time. Central to the process was a focus on clarifying my values: the process she led me through was beneficial in understanding my core values that would continue to guide me, and the new and changing values that were driving a re-orientation.
Overall leadership coaching was tremendously positive. I have made significant progress as a leader, a view supported by feedback from my key stakeholders. From the first session, the chemistry was right and Karen very quickly became familiar with me and my role. Meetings with Karen have provided the guidance and solid structure around which to reflect and formulate development plans with clear actions and outcomes. Karen has also assisted me in navigating through a period of uncertainty.
I first met Karen Morley at a time I was having difficulty with a number of work interactions. I was recently appointed into a senior role to develop a new team and desperately wanted to be successful. However I found myself struggling to connect with the team, find acceptance with my new peers and couldn’t understand my boss’s responses. My toolbox from prior executive coaching was failing me and I knew I needed a different approach. On meeting Karen I realised I had found the difference. Karen focussed on me, the individual. Not me the co-worker or employee. For the first time I learnt to see how my beliefs, vulnerabilities, successes impacted how I responded to others within the work environment. Karen lifted me out of the details of the situation and helped me observe myself. I finally appreciated one’s work success is not just about the technical skills and delivery but is truly influenced by connectivity and how each person creates the connections. That “light bulb” moment was transformative and I believe was fundamental to my growth as a leader. It is an insight I try to pass on to others.
Before meeting and engaging Karen as my coach, I hadn’t had a coach for over 15 years. I wasn’t sure about what value Karen would add, nor did I initially think I needed a coach (one was assigned when I joined this company). Within the first 20 minutes of meeting with Karen, 1) I knew I needed a coach; 2) I knew Karen would be the perfect coach for me 3) I had several key areas of my leadership to develop! Throughout the 5-month coaching engagement, I always found Karen to be insightful, knowledgeable, challenging and empathetic. She has demonstrable credibility and builds trust and respect very quickly. I thoroughly enjoyed being coached by Karen and feel I have developed strongly as a leader as a result. I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending her to any leader in any industry looking to develop.
Program Inclusions
1-on-1 sessions designed to help you set your personal goals
I will be your accountability partner for improving performance
During 1.5 hours of our 1:1 coaching sessions, you can share all your thoughts and dreams about yourself as a person, a leader, and your future career
Outside coaching sessions, on an ongoing basis, I will provide encouragement, advice, and resources to help you continue your momentum.
About Karen
I coach leaders to become more motivated, more influential and more productive.
My passion is accelerating leadership careers and inspiring inclusion. Using the latest evidence, validated benchmarks and inspiring coaching methods, I help executives and organisations to accelerate their leadership growth.
I’m a registered Psychologist with a desire to align what leaders do with the available evidence for what works. Besides being an Executive Coach, I’ve held executive roles in government and higher education, and my approach is informed by my experience in these roles. I also have extensive experience debriefing and reporting on comprehensive assessments (eg, Hogan, Benchmarks, observation and self assessments), identifying strengths, gaps and development needs.
The result?
Strategic leaders and higher performing teams.
Frequently Asked Questions
about Executive Coaching
Why is coaching so powerful?
Coaching is about asking questions rather than providing the solution, so it becomes self-generating. That means that even if you don’t initially know what to do and how to do it, you will be better placed to solve your own problems in the future. You decide your outcomes.
Coaching frees up your thinking about yourself and your situation; it helps you to uncover hidden assumptions, and see yourself in a fresh way. It provides new options for action.
Coaching can be a little confronting as well as exciting, as it is about change. It is an opportunity for you to be as open as you choose to be about your dreams and your doubts. And it’s powerful because it is all about you.
Unlike other development processes which can be a bit hit and miss, coaching focuses solely on you and your needs.
What should people look for in a coach?
As there is a low barrier to entry for coaching, this is an important question to ask. Many people offering coaching services have valuable skills and experience; but do they have expertise in doing 1:1 work?
Psychologists in particular (such as myself) are trained to assist individuals to achieve transformative behavioural change, which is key to coaching.
Integrity is critical, and you need to be confident the coach will keep information that you share confidential. Always ask about their connection into the organisation, and be clear about reporting expectations.
Check their testimonials. Are they coaching people like you, who have similar goals to you?
Does coaching really work?
When coaching is goal-focused, yes it does. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve, the more likely you are to achieve it. Making goals explicit, public, and including some ‘stretch’ increases the effectiveness of coaching.
My coaching approach is informed by a practical business understanding and is focused on accelerating leadership growth. This usually involves transformational change created through deep insight into leadership identity and exploring the coachee’s growth edge. Relevant frameworks and tools embed insight into new, more effective behaviours and skills.
How does coaching impact company culture?
Externally-sourced individual coaching is a great start as well as an adjunct to growing a coaching culture. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, according to Peter Drucker. And a coaching culture nourishes strategy for tomorrow’s breakfast. When leaders coach, they create a culture that is empowering and energising.
When coached, people develop, their motivation elevates, and they engage more deeply. Organisations with excellent cultural support for coaching experience 13% better business results and 39% stronger engagement. Organisations where senior leaders coach very frequently enjoy 21% higher business results.
Coaching cultures are more responsive and adaptive. Organisations need agile leaders and teams to make rapid change that sticks. And coaching creates a sense of vitality for people, which leads them to feeling invigorated at work.
Speak with me about the range of coaching options that I provide that will help you to embed a coaching capability in your leaders and create a culture that pays it forward.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EXECUTIVE COACHING AND HOW IT CAN HELP YOU TO INCREASE YOUR IMPACT
My Executive Coaching guide provides information on how 1:1 coaching can accelerate your leadership development and increase your impact. It outlines my approach to coaching and the coaching programs that are available.
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Portfolio
Karen’s Executive Coaching Program has benefitted numerous organisations, including:
Karen’s background as a psychologist and her enormous experience of business life enables her to be an insightful coach to senior executives. Her ability to move between the micro and the macro is outstanding.
My career would not be where it is today without the candid, thought-provoking and ‘call-to-action’ coaching from Karen.
She taught me how to navigate my journey – through the highs and lows
– with an honesty that enabled me to challenge conventions and take ownership of my destiny.
10/10: Leadership coaching helped me increase my effectiveness as a leader. There was the right balance between challenge and support in achieving my goals. Karen helped me significantly build my emotional intelligence. She was a breakthrough for me in building my confidence and identifying key leadership development areas.
It’s time to stop spinning the plates – to control your workload, not be controlled by it.
With renewed energy and deeper insight, you will have the necessary conviction to continue to go higher up the ladder and be recognised as an amazing, authentic, leader.
If you’re looking to make a bigger impact as a successful senior leader, then you’ll need to click on the button below to book a time to speak with Karen.