Leadership Assessment & Coaching

“Nicola is a fabulous coach and facilitator. Her style of active listening and insightful prompts helped me to deeply think through a range of professional and personal challenges that were reducing my day to day wellbeing and leadership effectiveness.  The most powerful part of her work is her ability to help me find simple changes that I can commit to and that have made a real difference to the way I lead my life and team.  I’d recommend working with her on your own journey of self-discovery.”– Cameron Fitzgerald- General Manager Strategy and Planning City West Water

What is coaching?

Coaching is a conversation unlike any other — a personalised process of dialogue and development that helps you gain clarity on what truly matters and the confidence to act on it. You bring the challenge, the question or the change you’re seeking; I bring presence, deep listening and questions that open up new ways of seeing. This is your work and your outcomes — coaching simply gives them the space and attention they deserve.

Engaging a leadership coach creates dedicated space for your own development — self-leadership in action — supporting you to take conscious, committed steps toward the changes you seek.

During the coaching process, your coach will facilitate the exploration of your needs, motivations, desires, skills and thought processes to assist you in making real, lasting change. Coaching is not directive: I won’t tell you what to do or hand you answers. Instead, questions facilitate your own thought processes, so the solutions and actions you arrive at are genuinely yours. And it’s not just the questions — the presence I hold is an essential part of the process. When you feel deeply listened to, you become able to find solutions to your own challenges, accessing the infinite resources you already hold within.

In our work together, you can expect me to:

  • Listen deeply, observe and ask the questions that matter
  • Gently challenge how you’re seeing things — noticing the lens you’re looking through, not just the problem you’re looking at
  • Draw on a rich kit of tools and practices — developmental, somatic and creative — in service of whatever you’re working on
  • Explore with you what you’re really wanting, and how you’ll notice yourself moving toward it
  • Invite commitment to action, and growth that stays with you well beyond our sessions

My coaching lens

I am trained as a developmental coach through the Vertical Development Institute. Most leadership development is horizontal: adding new tools, skills and ideas to assimilate — while your fundamental mindsets and ways of knowing stay the same. Vertical development is something different: a profound shift in how you think about the world, not just what you know. It is a complex evolution encompassing cognitive, emotional, social and moral development, and it unfolds in predictable stages — each one including and transcending the one before. This is what’s needed to navigate uncertainty — especially in those moments when your mind can’t make sense of the reality in front of it, and a broader, more comprehensive lens is required. In our work together, we pay attention not just to the challenge in front of you, but to the way you’re making sense of it — so growth shows up not only in what you do, but in your expanding capacity as a leader.

A particular strength I bring is helping you connect with the somatic knowing in your body. Your body is always listening — registering what you’re facing well before your mind makes sense of it, and holding wisdom your thinking alone can’t reach. By learning to notice and listen to these signals, you open another way of knowing on the presenting topic — and find choices that aren’t available through analysis alone.

Coaching Bio

The coaching process

Coaching is never one-size-fits-all; it’s shaped around your individual and organisational context. As a starting point, there are two six-month program options:

Option 1 — Six-month coaching program

  • 1 × 90-minute coaching alignment session with you, your leader/manager and me (Session 1)
  • 7 × 60-minute coaching sessions (Sessions 2–8)
  • 2 × 30-minute coaching review conversations with you, your leader/manager and me (Sessions 5 and 8)

Option 2 — Six-month coaching program with Assessment

  • 1 × 90-minute coaching alignment session (Session 1)
  • Leadership Circle Profile assessment, including report review and debrief preparation
  • 1 × 120-minute debrief session (Session 2)
  • 1 × 90-minute development planning session (Session 3)
  • 5 × 60-minute coaching sessions (Sessions 4–8)
  • 2 × 30-minute coaching review conversations with you, your leader/manager and me (Sessions 5 and 8)

Need support with a particular leadership challenge? One-off and three session coaching packages are also available. Let’s Talk to discuss your needs.

All sessions are held via Zoom or phone.

Who is coaching for?

Coaching is for leaders — CEOs, executives, senior managers, emerging and high-potential leaders. You might be navigating a new role, a new challenge or a new season of your leadership — or simply feeling stuck, without being able to say exactly why. Some leaders engage me directly; others are sponsored by their organisation. Either way, the work is yours: whatever you bring — a leadership challenge, a decision, a pattern you want to shift, something harder to name – there is room for it, and each session works with what you need most.

Navigating an unexpected work or life event, an ending, a loss, a life changing shape? That calls for something different: Transition Guidance & Coaching.

Leadership and wellbeing assessments:

An assessment is always optional. Where it would add value, we’ll choose the right one together:

The Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) – A comprehensive 360 degree leadership development assessment with benchmarks against a global database of leaders. Great to kick start the development of individual senior leaders and also in conjunction with a team culture assessment. A variation in this assessment is also available for middle managers.

Leadership Development Report (LDR) – The Leadership Development Report (LDR) is a powerful coaching tool for promoting self- awareness, personal transformation, and an understanding of the actions a leader needs to take to realise his or her full potential. Includes self-assessment and assessor feedback on observed and requested values and behaviours. Reviews strengths/ development areas against 26 core behaviour questions. Perfect for mid-senior level leaders and can be used in conjunction with a team option to collate collective development strengths and needs to inform approaches to leadership team development.

Global Leadership and Wellbeing Survey – GLWS – Perfect for an individual leader needing support with their own wellbeing and for teams and groups serious about growing a culture of wellbeing.

Interested in engaging a coach?

I would welcome a conversation. Thirty minutes, no pitch, no pressure.  Let’s talk