Progression and executive step-up
Ready for more,
and not sure how to get there
One-to-one coaching for senior leaders who want the next level and want to do it well, whether you're aiming at an executive role, settling into a promotion that's bigger than the last one, rebuilding after being passed over, or finding your feet with a team and a remit you've inherited. Often funded by your organisation, and there's a section below on how to ask for it. I work with senior leaders across the UK and internationally.
Where people usually are when they get in touch
Here's what ambitious clients usually want to work on in coaching. You might recognise yourself in one or more of these, and it can feel worrying to be dealing with this sort of thing on your own. The important thing to remember is that there's always a way through a challenging situation, and you don't have to do it alone, even if you're used to being the person who fixes everything for everyone else.
You're ready for an executive role and you can't see the route to it
You're doing the job well, you've been told you're valued, and yet nothing in the conversation moves you closer to the level above. It's a frustrating place to sit, because the harder you work the more indispensable you become exactly where you are. Usually what's missing isn't capability, it's that nobody senior enough has a clear picture of what you'd be like in the bigger role, and nobody has told you what would change their mind. That's very workable once you know it's the thing you're solving for.
You've just been promoted and it's bigger than the last one
The first few months of a genuinely larger role are strange, because the things that made you excellent before now take up time you no longer have. You can't be across the detail any more, and letting go of it feels careless rather than sensible. This is the point at which coaching earns its keep fastest. We work out what only you can do, what you should be handing over, and how you want people to experience you in the room, and we do it while you're actually in it rather than afterwards.
You were passed over and you want the next one
Being overlooked knocks your confidence and your view of your organisation at the same time, and it's tempting either to leave immediately or to decide the whole thing is political and unwinnable. Both are understandable and neither helps much yet. What tends to be more useful is getting a clear, unsentimental read on what actually happened, separating the parts you can influence from the parts you can't, and then deciding whether the next one here is worth going after or whether your next move is elsewhere. Plenty of people I've worked with get the role the following time.
You've been told you need more presence, or to be more strategic
This is the most common piece of senior feedback and one of the least useful, because it's rarely accompanied by any explanation of what it would look like if you were doing it. It usually means something quite specific, and the person saying it often hasn't worked out what. We get underneath it: how you show up when you're under pressure, what you're doing in meetings that reads as operational, and where you'd have more influence by saying considerably less. It's a skill rather than a personality trait, which is good news.
You're new in post and the team you've inherited isn't the one you'd have chosen
A bigger role usually comes with people you didn't hire, a structure somebody else designed, and a set of expectations that were set before you arrived. It's tempting either to change everything in the first month or to leave it all alone out of politeness, and neither tends to go well. The useful work is reading what you've actually got: who's capable and badly deployed, who's struggling and knows it, what the previous person avoided, and which one or two changes would make the most difference. Then having the conversations, which is the part people put off.
There's nobody at work you can be honest with
It's lonely at the top is a cliche because it's true. The more senior you get, the fewer people there are who will tell you the truth about how you're doing, and the more careful you have to be about who you think out loud in front of. You can't take your doubts to your team, your peers are competing with you for the same things, and your boss is the person assessing you. Coaching gives you one hour where you can say the half-formed version of a thought to somebody who has no stake in the answer, no agenda in your organisation and no need to be impressed by you. Most of my clients say it's the part they didn't expect to value as much as they do.
What the work looks like
We start with the gap between how you see your own leadership and how the people who decide these things see it, because that gap is where most progression stalls. Sometimes it's a genuine development need. Just as often it's a visibility problem, and the two need entirely different responses, so it's worth knowing which one you're dealing with before you put a year of effort into the wrong one.
Then we work on the things that make the biggest difference at senior level: how you make decisions when the information is incomplete, how you hold a room without filling it, what you delegate and what you've been holding on to, and how you talk about your own work without either overselling it or making it disappear. These are practical and they change fairly quickly once you're paying attention to them.
We also spend time on the relationships that decide your next move, which is the part capable people most often neglect because it can feel like politics. It isn't, or it needn't be. It's making sure the people who'd sponsor you have a clear and accurate picture of what you're capable of, which is a fair thing to want and something you can influence deliberately rather than hope for.
And underneath all of it, the question worth checking: whether the bigger role is actually the one you want, or the obvious next step on a path you haven't looked up from in a while. Most people are clear about this. Some discover something more interesting. Either answer is a good outcome, and you'll make a much better case for promotion when you genuinely want it.
Your organisation may well pay for this
Most people don't realise their organisation already has a budget for coaching and development, and that getting it agreed is often more straightforward than they expect. Most of the senior leaders I work with don't pay for their own coaching. If your organisation is asking more of you, or developing you for something larger, coaching support is a very reasonable thing to ask for, and a modest cost to them compared with the alternatives.
Two practical things. Ask about the leadership development or talent budget rather than the training budget, because that's usually where one-to-one coaching sits. And frame it around what they want from you rather than how you're feeling about it: I'm taking on more scope this year, I'd like coaching support to make that transition well, here's the programme and the cost.
If it helps, I'll write that outline for you. Send me a line about your role and what's changing, and I'll send back a one-page summary of the programme, the outcomes and the fee that you can forward to your manager or HR without having to compose anything yourself. Invoicing your employer directly is straightforward.
Common questions
Can my employer pay for this?
Yes, and for most of the senior leaders I work with, that's exactly what happens. Coaching is a normal part of a leadership development or talent budget, and if you're being developed for a bigger role it's a very reasonable thing to ask for. If you'd like, I can send you a short outline of the programme, the outcomes and the cost that you can forward to your manager or HR without having to write anything yourself.
How do I actually ask my organisation to fund coaching?
Keep it brief and tie it to what they want from you rather than to how you're feeling. Something like: I'm taking on more scope this year and I'd like coaching support to make that transition well. Here's the programme, the cost is X, and I'd expect it to show up in how I lead the team through the next phase. Ask your line manager first, and ask about the leadership development or talent budget specifically rather than training, because that's usually where the money for one-to-one coaching sits.
Is this different from the coaching my company already offers?
Often, yes. Internal coaching and mentoring are genuinely valuable, and they come with a constraint: the person you're talking to sits inside the same organisation and the same politics. There are things people will only say to somebody external, and quite a lot of what makes coaching useful lives in those things.
I'm not in a crisis. Is coaching still worth it?
It's usually more useful when you're not. Working on how you lead while things are reasonably steady is a great deal easier than doing it in the middle of a restructure, and it's what most of the people who get the next role have done.
How does it work and what does it cost?
Usually a three-month one-to-one programme, or a longer engagement if you're moving into a new role and want support across the first six months. Sessions are online, or in person if you're near Worthing and West Sussex, and I work with senior leaders across the UK and internationally, including clients in the Middle East and Asia. Fees and programme details are on the coaching page, and organisation-funded work is invoiced directly to your employer.
Who are you?
Daisy Goreham. I spent twenty years in banking, consulting, operations and transformation, leading large teams at senior level and living and working in the Middle East and Asia, so I've been on the receiving end of most of this. I'm an ICF Associate Certified Coach and I work with senior leaders on stepping up, leading through change and deciding what they want next.
Start with a conversation
A free discovery call with no obligation attached to it. Bring the role you're aiming at, or the feedback you can't quite decode, and we'll look at it together.
Not ready to talk? The free leadership assessment takes three minutes and gives you something concrete to work from.