One to one coaching for senior leaders, structured around the Empowered Leadership Framework. Delivered by a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD with more than twenty five years in HR across retail, manufacturing, travel, research, pharmaceuticals and professional membership bodies.
Most senior leaders arrive in the role having been promoted for competence in a different job. The skills that earned the promotion are rarely the ones the new position demands, and nobody tends to say so out loud.
Coaching addresses that gap directly. Typical ground includes making decisions with incomplete information, holding difficult positions under pressure, delegating without disengaging, managing former peers, and building influence across functions rather than authority within one.
Sessions are led by what the leader actually faces rather than a fixed curriculum. The framework provides structure so the work stays coherent across months, but the agenda in any given session comes from the job in front of them.
Coaching is structured around four clusters of leadership capability, used together rather than worked through in sequence.
Visionary and Adaptive Leadership covers setting direction under uncertainty and changing course without losing the thread.
Inclusive and Ethical Leadership covers decisions where the right answer and the easy answer diverge, and building teams where difference is usable rather than merely present.
Empowering Leadership covers devolving real authority, which is harder than delegating tasks and is where most capable leaders stall.
Authentic Leadership covers consistency between what a leader says, decides and rewards, which is what teams actually read.
The framework is specific to leadership coaching and is separate from the eleven-component Talent Management Maturity Framework used for organisational diagnostics.
An initial conversation to establish fit, because coaching fails without it. Where an organisation is sponsoring the work, the boundaries of what is shared are agreed here rather than assumed.
Establishing where the leader currently stands against the four clusters and what success would look like. Where useful this draws on 360 feedback or psychometric input.
Regular one to one sessions, structured by the framework and driven by live challenges. Work happens between sessions as much as within them.
Revisiting the baseline to establish what has changed, and agreeing what sustains the shift once sessions end.
Training transfers content. It works where the gap is knowledge and the answer is known in advance.
Mentoring transfers experience. A mentor who has done the job advises on how they did it, which helps where the situations are comparable.
Coaching does neither. It builds the leader’s own capacity to think through situations nobody has faced in quite that form, which is most of what senior leadership consists of.
The practical test is what remains afterwards. Training leaves notes, mentoring leaves advice, and coaching leaves a leader who reaches better conclusions without needing the room.
Book a free discovery call with Verity today
Structured one to one work with a senior leader to build their effectiveness in role. It is led by what the leader actually faces rather than a set curriculum, using the Empowered Leadership Framework to keep the work coherent over time.
Training transfers knowledge and mentoring transfers experience. Coaching builds the leader’s own capacity to reason through situations without a pre-existing answer, which is most of what senior roles involve.
A four-cluster model covering visionary and adaptive leadership, inclusive and ethical leadership, empowering leadership, and authentic leadership. It is used for leadership coaching specifically and is separate from the eleven-component Talent Management Maturity Framework.
It depends on what the coaching is for. Work of this kind is usually spread across months rather than weeks, because the change happens between sessions and needs real situations to test against.
Session content is confidential to the leader. Where an organisation is sponsoring the work, what is reported back is agreed at the contracting stage before coaching begins, and is normally limited to themes and progress against agreed goals rather than anything said in a session. Coaching does not work if the leader is managing what gets repeated.
Yes. Where several leaders are coached in parallel the individual work stays confidential, though patterns appearing across a cohort often point to something organisational worth addressing separately.
Against the baseline established at the start, revisited at review. Where 360 feedback formed part of that baseline it can be repeated to give an external view rather than relying only on self-assessment.
Then it is unlikely to work, and the chemistry conversation exists partly to surface that. Coaching commissioned as a corrective measure the leader has not accepted tends to produce compliance rather than change, and is worth reconsidering before it starts.
Every engagement begins with understanding your organisation’s current position. A Talent Management Maturity Assessment or a discovery conversation identifies the priorities before any solution gets recommended.
