I've been paying attention to leadership since I was 10

I thought it would be a place to be seen and recognised. Nobody taught me it was so much more, and often felt like so much less.

It didn't make sense. There wasn't congruity. I found myself drawn to how leaders make decisions, what good leadership actually looks like, and the often unspoken expectations that sit inside every leadership choice.

I saw it up close early, at the executive table. Could a CEO really ask me to fire someone against my values? He did, and I cried for a whole day.

What stayed with me was how leadership decisions could be made without dialogue, and what that showed about power, responsibility, and impact.

The moment I heard about coaching at David Rock’s Quiet Leadership pre-launch in 2005, my career path changed. I moved into coaching not long after.

Over the following years, I built coaching cultures and worked closely with leaders, watching how they thought, related, and operated inside their organisations. What they stood for. What shaped their decisions. Where things broke down.

In 2014 I enrolled in a four year Master of Gestalt. It changed how I see.

I learnt to work in real time, with what is happening within a leader, between people, and relationally in the wider environment. Leaders began to notice their patterns as they were happening and shift them in real time, changing not only their own experience but how they impacted others.

Gestalt also deepened how I understand systems. Leaders are shaped by the environments they are part of and shape those environments in return. When that relationship becomes visible, new choices open up.

I wanted to go deeper. Through the Diamond Approach, I began working at the level beneath personality - who someone is when they are not performing. I remember a leader performing a session with me. I asked who was underneath the performance. He stopped speaking and connected with an authentic part of himself he never brought to work. Not long after he secured his first director role.

One piece remained: how leaders respond under pressure.

Through Somatic Experiencing, I work with how leaders respond under stress. Tightening, pushing, avoiding, overcompensating. When these patterns shift in real time, leaders stay steadier, think more clearly, and act with authority in the moments that matter most.

Gestalt brought real-time awareness. The Diamond Approach brought grounded presence. Somatic Experiencing brought regulation under pressure.

In practice, leaders evolve beyond the ways they’ve learned to lead under pressure. They make clearer decisions, stay steadier in complexity, and engage others in ways that move work forward.

Essentially - I work with how leadership is actually lived - in thinking, in relationship, and under pressure.

I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, a Master of Gestalt, and a PCC accreditation with the International Coaching Federation.

Curious about what this looks like in practice?