One-to-one coaching for education leaders. An hour a month with someone who knows the work, so the thing you’ve been going round in circles on finally moves.
None of that gets better on its own. It usually gets quieter, which isn’t the same thing.
An hour a month where nothing you say is being weighed by someone who reports to you or decides what happens to you next.
Not a generic executive coach who’ll ask what your five-year vision is. Someone who understands what you’re actually dealing with, whether that’s a team who’ve stopped trusting each other or an initiative you’ve been told to implement and don’t believe in.
Most sessions end with a decision made or a conversation booked, rather than a pleasant hour you feel briefly better after.
I coach and train education leaders across Asia and beyond. I wrote Change Starts Here with Efraim Lerner, and I host the Education Leaders podcast, which gets listened to in around 145 countries. Before this I led teaching development regionally for a large school group.
Mostly though, I’ve spent a lot of hours listening to leaders say the thing they hadn’t said to anyone else yet.
Leadership is a strange kind of lonely. You’re surrounded by people all day and there’s still nobody you can think out loud in front of without it becoming a message about something. I don’t think that’s a personal failing. It’s built into the work, and it needs somewhere to go.
Pure coaching means I only ask questions and you do all the work. Mentoring means I tell you what I’d have done and you go off and do it. Neither of those is quite what happens here.
You bring whatever’s live. We think it through together, and when my experience is any use I’ll put it on the table, and when it isn’t I’ll listen instead. Most sessions end with you clearer about something you’d been going round in circles on for weeks.
I take six leaders at a time, maximum. Partly that’s about capacity, but mostly it’s so I actually hold your context between sessions instead of skim-reading my own notes thirty seconds before we start.
Tell me what’s going on. We work out whether I’m the right person.
Monthly, termly, or a single session. Pay monthly if that’s easier.
First session inside a fortnight.
Nine one-hour sessions, roughly one a month across the academic year. The one I’d point you towards: monthly means we catch things while they’re still small, and by November I know your team, the people above you, and the conversation you’ve been putting off since August.
Three ninety-minute sessions, one per term. Longer sessions, with a decent gap either side. This works if committing to a whole year feels like too much right now.
Ninety minutes on one thing you need to think through properly.
Full pricing and the monthly payment options. Pop in your name and email and the rate card opens right away.
These are self-funded rates, for leaders paying for themselves. If your school is funding it, or you’re looking at more than one person, coaching for teams is the better fit.
Get the rate card (PDF)You didn’t take on a leadership role to spend your evenings second-guessing yourself. You took it because you thought you could make the place better, and mostly you can, except there’s nobody left to think with. Your team need you certain. The people above you need you managing. Your friends outside work have stopped asking what you actually do all day.
So it builds up, the decisions get slower, and you start avoiding the conversation you know you need to have.
I’ve watched a lot of good leaders end up there, and it’s rarely about ability. What they’re short of is someone to think with, and no amount of working harder brings that back. One person in your month who isn’t invested in you being fine does.
That’s what these sessions are. You bring what’s live, we think it through together, and where my experience is useful I’ll offer it rather than sitting on my hands asking how that makes you feel. Nine sessions a year, or three, or one, whichever you can afford and commit to.
Stop carrying your leadership on your own. Start having somewhere to put it.
I’m a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and I work to their Global Code of Ethics.
Tell me what’s going on. We’ll work out whether I’m the right person, and if I’m not, I’ll tell you who is.
