Executive Leadership Coaching

 The ever-changing business environment places increasing demands upon the motivations, skills and abilities of leaders, and it is essential to understand these if high performance is to be sustained.

Previously, admitting a need for a coach would have been perceived as a weakness, whereas now it is seen as a powerful way of enabling yourself to achieve to your full potential. Indeed coaching is now accepted as a vital element of many of the world's most successful businesses, especially in the US, but also increasingly in the UK, Europe and now in Australasia.

A leadership executive coaching programme can help by focuses on achieving and sustaining enhanced communication and performance within the business environment.  Coaching leaders increases awareness of the issues, helping them to identify the strengths of their employees and the obstacles preventing these strengths from being fully utilised.

Coaching is also valuable on a personal level, to attain a more satisfying work-life balance, which means less downtime from stress related absenteeism or low productivity. Awareness is developed into action by assisting leaders to take responsibility for positive change personally and professionally as well as having a positive impact on communication, performance and results at work.

Supporting leaders, managers and business owners with this approach has had proven success in transforming the work place into a productive, successful and happy environment in which all can thrive, contributing to the success of the business as a whole.

• Increases in individual productivity, accountability and commitment
• Better teamwork and communication
• Improved morale
• Less negative organisational stress

• More value and balance in your daily life.
• Better understanding of what your best individual work-life balance isIncreased productivity
• Improved relationships both on and off the job
• Reduced stress

AIR NEW ZEALAND
Ian Lee - Strategic Manager

"Bullshit! 
That’d be my first thought if you told me 6 months ago I’d be where I am today.

Suzanne is singularly the key catalyst that has helped me make this possible. 
Beyond a doubt, the best personal investment I have made yet.

Invaluable! That is what I think now."

DATACOM CONNECT - AUSTRALIA
Stacey Tomasoni - Managing Director

I have been working with Suzanne for over a year now and looking back I can clearly see how far I have come in this time, thanks to the encouragement and support of Suzanne in so many ways, professionally and personally.

Suzanne is pragmatic and what I commit to in our sessions is doable and realistic. I always leave our sessions with a boost of energy and full of possibilities. She is a very good listener and every time gives me 100% of her attention – she has never had a “bad day” when she hasn’t been full of energy and enthusiasm.

I highly recommend Suzanne to anyone and everyone – every bit of effort you put into time with her will be worth it.

ALBANY SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Barbara Cavanagh - Principal 

I am the principal of the new school, Albany Senior High School. Setting up a new school is a challenge. 
Meeting with Suzanne on a regular basis has meant I have been able to keep the new school concepts at the forefront of my thinking. 

Suzanne has challenged me to hold my nerve when at times it would be easy to default to old thinking. 

There have been staff challenges where I have had to consider my own feelings and emotions in order to come up with a solution that moves everyone forward rather than getting stuck in personalities. What I have realised in my discussions and teachings with Suzanne is that leadership is about my own journey, my own awareness of who I am and how I operate. It's about rethinking sometimes the patterns of behaviour that I would normally follow. 

I feel very grateful for the personal work I have been exposed to. I have become more conscious of my leadership role and more conscious of how other people perceive the role. Suzanne challenges, affirms, excites, reignites. It is a very exciting thing to do to open a new school. Working with Suzanne for me has been a hugely important part of the journey. 

Despite the collegiality from a leadership team the job is still separate and potentially isolated and it has to be. Having a supervisor gives the space to learn and grow as a successful leader.  I strongly recommend having this support as a principal.

CHORUS (Telecom) NEW ZEALAND
Rosie Cree - National Lead for Quality
I have only worked with Suzanne Masefield for a short period of time but have made substantial changes and seen amazing results that have helped me to grow as a person, a coach and a leader.  I’d recommend Suzanne’s coaching services to anyone trying to maximise their potential.

I was promoted into a leadership role but found that there was little in the way of training available to help me deal with the new challenges. By the time I started to work with Suzanne, I was coming off the back of an arduous project leading a large team, with long hours, tight time frames and high stress levels. All in all I was pretty wound up, defensive and miserable.

Our sessions have been a safe, trusting and supportive space away from work in which to step back, reflect and work on me. Suzanne has a knack of getting to the bottom of an issue quickly, identifying possible causes and the effects of thoughts and behaviours. I left each session with a series of tools and exercises that immediately helped me to start to redress the balance and helped to resolve/improve the situation. These tools are working.

Overall I feel more balanced and like I’m actively living my life. I no longer feel stuck on the roller coaster. 
I feel much stronger, more secure and confident that I’m ok and that I can do my job really well.

These changes have been rewarded too as I’ve just been given a new role – high profile, huge responsibility and extremely challenging.  I love it!   I am in control of my destiny and the sky is the limit.

SUPER RETAIL GROUP - AUSTRALIA
Wendie Lee - Infrastructure Solutions Manager 

Working with Suzanne over the last year has helped me to grow as a person and as a leader in many ways and gives me immensely valuable time to work on ME in a safe, trusting, constructive and effective way.

Suzanne provides me with 1:1 leadership training on a regular basis, often as a manager I deal with a lot of challenging issues with my team, organisation, customer and relationships, which are hard to work through with my peers or manager, so we work actively on issues and she helps me with practical ways of moving things forward. She comes up to speed so quickly and is able to help me straight away, be it to help me plan a team building session that I am thinking of running with my team or resolving a very complex relationship management issue with my customer. Having actions to complete and tips that I can use immediately, result in positive outcomes for me and my company and I have grown as a leader as a result.

Working with Suzanne has also helped me deal with the level of stress I face and take on and helped me realise the impact personal issues can have on my professional life and vice versa, so being able to focus our sessions on issues of importance at the time is fantastic and collectively each one strengthens me emotionally ... which has a flow on effect in all aspects of my life.

When I first started with Suzanne I had a goal to set goals both professionally and personally. I now have set and achieved more goals than I can count and have clarity around my future career and life goals, which was something I really needed. The question 'what do I want to be doing in 5 years or longer' has finally becoming clearer.

I know with Suzanne that if I get to that point of 'I am stuck on the roller coaster again and I need to get off' with everything going on in my busy life, that she is only an email away to provide support and constructive advice.  I have continued to elevate successfully up the leadership ladder during the time I have worked with Suzanne and her guidance and leadership coaching has been invaluable.  I look forward to continuing to work with Suzanne as I continue to succeed and grow in my career and personal life.

HONGKONG & SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION LIMITED (HSBC)
C Lee - Senior Manager

It was really great having the 8 coaching sessions. I must admit when I first started, I was a bit sceptical about what I could achieve, but I chose to give it a go anyway.  Now, I realise that only the sky is the limit, this has been a great discovery for me. I feel wonderful that I am actually in charge and can do the things to achieve what I want.

I really appreciate all your assistance it has helped me dramatically to uncover myself more and be more productive in business as well.

WOLTERS KLUWER HEALTH | ADIS
Emma Pearl - Team Leader/Publishing Services

My leadership coaching program with Suzanne has not only given me confidence in my own abilities as a manager, it has also resulted in many positive changes for the department. I used to take on a lot of extra work myself in order to get the team to where it needed to be, but now I feel confident in delegating, coaching and supporting others. This means a lot less stress for me personally, increased job satisfaction for me and the team, and a noticeable positive change in office dynamics and morale.

Like many managers, I was promoted to the position because I was good at my job. I had no previous managerial experience and was given little in the way of training or support to deal with the plethora of new challenges I was facing. It was expected that because I was good at the job, I would be able to manage people – but that is an unfair assumption. I needed a whole new set of skills to be able to succeed in my new position. Luckily for me, that’s where Suzanne came in.

She has helped me to understand how to identify and deal with people’s fears and emotions, both factors that play a huge role in performance and job satisfaction, but also both factors that are often overlooked in the work environment. Suzanne has helped me to understand why people behave as they do and has provided me with tools and techniques to overcome the obstacles that prevent people from achieving their potential.

Together, we have focused on team building, which has enabled me to engage people, make them feel involved and encourage them to be receptive to change. I have learnt how to open up channels of communication, show people the tangible benefits of change and help them to take responsibility for their performance and for making this a better place to work. As a result, we have moved from working as a group of individuals to working as a cohesive team.

I worked hard to get company funding for this coaching program for myself and my colleague, but I believe the benefits have been huge and I look forward to Suzanne helping the company on a larger scale in the future.  I am confident that any organisation, big or small, would benefit greatly from investing in leadership coaching.