One-on-one coaching
Executive & career coaching
Coaching that works on both halves of the problem: how the system around you actually evaluates and promotes people, and the specific behaviors that let you move through it. Grounded in real-world, observable skills — not vague potential.
Background
Where the guidance comes from.
Coaching advice is only as good as the model behind it. Mine comes from formal training in both individual behavior and organizational systems, plus years of applying each inside real organizations.
B.S. + M.S.
Psychology, then industrial-organizational psychology
A bachelor's degree in psychology built the foundation in how people actually think, decide, and change. A master's in industrial-organizational psychology added the other half: how organizations select, evaluate, promote, and structure the work around them.
10+ years
Applied behavioral psychology
Over a decade working in behavioral psychology — the mechanics of how habits form, why intentions fail, and what conditions make a new behavior survive contact with a real workload. This is the part of coaching that turns insight into a changed Monday morning.
5+ years
Leadership and professional development
Five-plus years designing and delivering leadership and professional development inside organizations. That means the guidance you get accounts for how promotion and performance decisions are really made, not how they are described in a handbook.
Why both halves matter
Systems knowledge and behavioral strategy.
Most coaching supplies one and assumes the other. Understanding the system without the behavioral tools produces frustration; behavioral tools without systems knowledge produces effort aimed at the wrong target.
The system you are operating in
Careers and leadership roles are not won on effort alone. Competency models, performance calibration, promotion criteria, succession bench reviews, and stakeholder visibility all shape outcomes. I-O psychology is the study of exactly these mechanics — so coaching starts with an accurate read of the system you are actually being evaluated by.
- How your role is evaluated, and by whom
- Where the real decision points and gatekeepers sit
- Which capabilities your organization rewards versus merely praises
The behavior that moves you through it
Understanding the system changes nothing without a way to act differently under pressure. Behavioral psychology supplies the mechanism: specific cues, rehearsal, feedback loops, and environmental design that make a new behavior repeatable rather than aspirational.
- Concrete behavioral targets you can practice this week
- Cues and structures that survive a heavy workload
- Feedback loops that tell you whether it is working
How the work runs
Grounded in measurable skills.
Every engagement is built so you and I can both tell whether it is working. That requires goals stated as observable behavior and evidence collected between sessions.
Baseline, not vibes
We start with evidence: your own account, the feedback you have received, and where relevant a validated assessment or structured multi-rater input. The goal is an accurate starting point, stated plainly enough that progress can be checked against it later.
Define the observable behavior
Every goal gets translated into behavior someone else could observe. Not 'have more executive presence' but 'open a stakeholder update with the decision needed and the recommendation, in under ninety seconds.' If it cannot be observed, it cannot be practiced or verified.
Rehearse under realistic conditions
Skills are built in session through practice and live feedback — difficult conversations, negotiation, delegation, executive updates, interviews — using real situations from your calendar rather than hypotheticals.
Design the environment
New behavior fails when it depends on willpower. We build the cues, calendar structures, prep routines, and accountability that make the behavior the path of least resistance.
Measure and adjust
Between sessions you collect evidence on what happened. We review it, keep what is working, and change what is not. The plan is revised against results, not repeated on faith.
Common focus areas
What we actually work on.
Executive coaching
For people currently leading — or about to.
- Leading through influence when you lack direct authority
- Delegation that builds capability instead of just offloading tasks
- Difficult performance and accountability conversations
- Executive communication: framing decisions for senior stakeholders
- Managing former peers after a promotion
- Building and reading your own leadership bench
Career coaching
For people trying to move, pivot, or get unstuck.
- Getting an honest read on why you are not advancing
- Positioning for a promotion against real evaluation criteria
- Interview and negotiation preparation with live rehearsal
- Career transitions and pivots into new functions
- Building visibility without self-promotion that feels false
- Recovering credibility after a setback or difficult review
The standard
Real skills, not unmeasurable ones.
A great deal of coaching trades in language that cannot be checked — presence, gravitas, authenticity, potential. It feels meaningful in the room and leaves you with nothing to practice on Tuesday.
Every goal here gets translated into behavior that someone else could observe and that you can rehearse, so at the end of the engagement there is an honest answer to whether anything changed.
Start with a free consultation.
Tell me what you are trying to change. I will tell you honestly whether coaching is the right way to get there.