People are often promoted because they are brilliant at the technical side of the job. Leading a team, handling difficult conversations and thinking strategically is a different set of skills.

Executive coaching gives people a practical space to think, reflect and take action. We agree clear outcomes with you at the start, then shape each session around the real challenges the individual is facing in their role. This isn't a fixed programme. We work with what is happening in real time.

Where coaching can help

Succession and promotion
Supporting people who are preparing for a bigger role or have just stepped into one, so they can move from being good at the technical parts of their job to thinking, communicating and leading at the level now expected of them.

From technical expert to Director
Helping skilled specialists such as engineers, project managers and quantity surveyors build the leadership, communication and strategic thinking needed to take responsibility for a team or division.

Communication and relationships
Understanding your own communication style, adapting to different personalities and building stronger working relationships. This can include difficult conversations, managing a team, influencing senior colleagues or working through conflict.

New senior roles
The first few months in a senior role bring a whole new set of challenges. Coaching offers a confidential space to work through decisions, people issues and priorities as they happen.

Support alongside formal processes
Coaching can sit alongside a performance management process without replacing management or removing accountability. The focus is on understanding what's getting in the way and turning expectations into practical action.

How it works

Before coaching begins, we meet with the organisation and the individual to agree clear outcomes. These might include preparing for promotion, improving communication and management style, building stronger relationships with a team, working through a performance challenge, or creating a clear people or leadership strategy.

Coaching then takes place in regular one to one sessions on Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Sessions are practical and focused on what's happening now. That might mean preparing for an important meeting, planning a difficult conversation, mapping key relationships or turning an overwhelming challenge into clear next steps.

Where coaching is part of a formal process, boundaries are agreed from the start. The individual keeps a confidential space to think, while the organisation receives progress updates against the agreed goals.

Our approach

Every person and organisation is different, but the approach stays the same:

Agree what needs to change.
Understand what's getting in the way.
Work on real challenges.
Turn insight into practical action.

Examples of our work

Names and details have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Moving from Quantity Surveyor to Director
A highly skilled Quantity Surveyor was preparing to step into a Director role. His technical ability was already well established, so coaching focused on strategic thinking, communication and leading his division through the change. He began the shift from being the person who solves technical problems to the leader responsible for direction and performance.

Supporting a new Managing Director
A newly appointed Managing Director had coaching through his first six months. Sessions focused on the situations he was dealing with at the time, including building a people strategy and preparing for key conversations. It gave him greater clarity about the culture he wanted to build and how he wanted to lead.

Preparing a future leader for promotion
A manager with the potential for a bigger role needed to pass a professional qualification while developing his leadership skills. Over three months, we built a realistic study plan around his workload and worked on how he communicated with his team as his role grew.

Support during a performance process
An experienced professional was referred for six weeks of coaching alongside a formal performance process. Overwhelm was affecting her confidence and consistency. We broke tasks into manageable steps, built better follow-up habits and worked through new opportunities as they came up, helping her move from overwhelm towards action.

About Emily

Emily Harbrecht is an Executive Coach and NLP Trainer with over 17 years' coaching and training experience. She supports professionals, managers and senior leaders through growth, transition and change.

Emily qualified as an NLP Trainer in 2015 and was named NLP Practitioner of the Year in 2012. She is also the creator of a CPD accredited coach training programme that has trained more than 100 coaches worldwide.

Her style is warm, practical and focused on results, combining evidence-based coaching and behavioural science with real workplace strategies.

Get in touch

Coaching is available for individuals or as part of wider leadership development, succession planning or formal support processes. Get in touch to talk about what you need.