Six sessions, one real shift, in your own voice.

— 8 minute read · updated May 2026

What a session actually looks like.

Each session runs to 75 minutes. We sit together — in person where practical from Ross-on-Wye, online if not. There's no opening ceremony. I ask you what's on top. Then I get out of the way.

You'll often arrive thinking we're going to talk about one thing. Within twenty minutes you'll discover it was a different thing entirely. That's normal. It's how coaching works.

While you're talking, I'm doing four things, mostly:

• iListening for what isn't being said
• iiWatching for patterns — words you keep returning to, places you flinch
• iiiNoticing the question behind your question
• ivResisting, quite hard, the urge to fix it for you

When I do speak, I'm usually doing one of four things: asking a question you haven't asked yourself; reflecting back something you said that surprised both of us; naming a pattern; or inviting you to slow down on a moment you're racing past.

My job is rarely to give you the answer. It's to ask the question that unlocks the answer you already have.

Between sessions.

You'll leave with one or two specific things to try before we meet again. Not homework — experiments. You can come back having done them. You can come back having tried and abandoned them. You can come back having decided they weren't the right experiment in the first place. All three teach us something.

If something urgent comes up between sessions, you can voice-note me. I'll respond within the working day. I'm not a 24/7 service. That isn't coaching; it's something else.

What I'm listening for.

First — what you already know but haven't given yourself permission to know.

Most leaders arrive with the answer in them somewhere. It's just been spoken so many times in the wrong order, or to the wrong person, that they've stopped trusting it. The work is finding it — and giving it the air it needs to be sayable.

Second — what you've borrowed.

Most of the inner critic in a leader's head is borrowed from someone earlier in their life. A previous boss. A parent. A school report. Once you can name the voice, you can choose whether it still gets to stay in the room.

Third — what you're avoiding by being busy.

Busy is the most respectable form of hiding. Sometimes it's the job. Sometimes it's other work named honestly. I'll usually ask, at least once, what you'd be doing if you weren't busy.

What I won't do.

• I won't tell you what to do. Even when I think I know. Even when you ask. The exception is rare and I'll always flag it as my opinion, not a recommendation.
• I won't pretend to be neutral when I'm not. If I think you're making a mistake, I'll say so — once. Then I'll trust your judgement.
• I won't break confidence. The only exceptions are safeguarding situations and the supervision relationship I'm in — which is itself bound by professional confidentiality.
• I won't extend an engagement that's done its work. Six sessions, then we land it. If you want more after that, we'll talk about it then — not before.

When a session gets stuck.

Sometimes a session is stuck. Same loop, same conclusion, the third time. When that happens, I'll usually say so out loud.

Then we'll try one of three things:

• Step back. What would we be saying if we weren't us, but two people who'd never met?
• Step in. What's the thing you're not saying because saying it makes it real?
• Step away. Maybe we need to come back to this in two weeks.

Stuckness isn't a failure. It's information.

When emotion comes into the room.

You don't need to perform composure with me. Or with anyone, really, but particularly not with me.

If you cry, I'll wait. If you laugh inappropriately, I'll laugh too. If you're flat and disconnected, I'll name it. I won't rush you out of any of these. They're often where the real material is.

I'm not a therapist. If something opens up that needs more than coaching can hold, I'll say so honestly — in the session, not afterwards — and we'll find someone better placed. That's not a failure of coaching. It's coaching working properly.

How an engagement lands.

In session six, we land it together. What's shifted. What's still in motion. What you'll carry forward.

You'll get a written one-page summary from me afterwards. Not detailed notes — just the thread, distilled. It's yours. I'd suggest reading it three months later.

Some clients come back for another arc a year or two on, when something new has surfaced. Some don't. Both are fine. Coaching that works is coaching you eventually outgrow.