Leadership coaching
Enabling leaders and their teams to stay ahead of the curve
Stephen Burt, founder of Gibsonstarr says,
“Becoming a better listener transforms a leader’s effectiveness. I am fascinated by the power and potential of listening. My book on listening for coaches and mentors was published by Routledge on 28 June 2019. You can find it here.
You can see my latest thoughts in my blog here
What’s my offer?
Since 2002, I have worked with a huge range of people as they become more effective leaders.
Together we tackle presence and impact, conflict, managing upwards, team development, influencing, listening and coaching, strategic thinking and many other leadership challenges. Underlying these myriad issues, I notice that the most effective leaders are clear and skilled in three areas.
First, they are highly adept listeners – they motivate and understand others, build commitment, and deliver high performance.
Secondly, they have found their authentic voice– they communicate what they stand for, and what they care about, with clarity and impact.
Thirdly, they lead from a strong sense of purpose – they know what they are for and what difference they want to make.
I now focus on working with individuals and groups in these three areas. This means that my clients build a firm foundation for their leadership and get the maximum benefit from the time we spend together.
Each client’s strengths and challenges are unique so the work we do is bespoke. We find specific, high-impact actions that enable them to lead more strongly. We also build a firm basis that enables them to continue to learn well after our work together is finished. The most successful leaders hold to that commitment, no matter how senior they become.
In summary, a focus on listening, voice and purpose brings together much of what I have learnt through over 30 years’ experience as a leader, coach and facilitator.
I know that when a leader speaks with their authentic voice, they use their power well. It complements and completes the ability to listen deeply. They communicate who they are and become someone that others want to follow. It requires them to know themselves well, have the courage to show themselves and have the skills to do so with impact.
A clear purpose is the rock on which effective leaders build. It supports both listening and having an authentic voice. Helping people uncover their purpose rock is both powerful and energising. It can be deep territory but exploring it repays the investment.
You can find out more about what I offer here Unleashing Your Listening, Finding Your Voice, Uncovering Your Purpose and by getting in touch.
And check out the blogs below so you can get a sense of what intrigues me and how I tell my stories.
What Clients Say...
“Stephen is a highly effective and professional coach. As a senior director in my role, I found Stephen attentive and he took time to understand my personal needs from the start. By taking a constructive, challenging approach he was able to help me not only understand real issues I faced but through using inventive methods and leveraging his extensive knowledge, was able to guide me to the answers I actually already knew but didn’t at first realise.”
“Stephen facilitated an excellent course based around developing your potential – with a really well-balanced mix of thought-provoking and challenging concepts with practical techniques in which to apply them in the real world. The weekend really flew by, not least because of Stephen’s engaging, humorous and inquisitive style.”
“Stephen’s coaching has proved invaluable. He takes time to understand issues and context, and asks all the difficult questions needed to help me tease out the right course of action. He has been very helpful in getting me to think through the conversations I need to have, where others may be coming from and how to plan for success. I always leave our sessions with new insight and things I can do!”
“Stephen was an excellent executive coach when I was working as a senior public sector manager. He combined a very engaging person centred approach with a clear focus; willingness to positively challenge and creativity in terms of ideas and exploratory questions. This enabled me to manage some of my frustrations with others who seemed to work in a different way and to understand my preferred organised planned approach to work and how that clashed with an organisation pre-occupied with crisis management. This understanding of differences enabled me to develop survival strategies and maximise my effectiveness.”