Life as a leader in organisations is, without question, becoming more complex. The bar is quite rightly high, and the responsibility we hold sharply in focus.

Being a leader is a privilege. It also presents us with a litany of challenges. At times, it can leave us feeling lonely, anxious or overwhelmed, testing our resilience. Leadership takes courage and a willingness to trust our intuition. We must live by our choices and their consequences. But what we learn from them, and about ourselves in the process, is what counts if we are to grow and thrive as leaders.

My own experience

Throughout my own career, as an executive and leader of teams, I have valued feedback, including on how I come across – even if I didn’t like all of it at the time! My openness to feedback helped me to learn fast.

But what made the difference in my growth as a leader is the depth of connection I had with my coaches (and mentors). They challenged my thinking and offered me the space and time to reflect. And I mean really reflect. This space became precious to me. It was somewhere where I could: be totally open and talk freely, including about my anxieties; make sense of the feedback from others; become less ‘stuck’; push myself for more; and, discover what is meaningful … what matters.

It’s where I could be more of me, and where change became possible. As a consequence, it paid dividends for the organisations I served.

I find coaching to be as valuable to me today as it was then. And, with my own experience of what it takes to lead well in organisations, I was inspired to take a post-graduate Masters’ in Executive Coaching at Ashridge-Hult International Business School.

I started Red Wolf to offer the same space to others. With the ambition to thrive as leaders, not just cope … to be fearless in confronting the complexity of bringing about change and to create breakthrough performance for the organisation.