Workplace Coaching
Transition Coaching
Professional transition coaching supports you to navigate the challenges of new work roles and other professional opportunities and changes. You may be starting your professional career, transitioning into your first leadership role, building a small business, considering your next career steps or adjusting your work as you transition into retirement.
Whatever professional change you are navigating, I am here to support your development and growth.
Working With You to Meet Your Leadership Goals
Leadership today is more demanding than ever. Leaders are asked to navigate constant change, balance competing priorities, manage increasing client loads and support their teams while also delivering results. The most effective leaders are person-centred. They are authentic, self-aware, and able to build trust. First-level leaders, who guide the everyday work and interactions of their teams, shape culture, morale, and performance more than anyone else. Yet they’re often caught between senior management and staff and may receive the least support.
Leadership coaching gives you space to reflect, grow confidence, and develop or strengthen practical leadership skills. By investing in focused leadership coaching or monthly leadership supervision, you can expand your leadership capacity, address potential burnout, and build a workplace where both you and your team can thrive.
Leadership Coaching
In a focused series of 6–8 sessions, we’ll clarify your professional needs, explore your leadership style, and build on your strengths using a solution-focused approach to a professional goal you want to achieve. Coaching offers the space to pause, reflect, and reset while developing strategies that grow your confidence, hone your skills, and clarify your purpose and career direction—so you can lead more effectively and feel more fulfilled in your work.
“Melinda was a wonderful mentor to me from early on in my career. I appreciated Melinda’s reflective and clinical approach that was flexible to my learning needs and goals. She encouraged me to think in alternative ways, challenged me in areas I sought to develop and created a supportive space to progress my career much quicker than anticipated. She will support you to get where you want to be! whether in direct practice or leadership.”
— Maddison C, Team Leader, Foundation House.
My Approach
I use a solutions-focused coaching approach, grounded in positive psychology, as well as reflective practice from my experience as a clinician.
I work collaboratively with you to identify your needs, strengths and goals to build your leadership and professional capability & confidence, to help you thrive in your role and foster a healthy and productive work environment.
“Melinda has a unique combination of counselling expertise and workplace coaching skills. I gained tools and techniques to address my blocks and make significant progress on projects I had been struggling with. Melinda is able to listen, notice subtle cues, and reframe discussions in a way that brings clarity and self-awareness. Melinda helped me clarify my strengths and values, enabling me to tackle procrastination and prioritise work that aligns with my purpose. I highly recommend Melinda to anyone seeking transformative coaching.”
— Tara W, Business Owner, Parent Connections.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the process for coaching sessions?
Professional coaching is offered in a 6 to 8 session block to address a specific goal, issue or need. Sessions are typically scheduled every 2 to 4 weeks to allow time to work on your goals between sessions.
- Introductory Consult: In the initial 15-minute phone consultation we will clarify your professional needs and expectations, discuss how workplace coaching works, answer any questions and determine if my style suits your needs.
- Initial Assessment Session: In the first consultation (60 m), we will reflect on the situation that brought you to coaching (an aspect of your work you want to change or develop) , discuss your career history and trajectory, clarify what you would like to achieve, explore your strengths and areas for leadership development, and establish a goal and a plan for working together. A self-awareness leadership assessment tool can be completed before the next session.
- Sessions: In the following 4 to 6 sessions we will continue to work together to help you move toward realising your specified goal using reflective discussion, homework tasks and regular review. We drill down to help you discover your leadership or professional style and develop a greater understanding of the values that drive your work. I will give you a written summary of each session and follow-up activities between sessions to keep you focused on your goal.
- Final Session: In the final session we will review where you are in relation to your goal, review your progress and set future steps.
What topics are usually discussed in leadership coaching?
Managers attend leadership and workplace consultation and/or supervision for many different reasons. The focus of sessions may be:
- developing leadership confidence and addressing imposter syndrome
- building people-focused leadership
- managing team dynamics and team building
- managing mental health in the workplace – stress management and burnout
- managing-up
- communication and conflict resolution
- career development
- stakeholder management
- understanding your own leadership style
- change management
- navigating organisational systems
- any other area of concern or interest as it relates to your leadership role.
Is my director involved in my leadership coaching?
That is up to you. Some leaders are encouraged to attend leadership coaching by their senior manager/director to help them work on a skill, gain confidence or address an issue, especially if they are emerging or developing leaders, or a workplace issue has been identified by you both. You may choose to involve your director in the initial and review sessions, or not. Some people find it useful, others don’t. And you decide how much you would like to report to your senior manager/director about your progress in the sessions. I do not coach people around performance management issues unless they specifically request it and sessions are confidential unless agreed otherwise.
Directors do not attend ongoing leadership supervision sessions.
What are the fees?
Leadership supervision fees align with the AASW recommended fee schedule for individual supervision and are reviewed annually. Discounts are available for private fee-paying supervisees. Leadership coaching fees align with the standard coaching fees with International Coaching Federation. A Leadership coaching package includes a standard 10% discount for upfront payment.
What is the difference between counselling, mentoring, supervision, coaching and consulting?
- Counselling focuses on addressing your personal emotional responses and needs. Although I am a qualified and experienced therapist, I do not use counselling in supervision, mentoring or coaching. If you need additional support, I may suggest you consider EAP (employee assistance) counselling.
- Mentoring involves problem solving, sharing of professional experience and advice from someone more experienced in your specialist field e.g. senior social worker to social worker or senior lawyer to lawyer.
- Supervision offers regular reflection on clinical work (clinical supervision) and other organisational and workplace situations (leadership supervision). Supervision may include coaching elements, but the focus is on reflection, ethics and professional accountability.
- Consulting provides external subject matter expertise and advice to individuals and organisations, such as on leadership development, mental health and managing organisational systems.
- Coaching is a methodology for reflecting on a specific issue, drawing out a person’s knowledge and skills, and targeting attention on achieving a goal. Coaching will also include reflection, but the focus is on change and performance.
Contact
Schedule a 15-minute phone consultation to discuss your goals, learn what workplace and leadership coaching involves, and decide if I’m the right fit.”