Client Stories & Testimonials

Simon asked to work with a coach after attending a one-day ‘coaching for managers’ workshop, and a workshop on leading teams through organisational change. Simon wanted to develop his coaching style as a manager further while also using the time to ensure he could cope himself with an ever-increasing workload and unprecedented change.

Over the course of eight months, Simon attended seven hour-long coaching sessions and used the time in between sessions to experiment with new approaches to familiar problems. He also invited his coach to observe him chairing a meeting with his team, and opted for ‘three cornered coaching’ where his line manager joined a session discussing the coaching.

A key learning moment came when Simon realised that as a manager he could ensure good results even when he delegated tasks he would prefer to do himself. Delegating more uncovered untapped potential in his team, and to his delight he also found that being asked to step up was a huge motivator for his team members.

At the end of the process Simon gave several examples of how his practice as a manager was refreshed and broadened, and was relieved to feel more on top of his own workload at the same time.

Jo came to coaching when her career was at an all-time low: having moved 200 miles to start over in her mid-forties she discovered that she could not rebuild her career as a personal trainer due to a chronic injury. While coming to terms with the disappointment, Jo decided she would use the coaching sessions to focus on her strengths and personal qualities to explore her options for a new career.

Using a person-centred approach, Jo’s coach created a safe space for her to think out loud and give ideas room to grow, while responding sensitively to Jo’s levels of resilience on the good days and the not-so-good ones. By each session, Jo became more focused on what she wanted to achieve through a process of elimination. Unafraid to try new things, her confidence and mental energy grew as a result of new insights. She discovered that by confiding a little more in the people closest to her, they knew how and when to support her – and were able to join her in celebrating her successes.

Less than a year after Jo concluded her coaching sessions, Jo has established a successful career in business. She attributes her success in part to losing her fear of asking others for help.

Emma had been enjoying a hugely successful career in academia for decades when she signed up for a nine month long leadership development programme. As part of the programme she was assigned six 1:1 sessions with a Socius Executive Coach. Emma decided to use her sessions to address an old, persistent problem. Despite having a high profile in her field that saw her travel the world delivering keynote speeches in front of large audiences of fellow experts with ease, she confessed to hiding in the ladies’ room to avoid the expected socialising after. Days later Emma would receive emails from delegates who were disappointed to have missed her, and this bothered her greatly. Connecting with a new generation of researchers is one of the things that motivated her the most.

With her coach at her side, Emma explored what she disliked so much about networking. A key discovery was that she recognised herself entirely in the description of an introvert! Because Emma genuinely enjoyed giving speeches and interacting with her conference audiences and did this so well, people automatically assumed she must be the extroverted type.

Soon Emma had mapped out what situations she found hardest to navigate. Understanding how introversion works, what its strengths are and how she could best preserve her mental energy for important ‘hobnobbing events’ helped her to see these in an entirely different way. Armed with some surprisingly simple techniques Emma engaged more and more in networking and found herself so engaged that a friend exclaimed, “Emma has had an epiphany!”.

Emma is making the most of being an introvert. She plans for events that can be mentally draining and when she attends them, she uses the strengths of an introvert: she’s a great listener, makes considered contributions to conversation rather than engage in chit-chat and exudes calm which puts people at ease. Most importantly, she no longer dreads them but truly enjoys the ones she chooses to join.

Junior doctors have been in the headlines in recent years as one of the most hardworking professional groups in the UK. Becoming a specialist takes many years of study while practising full time, and exams are frequent.

Anja asked for support to learn ways to deal with a particularly notorious exam, which she had taken three times without success. Her fourth attempt would also be the last she was allowed, putting huge pressure on Anja to perform.

It emerged that Anja’s knowledge and experience were not the problem: she knew the subject matter inside out and as a senior trainee already had years of clinical experience to rely on. The problem lay in the format of the oral examination, where she had previously been unable to recover from stumbling on one of her answers. During this particular exam, Anja would rotate to two new examiners every fourteen minutes, and each time both examiners would ask one question each for her to answer in seven minutes. This would be repeated six or seven times times.

Anja’s previous experience was that the scrutiny of the examiners caused her to become flustered while she took a few moments how best to answer their question. Anja’s encyclopaedic knowledge was actually a hindrance: too many possible answers to choose from! On reflection, this part of her problem was the easiest to address. Anja identified some issues with her communication skills and a lack of confidence as the real culprits.

With the help of her coach, Anja learned new communication techniques to deal with her halting answers. She experimented in simulated exams with tone of voice, body language and also used mindfulness techniques to quieten her inner critic during stressful moments. She reported feeling much more confident and even relaxed in the run-up to the exam.

Anja took the exam and passed with an 88% pass grade on her fourth attempt, ending in the top 5% of her cohort.