Executive Coach in Basel—so you can step boldly into your next season.

There are probably as many definitions of coaching as there are coaches… 

Essentially, in an individual coaching, we work together one-on-one, exploring whatever is on your mind. My role is to create a safe confidential space, where you can explore your thoughts and feelings openly, freely, and be heard without judgement. I act as your thought and empathic partner for new awareness and insights to emerge, and from these, change naturally occurs.

Coaching is about supporting you as you make sense of your world.
It’s about shedding light on, and uncovering things that may be forgotten, hidden or ignored.
It’s about facilitating you finding the answers you are looking for.
It’s about (re)discovering your ‘wholeness’.

My goal is to help you feel seen and heard for who you truly are; know that you are cared for and held in unconditional positive regard; and feel hopeful about your future, as you go about reconciling the different roles you play in your life within one coherent and cohesive picture filled with meaning and purpose. 

I’ll answer this question by explaining how my coaching style is different from what you have most likely experienced this far. 

If you’re a senior leader, you’ve probably worked with coaches before, in which case the coaching probably looked like something like this:
– You work out with your coach your goal(s) for overall coaching programme.
– At the beginning of each session, you define a goal for that session and start talking.
– Your coach listens, reflects back, asks sharp questions, and helps you think through your situation, clarifying your options, strategy, and possible next steps. 

I’m also guessing that, while the sessions were good, for some reason, you keep finding yourself in variations of that same situation that led you to coaching in the first place, over and over and over again. Different context, different people, but the same sense of “stuckness”.

Why?

Because most executive coaching stays in the intellectual realm, focusing heavily on the WHAT: your goals, your options, your strategies and motivation to get there, your next steps… This has value, and I can certainly coach you in that way as well, BUT the reality is: thinking alone is not enough.

Sound choices and long lasting change require becoming aware of your total person. This means paying attention to your thoughts, the words you use, as well as what your body is saying beyond the words: the gestures, the facial expressions, the pursed lip, the tight shoulder.

When we work together, I’m not focused on the WHAT or WHY as much as I’m interested in your HOW: how you function in the world—in this very moment.

Even when you bring a situation from the past or a worry about the future, we explore it in the present tense. How is it impacting you in the here and now? What happens in your body as you describe your challenge? What images or metaphors come up for you? When you say: “I need space”—what does this space look like? Width, shape, depth, boundary to those around you. You’d be surprised what can be achieved in terms of clarity of vision and decision making, when doing this kind of work.

And before you dismiss this as “mumbo jumbo”, research by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio shows that without emotional and somatic (body) input, the human brain actually struggles to make decisions at all. And yet, traditional executive coaching relies almost entirely on cognitive logic: pros, cons, previous strategies, future action plans. Even when a coach asks you how you “feel”, often you still end up “talking about” your feelings from a detached, intellectual space, rather than actually experiencing them in your body.

This is where our work comes in.

My work with you is centred around your whole person. I help you tap into your full range of emotions, expanding your vision to a wide view angle—and with that, a new set of choices you were unaware of before. Suddenly, instead of chasing goals, solutions, or strategies, they find you effortlessly, and change simply occurs.

The way I coach is difficult to put into words—it’s best experienced.
If you’re curious, let’s explore what’s possible together in a complimentary coaching session.

**Discretion and confidentiality guaranteed**

The short answer is no.

While coaching and psychotherapy draw on similar theories, tools and methodologies from one another, they are not the same and one does not replace the other. 

We all carry a backpack of past experiences and, often times, traumas. In coaching, we look at how you can pursue your life’s goals and aspirations while carrying that backpack with you. In therapy, you would aim to resolve those past experiences and traumas, so that your backpack gets lighter. As you can imagine, things are not always as black and white—but I find this to be the most helpful image to understand the difference between coaching and therapy. 

In practice, how far we explore a topic together within our coaching relationship will depend on a co-created and co-negotiated boundary between you, the client, and me, your coach. 

If you are already under the care of a mental health professional, I would encourage you to discuss with the latter the nature and extent of the coaching relationship you are contemplating.

If you wish to learn about the coaching/therapy boundary, this research paper is one of the best I have read on the topic so far.

While I can coach anyone on any topic, I find myself working mostly in the following areas:

• Life’s big questions: facing a midlife crisis, high-stakes leadership decisions, wondering what’s next after years at the top, questioning one’s purpose and legacy—basically the stuff that keeps you awake at night.
• Career changes: Feeling in a professional rut and not sure what to do next, starting in a new or bigger role, re-entering the workforce after a break, optimising your job application documents, interviewing skills and strategy.
• CliftonStrengths: Supporting leaders and their teams “Name, Claim & Aim” their natural talents, using Gallup’s CliftonStrengths Assessment.
• Coaching skills: Training coaches and managers wanting to take their coaching and leadership skills to the next level using Gestalt coaching skills.

I also offer a number of bespoke services to organisations and educational institutions.