Category: Leader of Leaders

Developing Strategic Relationships
Coaching for Performance
Leadership Influencing
Building Organisational Talent
Change Leadership
Operational Decision Making
Managing Available Resources
Driving for Results
Self-Insight
Leadership Agility
Executive Disposition

Coaching the Coach – Who, Why, When & What?

Are you a Leader of Leaders? If you have the responsibility for coaching leaders then you will appreciate that part of your role is coaching them to be better coaches. What are your coaching goals? When might you intervene? Why is this important? Who will you focus your discretionary coaching time on? Questions, questions, questions!


I was recently asked by one of our Blog Subscribers how I provide follow up coach-the-coach support to participants in my Coaching Master Class Program (CMC). He is aware of the CMC program but has not participated in it himself. Good question I thought. I know what I do, but I have never written it down for the benefit of others. So here we go. Let’s put that right and summarise coaching the coaches in two distinct phases: Phase 1 is immediately after the CMC training; Phase 2 is the ongoing workplace coach-the-coach support.

Continue reading “Coaching the Coach – Who, Why, When & What?”

Meraki = Passion + Love

Meraki means putting love and passion into everything you do.

Everywhere I read I see articles about success and how to be successful. The truth is that we all are capable of being successful, however that will not be meaningful until we put love and passion into everything we do.  Then, and only then, we will “feel” successful.  That is when you reach the “Meraki” stage.  Meraki is a Greek word that can be translated to the action of putting love and passion into everything you do.

Continue reading “Meraki = Passion + Love”

The Coach (Leader) Deserves No Medal!

The Coach (Leader) deserves no medal! How much are you (as a leader, coach, peer, individual-contributor, etc.) doing for your team to earn a GOLD MEDAL?

The Olympics in Rio closing ceremony took place last week and it is now history! I know you must have read hundreds of articles, stories and analogies linked to leadership but Olympics being a great example of the outcomes of good coaching and dedication to practice, I would like to bring another one and relate it to the ‘coach’ itself.

Did you know that the coaches deserve no medals? They don’t! (I concede didn’t know that!)

Continue reading “The Coach (Leader) Deserves No Medal!”

Leadership Interview: Caroline Wu ‘My Coaching Journey’

We follow the fortunes of a senior leader in China over a four year period as she learns and applies her coaching skills in three different and progressively more senior job roles and ends up Managing Director of a significant business unit with full P&L responsibility.

I first started working with the Top Team at Maersk Line East China Cluster (PRE) in Shanghai when I visited them in April 2011 to kick off the Coaching Master Class program. Caroline Wu was a member of the senior management team and starting out on her coaching journey.

I was very fortunate to be working with Caroline at that time. She translated my facilitator guide into Mandarin for the train-the-train roll out of the program. She also co-facilitated the program with me the following year for the North China Cluster (PRN) in Qingdao.

Here she reflects on that journey four years on. Caroline has been promoted twice in that period. I was lucky enough to capture her thoughts on her coaching journey at each stage. What has she learned along the way? What can we learn from her experiences?

Continue reading “Leadership Interview: Caroline Wu ‘My Coaching Journey’”

Procrastination and Creativity

It is not OK to miss deadlines. It is also not OK to meet a deadline by impacting negatively on quality. How I learnt to balance impatience to produce results with a need to focus on the quality of the outcome.


During the early start of my professional career, I gave a lot of value to get things done fast.  I was an impatient operator whose only focus was execution with acceptable results.  Now, ‘acceptable’ is very subjective word that can have a lot of different meanings depending of the one who use it.  Later I found out that acceptable results often lead to rework. Continue reading “Procrastination and Creativity”

Leadership Interview: Hans Augusteijn ‘My Coaching Journey’

We follow the fortunes of a senior leader in Northern Europe over a three year period as he learns and applies his newly acquired coaching skills and ends up a senior director spreading the coaching gospel to his direct report leaders.

I first started working with the Top Team at Maersk Northern Europe Liner Operations Cluster (NEULOC) in Rotterdam when I visited them to kick off the Coaching Master Class program in December 2012. At that time Hans Augusteijn was a Senior General Manager, a member of the senior management team and starting out on his coaching journey. Here he reflects on that journey three years on. What has he learned along the way? What can we learn from his experiences?

Continue reading “Leadership Interview: Hans Augusteijn ‘My Coaching Journey’”

Change Leadership: The Eternal Search for Emotional Balance

How does the leader help their team see positive opportunities and embrace organisational change? Here is a simple model to help team members better understand their emotions, evaluate options, achieve emotional balance and make choices on the way forward.


I was sleeping last night when I suddenly woke up at 2 am and started thinking about the first team meeting that I planned to do next morning with my newly appointed unit of operational execution.  I was debating with myself of the best way of making them embrace change and achieve emotional balance. How could they achieve improvement and take ownership as leaders of the change we, as a team, wanted for our professional career and life enjoyment.  How could I explain to them that is good to have problems because this would become our driver that will make us feel so uncomfortable that we would be 100% convinced of the need of change for us?

Continue reading “Change Leadership: The Eternal Search for Emotional Balance”

Leadership Interview: Morten Mortensen ‘Checking the Temperature of Employee Response to Change’

Successful leaders recognise they have a crucial role to play during organisational change.

The recognised wisdom about organisational change is that we do not change people – they choose to change for their own reasons. This means the unit of change in this process is ONE. It is not about one-way briefings or team sessions – it is about the individual. This means the ‘real’ dialogue about change is about ‘What’s in it for me’ (WIIFM) and takes place in private in short structured sessions between a colleague and his/her Leader. In 2013 I interviewed Morten Mortensen, APALOC Head of Contract Management for Maersk Singapore, about how he was coaching for change leadership and checking the temperature of employee response to change.

Continue reading “Leadership Interview: Morten Mortensen ‘Checking the Temperature of Employee Response to Change’”

Executive Presence

Executive Presence is about conveying a leadership image that commands respect and attention from others. How does a leader achieve this presence or gravitas?


Executive Presence is about conveying a leadership image that commands respect and attention from others. Leaders who display this know how to react when confronted with challenging situations. They are calm and measured. Passionate yet deliberate. Engaging and focussed. They inspire their peers and subordinates. They are in control of themselves and assert their intentions. How does a leader achieve this presence or gravitas?

Continue reading “Executive Presence”

Hello and Welcome

Welcome to The Leadership Coach Blog. This is where we meet to exchange ideas on what makes leadership at all levels in an organisation really work. Subscribe for free.

Welcome to The Leadership Coach 2024. Eight years of Blogging: 2016 – 2024. This is where we continue to meet to exchange ideas on what makes leadership at all levels in an organisation really work.

Since this is a BLOG, my Guest Authors and I post articles and you comment or ask questions. That way we all learn something and make a daily progress on that big leadership transition journey. I started the Blog in 2016 and there are now over 270 articles for you to browse and enjoy.

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Thanks for visiting today.

Trevor Sherman

The Leadership Coach

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