I didn’t expect that this session would have the energising impact on me that it has had. I thought I would suffer through 2 days of ‘more coaching models’, but I am leaving a better, energised coach and person. Thank-you! The best ‘final’ session in 20 years of training!! Really effective.

Phillip is a highly skilled executive coach. Using a very collaborative style and well developed tools and techniques, Phillip helped me position myself as a CEO and build a development path into the future, as an experienced senior executive. I can highly recommend Phillip to anyone who needs an experienced executive coach to take them to the next level in their executive career.

At a coaching session with Phil I expressed the frustration I was experiencing with a manager who was not performing and had very little insight re the same. We discussed an action plan for me to implement “today”. These included a tough conversation followed by a list of expectations. I had done this prior but the key element was that I was to remove the word WE. By removing myself from being partly responsible she became totally accountable. I have noticed a marked improvement in her performance and self-confidence. The overall result has also improved the activity and financial results of her service.

As principal investigator of clinical studies into new treatment for leukaemia and lymphoma, I had not given much thought to my leadership skills, which is something you were not taught at medical school or during specialty training. This course has opened my eyes to how harnessing my leadership and coaching skills can help me be even more efficient in leading my teams as we made new discoveries and influence how leukaemia and lymphomas is treated. I believe I am a more effective leader and investigator as the result of this course.

This was an excellent course. The coaching was tailored to my individual needs, and the teaching material in our group sessions was also highly specific to the challenges facing our organisation and our group of leaders. We also learned general principles which I have already found invaluable in the other areas of leadership outside my organisation. Roderick and Phil were respectful, entertaining facilitators and coaches, and after just four group sessions I feel we have developed further both as a team and as individuals than I thought possible. I would highly recommend this course to others who are facing leadership roles, organisational change, and who acknowledge that we can all grow further and learn more about leadership.

I worked with Phil as my Coach over 9 months to improve my effectiveness as an operational manager. His approach is that effective change and development needs to come from the individual, not the coach. Consistent with this, Phil required me to engage and commit to concrete actions, providing guidance, theory and active questioning to ensure that I was accountable for the outcomes of the coaching engagement. I am grateful for Phil’s contribution to my personal and professional development, and have taken forward good habits and embedded change from our work together.

We have worked with the Leadership Sphere for the last two years to help lift the skills of our partners, lawyers and other professionals in the areas of effective conversations, feedback and coaching. The aim of the training is to help us deliver our firm and people strategies of building an energised and highly engaged workplace where people’s own personal values and the firm’s values work together in a way that motivates and inspires. We see effective conversations and relationships as critical foundation capabilities for creating a culture where high performance is expected and recognised and our values observed and promoted. TLS have been an outstanding thought partner for our firm and through their innovative and thoughtful delivery have helped fundamentally shift how we manage, lead and engage with each other.

My coaching experience with Phillip was a significant change experience for me. With Phil’s guidance I was able to observe how my leadership style was impacting both positively and negatively on my organisation and, more specifically, on my peers and direct reports. Through a careful and thorough investigation together, supported by guided research and reading, I have developed and begun to implement an action plan which will see me become a more highly effective leader (in all aspects of my life and work) while ensuring that others that I can, and do, influence at all levels of the organisation, enhance their leadership capability. I came out of the experience with significantly greater confidence in my own abilities as well as a range of new practical leadership skills which I am putting into practice.

We engaged The Leadership Sphere team in 2008 with a series of conversations with our Executive team. To single out one defining feature of our partnership is difficult to do. The consultants have successfully facilitated a range of programs with our people aimed at renewing and celebrating the great things about being a part of the team. In framing the workshop contents, the facilitators worked with us to get to the improvements in communication and teamwork that we are seeking at all levels of the hospital. They worked in a warm and intuitive way.

You will be pleased to know I had a 3 hour fierce conversation today. OK – so at 3 hours you might suppose my wrap-up needs some work,but it was indeed an intense session. Throughout the entire session(which included copious tears etc), I found myself going back to the GROW model and it really helped! In particular, I think the ‘what else’ on OPTIONs worked wonders for me… in the end, I found my internal dialogue saying “thank god we had the training last week” as we trawled through the trials of branch life. Thank you so much for giving me the tools to do this.

He (the TLS facilitator) comes from a space that is anchored in strong conceptual and process and delivery skills. He has very strong diagnostic and facilitation capability, brings insight, integrity, and humanity to all his work.

Phil is a master facilitator and leadership developer. He works with his head, heart and intuition engaged and is an inspiration to be with. I have seen the positive impact he has on individuals and groups and had personal experience of a deep shift in my awareness and being while in his workshop and beyond.

As we approached an historic stage in our history, they found engaging and terrific ways for employees to move on from the past and focus on committing personally to shaping our future.

The TLS facilitators know how to “really” listen” respectfully while challenging our culture and helping us to effect lasting change.

I found every component of the Leader as Coach Workshop valuable and have taken away more practical tools to use in the workplace from this workshop than any I have ever attended in the fifteen and a half years I have been with the bank. The Polarity Management Model was particularly pertinent to my team’s situation.

The change process has been difficult for my new managers to come to terms with, however by using the (change) model they have now been able to come to the conclusion that the future is not so scary, and that a lot of the positives from the past can be carried forward. It was also an excellent opportunity for me to better understand what the negatives were with the past (so that I can avoid repeating) and to put to rest some of the perceived negatives moving forward. All in all a great exercise that has helped tremendously with ‘breaking the ice’ with my new team and taking the first step positively into the future. Thanks again.

I just wanted to say that the information I gained over the two days has and will make an immense change to my approach (moving away from the ‘Mrs. Fixit’ approach)…everything that you said made sense and I already plan to do a ’cheat sheet’ to be used before I implement any further changes and before I go into ‘difficult’ meetings.

Our organisation has a uses variety of facilitators and formats for planning sessions, and we found the guidance and techniques used by TLS first rate. Roderick gave us space where we needed it and pushed us through to nail our outcomes when we needed it.