Business Coaching

If You Want To Go Fast, Go Alone If You Want To Go Far, Go Together

It is lonely at the top. Most leaders rarely get direct feedback.

As a CEO, business owner or leader, it’s hard to know who you can talk to. Everyone in our work and home life has a perspective and interest in us. They also have their own agendas, motivations and intentions.

Who do you have that is truly an outsider?
Who will ask you the tough questions?
Who challenges you, stands up to you and makes you accountable?
Who is committed to growing you and your business?

Les spends 400+ hours a year in private conversations with MDs and CEOs helping both themselves and their organisations achieve their full potential. This helps explain why 100% of Les’s clients experience growth, over 80% achieve annual double digit growth.

Leading a team can be challenging. With the number of laws and regulations to navigate and different personality types to manage, leaders often feel overwhelmed and helpless. Without the proper coaching and training, executives could be setting themselves and their companies up for failure.

Sometimes companies and their management teams are running so fast that they neglect to invest in their leaders, causing the entire operation to collapse. It’s no secret that building a business has its challenges. As if it is not already hard enough to start and lead a business, the challenges and risks just seem to grow simultaneously as the business grows.

For many of us, we are no longer working to provide for just our immediate families and personal needs, but for the well-being of our employees as well. Sometimes the fear of failure seems to be the only thing that keeps us pushing through.

You are not alone. Executive coaching is of most value to MDs, CEOs, and business owners who are serious about growth and believe that their success comes down to investing in their people, who will then in turn invest in their business. There must be qualified trusted leaders within the organisation who are learning and growing both personally and professionally.

Executive coaching is about helping a leader achieve their full potential. To succeed it requires commitment and a desire for positive change, challenging the status quo, and an excitement about future possibilities.

Each member of an organisation, department and team is different; they have different learning preferences, different goals and interdependent roles within the organisation. The most effective way to ensure every single person achieves organisation’s goals – and their own personal ones – is to develop them on an individual basis through executive coaching. Most leaders rarely get direct feedback and there are few people they can discuss sensitive issues with or use as a sounding board. Executive coaching works to understand and address your issues and needs in the context of the day-to-day realities of business in order to improve performance by:

By coaching team members, one can be very specific about the key areas they need to focus on and improve, discuss and focus their training on a one-to-one basis either face-to-face, over the phone or via e-mail. You can cover a topic in-depth in the style most appropriate for the individual in 1 hour (an exercise that could take 2 days on a group course), helping to speed up the learning process and allow for difficult areas to receive a more appropriate focus. Here are a few common topics that are addressed in executive coaching:

Benefits

The key to successful executive coaching is that it is specific, individual, ongoing and challenging. Objectives agreed at the outset can be used to track and measure success. Other benefits of coaching include:

Understand your Leadership Presence

The Leadership Presence diagnostic helps you see clearly and quickly how your leadership is landing, by comparing self-assessment and peer feedback across ten dimensions from gravitas and clarity to listening, trust-building and vision casting.

Use of this tool promotes honest reflection, surfaces hidden friction – the micro behaviours that quietly undermine influence – and pinpoints the priority development moves so your effort goes where it will have the biggest impact

Years of Experience

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FTSE 250 Assignments

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World Class Net Promoter Score

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10X Growth Projects

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Testimonials

“Les is fantastic and impeccably organised. He is a really wise coach who shares his experience, and points of view, in ways which are extremely helpful to how my business and personal life are developing”

Victoria Sylvester - Managing Director

Acacia Training

“Les’s pace, listening skills, clarity of communications, and attention to detail are all impressive and come dressed in high quality dry humour. Les demonstrated high integrity, empathetic style, great insights and gravitas. His work with our team to manage a challenging programme was excellent and exceeded expectations”

Todd Navin - General Manager Finance & Administration

Haesl LTD

“Les has been a source of wisdom for me as we work our way forward building a new team, restructuring operations, and build for the future. He has an assured manner which combines support and challenge as a good critical friend should. In my 1-2-1s with Les I have been struck by his knowledge and insight, sharp and perceptive questioning, as well as his appetite for holding my feet to the fire!”

Stephen Nickson - Owner & Managing Director

DATS Technical Recruitment

“Les worked with us during a very difficult and challenging time for the dentistry profession. He provided an invaluable sounding board as a strategic advisor “thinking ahead” across a number of different projects.

I value his advice on major decisions. An indispensable member of the team.”

Prof Paul Tipton

Founder and CEO, Tipton Training

Les brought clarity, focus, and a strategic outlook to our senior team. I was particularly impressed by how Les adapted his approach to bring out the best of each team member based on their strengths and weaknesses.

If you want to create greater alignment and impact with your senior team I would highly recommend working with Les.

Paul McCarthy

Group CEO, Momentum Instore Ltd

Les’s experience and guidance helped us double in size again.

Les provides clarity and alignment across all levels of a business by focussing on and unlocking the potential of the Senior Leadership Team.

Paul Buck

Global Entrepreneur of the Year, 2025 Founder & CEO, EPIC Global Solutions

“Les gave us a fun filled day and it was only obvious he had worked us hard when we stood back and looked at all the output we had achieved as a team. He got the best from every person in the room with his direct and engaging style that blends sharp wit with very serious subject matter. Absolutely brilliant. An exceptional day”

Nick Taylor - Chief Executive

Tim Barry Jonathan Ball Peace Foundation

“A 1-2-1 with Les is the equivalent of an excellent non-executive director who, with an understanding of the business, can “stand back” and give informed, impartial, and very practical advice”

Michael Jefferies - Managing Director

Jefferies Solicitors LTD

“Les works at pace, professionally, and with minimum fuss to quickly deliver results. He exudes a natural authority and earns respect from those he comes into contact with his sharp mind and warm heart”

Mark Papworth - Group CEO

Chemring Group PLC

“Les exhibits a willingness to lead teams on a “new adventure” with good humour, clear thinking, and that all important ingredient – humility. Pure magic”

Lyn Rees - Group CEO

Novacyt PLC

“Les runs a fantastic workshop. Engaging, fun, great stories, practical insights and all delivered in a way which drives engagement and gets the creative juices flowing. Les is the go to guy for making the complex simple, the difficult easy, and putting a smile on people’s faces – exceptional”

Kelvin Coyle - Managing Director

M H Alshaya Co W L L

“Our engagement with Les was incredibly fruitful. He engaged with the team, exploring and challenging patterns of work to identify improvement opportunities which we are now implementing that will result in a significantly more effective organisation in future”