Management approaches when an employee takes excessive sick leave.
Please contact Katerina here or via Twitter @ThinkPotentUK
if you would like her to contribute to your event or publication.
Thinking Potential
Thinking Potential stimulates fresh leadership thinking in order to unlock potential in organisations through their people. We work with current and aspiring C-suite professionals and provide a confidential and objective space for reflection on their leadership habits and thinking. Together we investigate and illuminate thought patterns, attitudes and behaviour. We focus on enhancing personal strengths while, if changes are needed, we discuss where, what and how to do this.
We provide executive coaching and group facilitation services in the following areas:
• Leadership Development
• Onboarding
• Parental leave
Executive Coaching
Busy executives can easily be caught up by the immediate pressures of their role. It is rare to find the time to reflect on their performance and consider how to be even more effective. Even those who think they could perform better can be unclear what exactly would make the difference.
Working with Thinking Potential will give executives structured time, space and support to look at essential work issues such as how to:
• be the leader they want to be
• manage complexity and change
• have greater impact and presence
• improve working relationships
• build confidence and resilience
• deliver quickly in a new role
Leadership Development
Are your leaders performing well in an increasingly complex environment? Are they able to flex their leadership style to meet the different needs of those they are leading? Do they have a compelling vision of where they want to take your organisation and are they communicating it effectively? Is there a cultural or structural change to be implemented? Do they have a high performing team?
Working with Thinking Potential will enable your leaders to become the authentic executives they need to be. They will discover their sources of power, gain insight and clarity, learn how to adapt their style and communicate their vision with passion and energy.
'Katerina is a skilled and insightful coach who gently but firmly probed my thoughts and attitudes. Through working with her I gained more confidence in my leadership as well as a clearer sense of my future direction.'
CFO TRANSPORT SECTOR
Onboarding
When lateral hires join your organisation they have to prove themselves very quickly. They have the skills to do the role but don’t yet know the people they will need to influence, how the organisation culture operates and what exactly it will take to make a mark.
Thinking Potential can support your new hires to create and execute a plan for their first 100 days. They will look at building both vital relationships with colleagues and their own profile and focus on rapid delivery of objectives, as well as obstacles that they might encounter and how to overcome them.
‘Katerina led me through a process which enabled me to focus on what I wanted to achieve and come out with an action plan’
SVP MARKETING, FORTUNE 500 COMPANY
Parental Leave
With parental leave available to all new parents, the support provided at this significant transition can have a lasting impact on an executive’s commitment to their role and effectiveness in it when they return.
Thinking Potential will meet with your executive before, during and after their period of leave to devise a comprehensive plan for their absence and return and explore any anxieties that becoming a parent induces.
‘I worked with Katerina… when I was pregnant and needing to plan my maternity leave and manage my relationship with my employer. I found her to be an excellent listener, extremely supportive and empathetic and able to…bring the focus of our discussion back to what I wanted’
PARTNER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FIRM
Discuss Your Organisation’s Coaching Needs
About Us
Katerina is the founder and principal coach at Thinking Potential which she established in 2005, following a career which combined corporate management, entrepreneurship and a first class business education. She held roles in finance and strategic marketing in FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies as well as founding an interim management agency. She gained an MA in Law from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
During a career break to raise her children and care for a dying parent, Katerina studied counselling and psychotherapy and gained her coaching qualification.
Through Thinking Potential, Katerina is able to integrate her experience of organisational realities with her understanding of human frailties to bring clarity and structure to the concerns her clients present. As a coach and facilitator, Katerina combines an analytical and commercial focus with an intuitive and empathetic presence.
She believes that her clients possess the knowledge they need to pursue their ambitions and her role is to enable them to access and embrace that knowledge. Katerina is an accredited coach with the International Coaching Federation, a career adviser to the Harvard Business School alumni club in London, a mentor for Women on Boards and co-founder of Women Returners.
She is an accredited user of various psychometric and 360 degree feedback tools including MBTI®, Strengthscope, JDI, Lominger, Voices 360, Assess.
Thinking Potential has an extensive network of highly qualified and experienced associates whose skills may be used for specific client assignments and workshops.
I have worked with Katerina at two points in my career – firstly when exiting an organisation and needing help on shaping ‘what next’ and secondly when I was pregnant and needing to plan my maternity leave and manage my relationship with my employer. I found her to be an excellent listener, extremely supportive and empathetic, and able to help me raise my eyes and see my role in events more objectively, as well as bring the focus of our discussions back to what I wanted. I would highly recommend her.
My coaching sessions with Katerina started as I was considering leaving an organisation where I had worked for seven years, with a view to re-evaluating my career path and she helped me navigate a difficult course in order to find a new role. Throughout our sessions, Katerina’s guidance, professional advice and encouragement have been instrumental in helping me forge a different direction in my career in order to find something that would make me more fulfilled at work and more closely matched to my skills. She naturally builds genuine trust and a good rapport and is that rare blend of professionalism, warmth and integrity that keeps you motivated to seek the job / role that is right for you. At the end of the coaching, I felt much better prepared to embark on a new role and I would not hesitate to recommend Katerina.
The combination of Katerina’s own experience as a professional, her experience as a coach and her personality is, in my view, very effective. Katerina listens very well, and draws on her experience to help explore and identify what is at the heart of a particular situation. She also provides fresh perspectives and techniques to help maximise outcomes. Overall, this is achieved in a gentle genuine way, which feels like a natural conversation with an insightful helpful friend in a similar profession.
As a result of Katerina’s coaching I have become more focused, committed to and confident about developing client relationships. I have learned to let go of negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones and to set achievable targets. I am now asking myself the right questions when working to overcome challenges.
Katerina is a skilled and insightful coach who gently but firmly probed my thoughts and attitudes. Through working with her I gained more confidence in my leadership as well as a clearer sense of my future direction.
My sessions with Katerina were outstanding. She led me through a thought process which enabled me to concentrate on what I wanted to achieve and came out with an action plan. Katerina has the ability to funnel ideas and actions in a clear and concise way which has helped me understand and focus on what is most important to me. The whole experience has been very beneficial to me.
Katerina is a huge asset to any organisation with which she works. She effectively combines a natural warmth and empathy with a commercial and strategic focus. Through her incisive questioning, her clients are able to formulate and explore their own ideas and develop a plan of action on the issues that are important to them and to the business.
Katerina Gould’s help was invaluable. In the space of one meeting, she helped to make order out of a chaotic thought process, helped me to extract salient thoughts and give a sense of direction by making me focus on my actual needs in both the short and long term. By the end of the session, I had formulated a strategy and plan of action which gave me so much confidence and made me feel positive about myself and the future.
Media
Katerina is a regular commentator on management issues in the media and on conference panels. She has contributed to the Financial Times management advice column and appeared on BBC local radio, the Victoria Derbyshire show and BBC London News.
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Combating apparent sexism in promotion decisions.
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Effective negotiation of flexible working.
Blog
My reflections on common leadership and workplace issues.
Updated regularly.
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You’ve agreed your return date and working hours and you’ve sorted out your childcare – now you need to give some thought to how you will make the most of your return to work.
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Workplace bullying can take many forms and can range from direct and targeted words designed to undermine you to subtler actions, such as team meetings consistently being held on days that you’re not…
