In the final few months of 2021 I couldn’t shake my post-Covid brain fog. I'd had Covid in early August and was mostly recovered, yet my sense of taste and smell hadn't fully returned and I didn't feel 'with it'. 

I was still able to deliver to my clients, but found my creative side - something I rely on a lot for business ideas and to give me a zest for life - had pretty much disappeared. My motivation was low, my inner drive had gone on holiday and life felt very dull!

As someone used to having ‘get up and go’, I became increasingly frustrated. Being someone who helps others to be happy, healthy and high performing and having suffered burnout in the past, I had pretty good lifestyle habits. I exercised, ate well and looked after myself mentally and physically. 

Even with good habits, I was still languishing in bed in the morning or being unproductive in the office. I can’t quite describe how ‘meh’ I felt. It was...

By working with a qualified coach can transform your thinking and achieve things you thought were impossible.

A qualified coach will:

• Create an environment of trust and confidentiality, so you feel comfortable to open up, think and talk freely
• Clarify where you are now and what changes you wish to make
• Identify where you want to get to and why – so you know what the end goal is
• Ask questions to increase your self-awareness, enabling you to gain new insights
• Help identify roadblocks and ways to overcome them
• Help reframe or challenge your thinking, so you see where you may have been hindered in the past and how to adapt or change course
• Identify patterns of behaviour that may help or hinder you in making progress
• Enable you to identify different, more helpful, ways of thinking, feeling, acting and behaving
• Help you identify options and choices
• Help you create an action plan that will create meaningful change
• Support you and hold you accountable for the actions set
• Help you...

At Awakened Executives, we believe a coach who is charging for their services should be appropriately qualified and committed to their own development. The coaching profession is currently unregulated. So technically, anyone could sell their service as a coach, even with little or no qualifications or experience.

A good coach will follow a code of ethics, via a professional body, such as their training provider, or the International Coaching Federation (ICF) or European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC).

One method of ensuring a coach is committed to their own development is through continuing professional development (CPD) and coaching supervision.

Coaching Supervision is a collaborative learning practice to continually build the capacity of the coach. This benefits the coach and their clients.

Mentor coaching is observed coaching with feedback against a set of competencies, that sharpen the coach's skills and all-round presence.

Ten Questions to Ask a Coach:

To feel you...

Psychological Flexibility: The Key to Successful Self Leadership 

Over the last few months, I’ve been talking a lot about psychological flexibility. For me, it’s one of the most important skills leaders can develop to survive and thrive in these uncertain and fast-changing times. It underpins both high performance and a greater sense of wellbeing.

 According to Steven Hayes, a leading voice in this area, psychological flexibility is “the ability to notice and accept the presence of negative thoughts, feelings, sensations, and still move towards what matters in life.” 

This might sound simple, but don’t underestimate its power. 

If you’re psychologically flexible, you’re able to focus on completing tasks, without succumbing to distractions. Your intrinsic motivation is high, because what you’re doing is aligned with your values and purpose. And if you do get stuck in unproductive behaviour patterns,...

Case Study: Building Healthier, Happier, High Performing Teams

Provided by Carole Berndt

For many years I had the privilege of leading the client service and implementation teams for a global financial services company. 

Faced with a decline in client satisfaction scores, delays in implementation and increasing operational error rates, the standard thinking would be to review process, invest in systems and set improvement targets.

All valid tactics, but without investment in the people, particularly those leading the teams, the tactical projects would fail to realise the full benefit.

So, while we did tweak the systems, our primary investment was in the people.

This was not the traditional training, or “off the shelf” leadership development or leadership skills programs, instead we developed a bespoke program that focused on the individual. The program provided them opportunities to improve their physical wellbeing, their mental well being and to give them tools to...

As a senior leader, you’ll be well aware of the leadership challenges. The environment is often fierce. The expectations high. The pace of change incredible.

As a former HR leader in pharma, I’ve seen challenges with pressure to control costs of medicines, expiring patents, growing and shrinking R&D pipelines, pressure to control medicine costs, shrinking budgets, M&A, scrutiny from Health Authorities, the declining industry market perception from patients and consumers…and much more...that’s only skimming the surface of the internal impacts they have on all functions. Inevitably, the expectations upon leadership have continually increased and the bar has been consistently raised.

The pharma industry was impacted differently to many other industries during the pandemic, but with the spotlight now being on employee wellbeing, managing teams remotely and potential changes to policies such as flexible/remote working, many industries are expecting a lot...