Our clients' coaching experience

At WDI, coaching is experienced as thought partnership, a trusted space to explore in-depth the key challenges leaders are facing. Across sectors, roles and career stages, clients describe the value of having space to think, being seen as a whole person, and being challenged with care. What does it look at feel like for each client? Well, it’s an individual experience, below two of our coaching clients share a snapshot on the value and experience of coaching with a WDI coach.

Integrating head, heart and gut

Lucy Knight is a senior HR, diversity and change leader who partnered with WDI at a point where pace, responsibility and expectation were all high. Professionally confident and intellectually rigorous, Lucy’s coaching focused on broadening how she accessed and trusted her own leadership capability.

Through coaching, Lucy gained greater access to her three centres of intelligence, head, heart and gut and learned to integrate them more fully in her leadership. Reflecting on this shift, she shared:

My distortion was to believe I always had to use head data to be credible at work. The coaching showed me that head, heart and gut insights are all valid, and you need a combination to be most effective.

This integration had a direct impact on how Lucy led at pace. Listening more carefully to her internal signals prompted a more reflective approach, even in a demanding environment:

When you are working at pace at the top of an organisation, quality time to think about unintended consequences and wider ramifications is rare and precious.

Coaching also influenced how Lucy showed up for others. Having access to more of her authentic self, enabled her to invest more deeply in the growth and development of colleagues. She began to lead more explicitly like a coach, drawing on skills she experienced directly in her sessions:

The WDI coaches’ skills that I have tried to emulate are her listening skills, her ability to hear, really hear, and to play back to check that what she has heard is right.

Lucy also experienced the value of WDI’s qualitative expert witness feedback process. Rather than a tick box exercise, the depth of focused questioning provided data-rich, balanced insight:

It was really positive to get detailed feedback which was actually balanced and data rich… it gave me great clues about the areas I should pay attention to.

For Lucy, coaching created time to think and reconnect with what she wanted to contribute. In her words, it was both “a luxury” and “an absolute necessity” in supporting leaders to be “more relaxed and human themselves.”

Thriving as an authentic leader

Paul Lawrenson, Global Talent Leader at Expedia Group, describes coaching as a key differentiating factor in his career progression, personal wellbeing and leadership impact.

Over a two year period, Paul worked with WDI as his remit expanded and his responsibilities increased. Reflecting on his earlier leadership approach, Paul noted how a need for control and over preparation limited trust and connection:

In the past I used to over plan for literally every single conversation… it was a sort of security blanket for me. I would show up as rigid, more focused on the process than building the relationships.

Through coaching, Paul began to shift how he showed up as a leader, focusing more deliberately on strengths, trust and authenticity:

Through our coaching work, I now focus far more on my strengths and how I achieve the outcomes I want rather than worrying about one underdeveloped trait.

Coaching provided Paul with time and space to reflect, explore limiting beliefs and imagine new possibilities:

Our sessions gave me time for reflection and techniques to unlock some of my limiting beliefs. This enabled me to make accelerated progress.

A significant outcome of this shift was Paul’s commitment to authentic leadership, openness and care for people:

For me this means being willing to openly share who I am with my team… sharing my personal ‘why’ and really focusing on care for people.

Paul describes coaching as having a lasting impact beyond the formal sessions:

I have made more progress in my career growth and my comfort in the corporate environment than I did in the 20 years prior… although my formal coaching has ended, I continue to use this mindset of me at my best as a core practice.

His leadership impact was reflected in employee engagement, with his team rating the highest in the annual survey, which Paul attributes in part to enabling and empowering others to do great work.

A consistent experience, shaped around the individual While each coaching relationship is unique, these two interviews share common threads. Client’s experience being listened to deeply, challenged thoughtfully and supported to connect insight with action. They describe greater self-awareness, more authentic leadership presence and tangible impact on how they lead others.

Our WDI coaching supports leaders to perform well in complex environments, while staying connected to who they are and what matters. It is this combination of humanity, rigour and impact that underpins our coaching approach and the trust our clients place in us.