SARAH SHIERS
COACHING
I set up an international search firm over twenty-five years ago and I work with senior executives across a range of industries, countries, and cultures. Coaching, either formal or informal was and is a major element of this work. Leaders need a "safe space" in which to discuss challenges in their professional and personal lives and understand how to effect positive behavioural change.
I work with executives at different stages in their careers, coaching them in both their professional and personal development. I also coach young entrepreneurs who are finding their feet in the corporate world, and looking to establish their own leadership style and unique company culture whilst staying true to their founding ideology.
​
Outside the corporate space, I have coached doctors, educators, lawyers and architects. My practice includes people from all walks of life and at different stages in their development and each engagement is unique.
​
WHAT IS COACHING?
Coaching is now a well-established process, recognised for its contribution to better performance and clearer decision making across all disciplines. In an era when good mental health is an increasingly prominent consideration and support for mitigating the stresses of modern work life becomes more essential, the value and benefits of coaching are clear.
What is also becoming increasingly evident is that whilst specialist industry knowledge can be useful in coaching, there are very real benefits to be gained from a coach who offers a broader perspective of the range of common issues that we all confront across different sectors, functional disciplines and corporate cultures.
Shiers Coaching offers a tailored coaching service to a wide variety of clients who are looking to support their career and professional progress with non-judgmental counsel, based on a long career in people and leadership development.
PHILOSOPHY
Our premise is that we are all a work in progress. Continuing education, personal reflection and development are common contributors to successful career progress. Coaching serves to harness these attributes to effect behavioural change and ensure personal growth and mindfulness by developing and reinforcing managerial and leadership skills.
WHO SHOULD HAVE A COACH?
EVERYONE!!
​
The advantages of having a professional, experienced coach are significant.
Coaching is viewed as an executive benefit in large corporations and offered to fast-track executives to enable them to develop a range of skills that will equip them to advance more rapidly in their careers.
​
This is now increasingly popular for anyone interested in developing their skillsets in their professional or personal lives.
​
A coach is someone who provides you with a safe space to discuss your concerns, challenges and issues and can give you valuable perspective, provide insight and reinforcement as well as help you identify behavioural patterns that are unhelpful or damaging.
A COACHING ENGAGEMENT
Coaching is an enriching process, both for the client and the coach. It needs commitment from both parties and a willingness to speak and hear the truth, even when this is uncomfortable.
Whilst there is an understanding of expected outcomes, coaching does not guarantee particular results. It is a process and can sometimes reveal undiagnosed issues that are totally different to the presenting ones.
Our coaching engagements start with a face to face chemistry meeting, for which there is no charge. This is an opportunity for both the client and the coach to discover if there is a potential fit to enable the success of the relationship. Often, we will have a three-way meeting that includes an executive from the sponsoring employer, to define objectives, (which can include feedback work) and an end-of-engagement report. We then prepare a short contract confirming the objectives of the coaching engagement from the stakeholders’ perspective, an estimated timeline, (usually six to twelve months) and a proposed fee structure.
The engagement is reviewed at six months or earlier if necessary.
COACHING FOR DIFFERENT DISCIPLINES
In addition to international corporate clients, I have coached individuals and teams from the NHS, Academia, Law, Media, young entrepreneurs and more mature ones!
I also provide coaching for those people considering a career change such as moving from a vocational career to a commercial environment. For example, an NHS doctor to a role in the pharma industry, or an architect to an entrepreneur.
Sometimes the coaching requirement is about time management, building professional relationships, or simply wanting to be seen or heard in a particular environment.
Sarah Shiers
Sarah Shiers has more than thirty years experience in the Human Capital Management space, specialising in talent management, facilitation and coaching both in international firms and later as the founder of her own practice. During her career, she has worked both as a consultant and later, a trusted advisor across Europe, the USA, South America and AsiaPac, on a range of assignments, across many industries and in a broad mix of company cultures and systems.
​
For the last twenty years or more, she has also been coaching many of her clients, drawing on her observations of the issues and behaviours which contribute to excellent professional and personal performance in business, medicine, teaching and more generally.
​
During this time, she has met and worked with a range of personalities, operating in stressful, pressured conditions and learned to quickly adapt her own style to fit different cultures. She has developed strong empathy and learned to ‘read the room’ and react accordingly. She has a strong moral compass and has often been the recipient of confidences, professional and - where they impinge on performance at work - personal. She is able to navigate complex environments and rapidly identify and articulate core issues.
​
Sarah is also experienced in helping clients with issues that emerge due to changes in their circumstances or a new role they have taken or have been offered. Succession planning is an area in which she has been working for a long time, as this has been a natural partner to her talent management and search work.
​
Her professional experience has given her great insight into the particular barriers faced by minority groups, particularly female executives, in their drive to progress, to achieve and, over time, remain in a senior management, C-suite or board role. Sarah feels passionately about the positive aspects to diversity of all kinds in business and she is actively developing a coaching practice that reflects real diversity, not only of gender, race or ability but incorporating true cognitive diversity. Her practice includes an element of pro bono engagements to support this.
Sarah has a Certificate in Coaching for Leadership and Professional Development from the Tavistock Institute and an Advanced Certificate in Executive Coaching accredited by Bristol Business School.
She is a Member of the Association for Coaching.
