FAQ’s

What is True North Executive Coaching & Leadership?

True North Executive Coaching & Leadership is a Sydney-based consultancy dedicated to helping leaders and organisations navigate complexity, align with their core values, and lead with authenticity. Specialising in executive coaching, leadership development, and organisational transformation to empower individuals and teams to thrive.

Who can benefit from your coaching services?

Our services are tailored for:

Executives and Senior Leaders seeking to enhance their leadership effectiveness

Emerging Leaders aiming to develop their leadership capabilities

Teams looking to improve collaboration, communication, and performance

Organizations undergoing change and seeking to align culture and strategy

What services do you offer?

Detailed information on my services can be found here

Executive Coaching: One-on-one sessions focused on personal and professional growth

Leadership Development Programs: Customised programs to build leadership skills

Team Coaching: Facilitated sessions to enhance team dynamics and performance

Workshops and Seminars: Interactive sessions on topics like Emotional Intelligence, Communication Dynamics, and People-First Leadership

Do you offer virtual coaching sessions?

Yes, we offer both in-person and virtual coaching sessions to accommodate clients' preferences and geographical locations.

What is your coaching philosophy?

Our coaching approach is grounded in the belief that effective leadership starts with self-awareness and alignment with one's values.  We emphasise Emotional Intelligence, authentic communication, and purposeful action to help leaders navigate challenges and drive meaningful change.

How are your coaching sessions structured?

Coaching sessions are customised to meet individual needs but typically involve:

Initial Assessment: Understanding your goals, challenges, and context

Goal Setting: Defining clear, measurable objectives

Regular Sessions: Ongoing meetings (in-person or virtual) to work towards goals

Feedback and Reflection: Continuous evaluation and adjustment to ensure progress

What is the duration of a typical coaching engagement?

The duration varies based on individual needs but commonly ranges from 3 to 12 months, with sessions scheduled bi-weekly or monthly.

How do I get started with True North Executive Coaching & Leadership?

To begin your journey:

Contact Us: Reach out via our website or email to express your interest

Discovery Call: We'll schedule a complimentary call to understand your needs

Proposal: Based on our discussion, we'll provide a tailored proposal

Engagement: Upon agreement, we'll commence the coaching engagement

What’s the difference between coaching, mentoring and counselling?

While these terms are often used interchangeably, they serve very different purposes, each with distinct outcomes, boundaries, and approaches:

Coaching: Unlocking Self-Awareness and Driving Growth

Coaching is a structured, goal-driven process designed to help individuals unlock their own potential, navigate complexity, and achieve specific personal or professional outcomes.

In coaching, the focus is not on giving advice.  Instead, a coach asks insightful, challenging questions that help clients discover their own solutions, build clarity, and take intentional action. The emphasis is on unlocking your thinking not inserting the coach’s.

At True North, coaching helps leaders:

Build self-awareness and emotional intelligence

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Clarify priorities, values, and goals
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Develop decision-making and resilience
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Navigate leadership challenges with confidence

Coaching is best for those seeking growth through self-discovery, clarity, and accountability.

Defining Traits of Coaching:

Structured, goal-oriented, and time-bound

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Present- and future-focused
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Uses powerful questioning to unlock insight

Action-driven, with a focus on outcomes and behaviour shifts

Mentoring: Sharing Experience to Guide Development

Mentoring centres on the transfer of knowledge and experience.  It’s usually a more informal, long-term relationship where a more experienced person, often from the same industry, offers advice, guidance, and insights based on their personal career journey.

Mentoring tends to be broader in focus and more advice-based, with the mentor providing recommendations, lessons learned, and professional connections to support the mentee’s growth.

At True North ECL, we occasionally mentor leaders, particularly those seeking insight from our experience across industries, executive leadership, and organisational change.

Defining Traits of Mentoring:

Informal, often longer term relationships

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Advice driven and experience based
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Focuses on career development, networking and specific industries

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Less structured, more flexible 
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Counselling: Supporting Emotional & Psychological Health

Counselling (or therapy) focuses on emotional wellbeing and mental health. Counsellors work with clients to address personal challenges such as anxiety, depression, trauma, or other psychological concerns.

Unlike coaching or mentoring, counselling is therapeutic and often explores past experiences and emotional patterns to support healing and emotional regulation.

While some emotional themes may arise in coaching, it is not a substitute for professional counselling or therapy.

Defining Traits of Counselling:

Therapeutic, with a focus on healing and mental health

Led by qualified mental health professionals

Often explores past experiences, trauma and emotional challenges

Focuses on improving psychological and emotional wellbeing

How True North ECL Approaches It

At True North ECL, we focus primarily on coaching, because we believe the deepest and most sustainable growth happens when leaders unlock their own clarity, grounded in self-awareness, values, and purpose.

However, we also offer mentoring for select clients who can benefit from strategic guidance rooted in decades of real-world leadership, industry experience and management theory.

We do not provide counselling or therapy, but we respect and encourage professional mental health support, and we’re always happy to refer clients to appropriate resources when needed.

If you’re unsure whether coaching, mentoring, or something else is right for you, we can help guide you toward the best option for your goals.

Its easily summarised in the below reference table:

Comparison table of coaching, mentoring, and counselling approaches, detailing focus, method, relationship, time focus, primary goal, and who provides solutions.