Insights here are editorial notes about the C-suite seat and the coaching conversation around it. They are not case studies and they do not describe work with named clients.
The first note, What executive coaching is — and is not, stays as the definition. The pieces below it are first-person judgments from coaches you can book — written so a sitting or incoming executive can use them, not so a website can look busy.
If a later article needs a source, cite a public paper or a book. Do not invent a survey of “200 CEOs we coached.”
4 November 2026 · Linus Murphy
What executive coaching is — and is not
A plain description of one-to-one executive coaching. Not a case study.
26 October 2026 · Linus Murphy
A brief you can actually keep
A coaching brief is three answers written down. If you cannot keep them, you do not yet have a brief — you have a mood.
7 October 2026 · Adeola Khan
Alignment usually means someone has gone quiet
When an executive team says it is aligned, I look for the person who stopped arguing. Silence is not a strategy.
18 September 2026 · Rhys Calder
The first no in a new C-suite seat
The first no teaches the organisation what the new seat will actually hold. Delay it and you teach the opposite.
30 August 2026 · Rhys Calder
The calendar is the strategy
If the diary and the strategy speech disagree, believe the diary. Strategy that cannot find a Tuesday is a wish.
11 August 2026 · Adeola Khan
When the chair asks how coaching is going
The sponsor gets process, not content. Write that rule before the first session, or the chair will write it for you.
23 July 2026 · Linus Murphy
Energy as a constraint on the P&L
After decades on the P&L I treat energy as an operating constraint, not a wellness slogan. The calendar is where it shows.
4 July 2026 · Adeola Khan
A board paper is not a confession
A sounding-board hour is for deciding what you will say. It is not a place to outsource nerve, and the paper is not a diary.
15 June 2026 · Mara Vell
What to stop when you inherit a team that already works
A functioning inherited team is not a reason to keep every ritual. The first edit is usually a meeting, not a person.
27 May 2026 · Mara Vell
Decision rights before the honeymoon ends
Incoming C-suite operators lose the first quarter when they inherit a title and not a map of what is actually theirs.
8 May 2026 · Linus Murphy
The seat that does not share the load
Isolation at the top is a design feature of the CEO role. Treat it as such, not as a personal failure.