Lindsay Wittenberg
The seeds of my coaching career were first sown in my role in HR for Marks & Spencer plc and then as a careers counsellor in higher education. I learnt through this early experience of working with managers and graduates that many of the challenges they faced in pursuing effectiveness and fulfilling career paths were more closely connected to their self-awareness and their perceptions than the knowledge or qualifications they had accumulated.
I left higher education for Luxembourg, where I lived and worked for 13 years. As a Linguistics graduate, I was already a French speaker, which made it easier to found, lead and develop the human rights pressure group – and its multinational team – that I ran for 12 years. We connected with those in positions of influence to enable us to work effectively with parliamentarians and Ministers at national and European levels – and to make change happen.
Returning to the UK, this knowledge and experience of European politics and systems underpinned my leadership of others wanting to get their voices heard in Europe and to run European projects. I launched a European business development consultancy and ran this successfully for 13 years. I was also a Director of a talent management consultancy.
In 2003 I set up my executive coaching consultancy Lindsay Wittenberg Ltd – LWL. I have been lucky enough to have worked with leaders from some of the UK’s and the world’s most influential organisations in business, public life and international development. You can see more about the clients I have worked with here.
I am a co-founder of Coaching through COVID and Beyond, offering high quality pro bono coaching to NHS workers impacted by COVID, physically, mentally and emotionally.
I am the creator of the Wittenberg Career Coaching Model and I am a coach with the Marketing Academy, which nurtures young marketing talent to become the leaders of tomorrow, and enables the marketing leaders of today to become the CEOs of tomorrow.
My qualifications include:
- B.A. Hons degree, class II.1, in Linguistics (University of Reading)
- Advanced Diploma (with Distinction) in Professional Coaching and Mentoring (Oxford School of Coaching and Mentoring – accredited by Oxford-Brookes University)
- The Certificates in The Psychology of Coaching and Gestalt Coaching Skills (Academy of Executive Coaching)
- Practitioner Certificate in Systemic Coaching and Facilitation (Coaching Constellations)
- Trained in Mindfulness for Coaches (Mindfulness Works)
- Authorised to administer and debrief the Leadership Development Framework (vertical development) through Harthill
- Mental Health First Aider
- Certified and licenced by The Fearless Organization, LLC to administer and debrief the Fearless Organization Scan (Psychological Safety Index)
My memberships:
- EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council)
- Association for Coaching
- Association of Career Professionals International – UK
- Certified Member of the Institute of Consulting.
My accreditations:
- EMCC European Individual Accreditation at Senior Practitioner Level
- MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) Certified Practitioner (Step I and Step II)
- Accredited user of Facet5 psychometric profiling
- Approved provider of ILM (Institute of Leadership and Management) Endorsed Programmes in leadership, management and career coaching
- Accredited in Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment at Foundation level
- Accredited in PROPHET senior team profiling
- Mental Health First Aider
- Certified and licensed by The Fearless Organization, LLC to administer and debrief the Fearless Organization Scan (the Psychological Safety Index)
My award:
- Highly Commended for Coaching at Work’s Award 2015 for Best Thought Leadership – for my regular reflection column in Coaching at Work magazine. See more here
My e-book:
- ‘Become the Leader You Are: Self-Leadership Through Executive Coaching’ is available for download here
I provide one-to-one executive coaching programmes for leaders, and facilitate psychological safety programmes for senior teams. I enable outcomes that last, because my clients gain a profound level of self-awareness and awareness of the bigger picture – the systems they work within, which in turn can spark profound change. I get beyond what shows on the surface (which can enable lasting change), and my clients become more inspiring leaders who enable more from their workforces, release the latent resources in diverse and multi-cultural teams, build and sustain high performance levels, and manage change effectively. I equip them to connect their effectiveness with who they really are, to tap in fully to their capabilities, and to bring awareness to their choices.
I coach for development and transformation, often working at depth. I am a systemic practitioner, complemented by a psychological perspective. My coaching approach is characterised by: the importance of the coach-client relationship; enabling a safe space in which the client can do risky thinking; focus on the here and now through awareness and mindfulness; a holistic perspective; a creative, experimental attitude; compassion; attention to the emergent; and a deep awareness of the potential for development.
Clients experience me as supportive yet challenging, gentle yet with a robust edge, caring yet tough, positive, dynamic, intuitive, wise, inspiring, deep, warm and insightful. Some refer to my work with them as pivotal for their careers.
Within the leadership space, I am particularly interested in adult (or vertical) development, wellbeing and mental health, psychological safety so that voices can be heard and potential and effectiveness released, mindfulness and compassion, and the power of systemic constellations.
