Executive coaching · Melbourne & online worldwide

What to expect from executive coaching

A free 30-minute call, then fortnightly sessions over three to six months, with short daily practices between them and an honest review at the halfway point. You bring live situations. We work on those and on whatever keeps producing them.

Most people arriving at their first engagement have a rough idea of coaching from the outside and no clear picture of the mechanics. What follows is the shape of it, stage by stage, including the parts that are uncomfortable.

The stages

Before anything

The chemistry call

Thirty minutes, free, no obligation. You describe where you are and what's prompting the enquiry. I ask questions, and by the end you should be clearer about your own situation whether or not we go further.

This call decides the engagement. Fit predicts outcome more reliably than method does, so if I'm not the right person for what you're carrying, I'll say so and point you elsewhere. Roughly a third of these calls end that way.

Session one

Setting the terms

We agree what we're working on, how we'll know if it's working, and the practical terms including cadence, cancellation and confidentiality. Where an organisation is sponsoring the coaching, this is where three-way contracting happens, ideally with your sponsor in the room.

Then we start. The first session isn't administrative, and most people leave it with something to work with.

Fortnightly, for three to six months

The working sessions

You bring a live situation, usually something from this week. A conversation that went badly, a decision you keep circling, a piece of feedback that landed harder than it should have.

We work at two levels at once. The situation itself gets proper attention, including what you'd do differently. Underneath that, we look at whatever keeps producing situations of that shape, which often means slowing a moment right down and finding what your body did a half-second before you decided anything.

Sessions run 60 to 90 minutes depending on the engagement, online or in person in Melbourne. Fortnightly is deliberate. It leaves enough room for something to happen between sessions and not so much that the thread drops.

Every day, in small amounts

The work between sessions

This is where the change is actually built, and it's the part people underestimate. Practices are short, usually a few minutes, and specific to what we're working on.

Repetition does the building. Roughly 30 repetitions creates familiarity and 300 creates muscle memory, with embodiment arriving around 3,000. That arithmetic is the honest answer to why this takes months.

Around the halfway mark

The midpoint review

We stop and look at it properly. What's moved, what hasn't, and whether the thing we agreed to work on is still the right thing. Sometimes the presenting issue turns out to be sitting on top of something else, and this is where that gets named.

Three outcomes are all legitimate here. Carry on as agreed, change direction, or stop. Stopping at the midpoint because the work has done what it needed to is a good result.

The end

Finishing

The last session looks at what's changed, what's still in progress, and how you keep the practices going without me. The aim across an engagement is that you finish more resourced and less dependent on the coach than when you started.

Some people come back later for a shorter piece of work around a specific transition. Some don't, which is also the point.

What the sessions feel like

More direct than most people expect, and slower. Senior leaders are used to moving quickly through material, and a lot of the value here comes from staying with one moment longer than feels natural.

You'll be asked what you noticed in your body, which is unfamiliar territory for most executives and gets less strange within a session or two. You'll also be asked questions you don't have ready answers to, and the silence after those is deliberate.

There's humour in it. The work goes to serious places and doesn't need to be solemn to get there.

The uncomfortable parts

Worth knowing in advance, since none of it means something has gone wrong.

  • Somewhere around session three or four, people often see a pattern more clearly than they'd like to. That clarity arrives before the capacity to do anything about it, and the gap between the two is unpleasant.
  • The daily practices feel trivial for the first fortnight. They're doing something you can't feel yet.
  • Feedback from people around you sometimes lands harder once you're paying closer attention.
  • If your default under pressure has been productive for you, giving it up costs something real, and that has to be acknowledged rather than talked past.
"Rudi helped me untangle professional challenges I hadn't been able to make sense of on my own. I left every session with clarity, practical actions, and things to explore at my own pace. One of the most meaningful changes was learning to set and hold boundaries at work."

Servane · Client

Confidentiality

What you say in sessions stays between us. Where an organisation is sponsoring the coaching, your development goals and progress against them may be shared with the sponsor, and the content of sessions doesn't go anywhere. That boundary is agreed explicitly in session one so you can speak freely from the start.

Sessions aren't covered by Medicare and no referral is needed. There's no requirement to involve your employer if you're funding it yourself.

Practicalities

  • Format. Online across Australia and internationally, or in person in Melbourne. Plenty of people alternate.
  • Cadence. Fortnightly, with some flexibility around travel and heavy periods.
  • Fees. $550 a session plus GST self-funded, $750 plus GST organisation-sponsored. The cost page has the full breakdown and typical engagement totals.
  • Between sessions. Short email contact is fine and included.

A note on scope

This is coaching. It works on leadership performance and self-regulation for capable people under pressure, and it stays outside the territory of diagnosis and treatment. If you're dealing with significant distress or a mental health concern, that deserves proper psychological or medical care, and coaching can sit alongside it. No outcome is guaranteed.

Start with a conversation. A free 30-minute call about where you are and whether this work makes sense. No pitch, no pressure.

Book a free call

Common questions

How long does an executive coaching engagement last?
Typically three to six months of fortnightly sessions, which comes to roughly six to twelve sessions. Shorter than that tends to produce good conversations that don't hold. Longer is sometimes right, and we'd decide it at the midpoint rather than at the start.
What actually happens in a session?
You bring a live situation, usually something happening this week. We work on the situation itself and on whatever keeps producing it. Part of that is conversation and part of it is slowing down a moment to notice what your body did before you decided anything.
Do I need to prepare for sessions?
No preparation is required, and most people find a few minutes beforehand useful for deciding what's most alive. The work that matters happens between sessions, in short daily practices, which is where the change actually gets built.
What if it isn't working?
We review honestly at the midpoint and either adjust, stop, or agree what would need to be different. Raising it earlier is welcome. A coach who can't hear that the work isn't landing isn't much use to you.
Is what I say confidential?
Yes. Where an organisation sponsors the coaching, your development goals may be shared with the sponsor and the content of sessions stays between us. That boundary is agreed explicitly at the outset, ideally with the sponsor present, so you can speak freely.
When will I notice something changing?
Most leaders notice something in specific situations within the first few sessions, usually a wider gap between a trigger and their reaction. Change that holds without effort takes longer, which is why engagements run months rather than weeks.

Where to look next

Ready to start? Book a free 30-minute call. If we're the wrong fit, I'll tell you, and point you toward someone better suited.

Book a free call

Rudi Doku · Executive Coach (ICF PCC) · Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) · Melbourne, Australia · Coaching online worldwide