Systems • Executives & Leaders
Executive Coaching
For the person everyone else depends on.
A confidential, goal-oriented space for leaders carrying decisions, uncertainty, people, outcomes, and the expectation that they remain composed. The work is not about learning to carry more; it is about holding responsibility without losing judgment, relationship, or humanity.
What coaching can hold
Responsibility, authority, pressure, and relational impact.
Coaching examines what belongs to the leader, what belongs to the system, and what is realistically within the leader’s influence.
01The Weight of Responsibility
- Decision fatigue, constant vigilance, and carrying uncertainty
- Being the person expected to regulate everyone else
- Role transitions and the behavioral range required by a more complex position
- Boundaries around access, availability, urgency, and responsibility
- Leading without becoming emotionally inaccessible or chronically overextended
02Authority & Relational Impact
- How power is intended versus how it is experienced
- Tone, access, hierarchy, timing, decisions, and culture
- Feedback, delegation, accountability, and difficult conversations
- Conflict, trust, credibility, and stakeholder relationships
- Executive presence without performance, disconnection, or domination
03Presence Under Pressure
- Remaining grounded during scrutiny, conflict, feedback, and ambiguity
- Making decisions without collapsing into urgency or avoidance
- Vulnerability, authority, and the fear of losing credibility
- Behavioral experiments that translate insight into workplace action
- Reviewing evidence and feedback rather than relying only on intention
04Clinicians, Practice Owners & Professional Leaders
- Moving between clinician, owner, supervisor, executive, and employer roles
- Practice growth, boundaries, delegation, and operational responsibility
- Leadership identity after years of being rewarded primarily for clinical competence
- Team communication, psychological safety, feedback, and accountability
- Holding professional care and business judgment at the same time
Three levels of development
The person, the partnership, and the wider system.
Executive coaching can support individual development while keeping relationships, culture, stakeholders, and organizational conditions in view.
01Leader DevelopmentIndividual capacity
Leadership identity, self-awareness, values, emotional regulation, communication, delegation, feedback, conflict, role transitions, and the behavioral range required by a more complex role.
02Leadership CoachingDevelopmental partnership
A confidential, goal-oriented process that may include contracting, sponsor alignment, assessment, stakeholder feedback, workplace experiments, accountability, and review of sustained change.
03Leadership DevelopmentCollective capability
Leadership pipelines, succession readiness, change leadership, culture stewardship, inclusion, psychological safety, employee voice, and alignment across talent and organizational systems.
From beneath the surface to intentional action
Reflection becomes useful when it changes what happens at work.
A CLEAR-informed flow offers structure without turning the client’s leadership into a script or verdict.
Clarify purpose, roles, privacy, sponsor boundaries, fit, and the outcomes the client wants to pursue.
Attend to language, silence, values, emotion, repeated patterns, and what may not yet be fully articulated.
Examine assumptions, intention versus impact, readiness, stakeholder dynamics, and surrounding conditions.
Translate insight into one observable workplace behavior, conversation, decision, or leadership practice.
Use reflection, evidence, feedback, and accountability to refine the working hypothesis and sustain what is effective.
Client ownership remains central: Models, assessments, and organizational data are used as flexible maps. The client retains ownership of meaning, choices, and decisions.
The I-O psychology lens
The leader is not always the whole problem.
Individual behavior matters, and so do workload, control, reward, community, fairness, values, hierarchy, culture, and the conditions surrounding the role.
01Burnout, Detachment & Organizational Conditions
Coaching explores the relationship between personal patterns and the actual design of the work: workload, role ambiguity, decision rights, resources, competing values, reward, fairness, and chronic exposure to unresolved demands.
02Psychological Safety & Employee Voice
Attention may include whether people can ask for help, challenge assumptions, acknowledge errors, surface risk, disagree, or offer information without expecting humiliation or retaliation.
03Change, Culture & Succession Readiness
- Change leadership and communication
- Culture stewardship and alignment
- Leadership pipelines and succession readiness
- Stakeholder impact and resistance
- Inclusion, belonging, and power within systems
Scope, foundation & separate brand
Coaching is connected to the framework, but distinct from therapy.
Beneath the Surface Coaching has a separate professional purpose, agreement, records, business pathway, and payment process.
01Executive Coaching Is Not Psychotherapy
- Coaching does not diagnose or treat mental health conditions
- Coaching does not include EMDR or trauma reprocessing
- The focus remains present professional behavior, goals, role demands, relational impact, and organizational conditions
- Clinical treatment needs are discussed and referred appropriately
- Psychotherapy and coaching are separately contracted services
02Beneath the Surface CoachingSeparate business pathway
- Separate coaching agreement and records
- Separate city business license for the coaching brand
- Separate Venmo Business payment profile or another coaching-specific business method identified in the agreement
- Not submitted to insurance and not eligible for HSA/FSA payment
- Professional content through @beneaththesurfacecoaching
03Professional Foundation
- California Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT 156597
- PhD student in Industrial-Organizational Psychology with an Executive Coaching specialty focus
- Organization Development Network member
- Clinical and leadership lens attentive to safety, trust, power, choice, connection, and agency
- Experience working with professionals carrying high responsibility, complex human systems, and relational impact
04Board Certified Coach Credential in ProgressNot yet awarded
Jillian is developing toward the Board Certified Coach credential and is not yet a Board Certified Coach.
- Ethical and professional standards
- Agreements and goal-setting
- Coach presence and applied skills
- Effective coach-client communication and rapport
- Facilitating client growth and accountability
- Coaching business practices and professional development
Fee, payment & policy
A separate professional engagement from the first inquiry.
The agreement identifies purpose, scope, records, payment, privacy, and the distinction from psychotherapy.
01Fee & Format$200 • 60 minutes
Executive coaching is offered as an online, private professional service in 60-minute sessions. It is not submitted to insurance.
02Payment
Payment is made through the separate Beneath the Surface Coaching Venmo Business profile or another coaching-specific business method identified in the agreement. Use a neutral reference such as an invoice number or “Account payment.” Do not include workplace concerns or personal information in the memo.
03Cancellation & Rescheduling
At least 24 hours’ notice is required. Appointments canceled, rescheduled, or missed with less than 24 hours’ notice are charged the full scheduled fee.
04How to Begin
- Open the professional inquiry form.
- Select Executive Coaching.
- Share the role, general goal, preferred timing, and any questions about fit.
- Do not submit confidential employer information, personnel records, or detailed personal history through the public form.
Connected pathways
Choose the role in which support is needed.
A therapist or practice owner may need coaching for the role, personal psychotherapy for the person, or EMDR consultation for the clinical work.
Leadership identity, authority, decisions, teams, practice ownership, and organizational impact.
Request coachingTrauma, burnout, overresponsibility, moral injury, relationships, grief, or the cost of holding others.
Explore therapyFoundational integration, certification consultation, or focused specialty-case support.
Explore consultationFollow the separate coaching brand for leadership, systems, authority, and organizational-development content.
Visit InstagramFrom reflection to workplace action
What needs to change in the role, relationship, or system?
Use the professional inquiry form and select Executive Coaching. Share the general leadership goal, preferred timing, and any questions about fit.
Executive coaching is a separate non-therapy service. It does not establish a therapist-client relationship, diagnose or treat mental health conditions, include EMDR or trauma reprocessing, or replace legal, financial, human-resources, medical, or crisis services.