Executive Coaching

Empowering authentic leadership

Contact David

Crucial transitions are too big to do alone

 

People who make things happen need an executive coach who knows what it is to walk through the practical issues and inner journey of the transitions they are facing.

 

As a former corporate CEO and non-profit executive director, David Lesser understands how to use the pressures and opportunities of business life to further the deepest ranges of your life purpose.

 

Self emergence executive coaching brings together the basic tools of leadership development, emotional dynamics, spiritual practice and body-energy work to walk with you through your most crucial transitions.

 

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David Lesser

Founder, CEO

David is a social entrepreneur who believes the best way to change the world is to empower people to be more fully themselves. He has guided people and organizations through crucial transitions for over 35 years, acting as coach and confidant to CEOs and senior executives aspiring to the highest levels of personal growth in a variety of fields.

David is passionate about helping executives, teams and individuals to discover their unique gifts, strengths and talents and to find the most conducive setting to express them. He believes strongly in the power of creating personal networks of support for people to encourage and inspire each other to realize their full potential.

David has an MBA from London Business School. Formerly CEO of a $100m London-based real estate and construction group and executive director of a $40m worldwide not-for-profit operation, he combines a strong management pedigree with perceptive facilitation skills and clear insight in working with people. David has held senior corporate positions in marketing, real estate and corporate finance. He has taught as visiting professor at Redlands University and spoken at a number of conferences in the US, Europe and Africa. David is trained in emotional process work with Shadow Work training, facilitation with Interaction Associates and in coaching with New Ventures West, and is a certified transformational forum facilitator for Young President’s Organization. He has learned Golden Shield Qigong under Paul Holden and Attunement Energy Work under Roger de Winton.

David was born in London, England. He moved to Colorado, USA, in 1994. Since 2004, he has been living with his wife, Chellsa, near San Francisco, California.

“David is an exceptional coach whose work is deeply grounded by his compassion, energy, focus and life experience.”

Senior Executive, $7 Billion Corporation

Deep personal work

High achievers typically reach a point where a deeper range of inner strength is asked for. Short-term fixes address only a part of the wholeness of who we are, which is why their effects are limited. David Lesser and his associates whole being coaching integrates business life, spiritual life, relationships and wellness.

 

When our achieving is aligned with our sense of destiny, remarkable creativity is unleashed. Whole being coaching brings together the basic tools of leadership development, emotional dynamics, spiritual practice and body-energy work in ways that will be uniquely appropriate for you and your situation. Together we will walk the path to that potent alignment.

Our Approach

Deep personal work

High achievers typically reach a point where a deeper range of inner strength is asked for. Short-term fixes address only a part of the wholeness of who we are, which is why their effects are limited. David Lesser and his associates whole being coaching integrates business life, spiritual life, relationships and wellness.   When our achieving is aligned with our sense of destiny, remarkable creativity is unleashed. Whole being coaching brings together the basic tools of leadership development, emotional dynamics, spiritual practice and body-energy work in ways that will be uniquely appropriate for you and your situation. Together we will walk the path to that potent alignment.
Our Approach

Supporting your transition

The force of destiny brings each of us into situations that require our capacity and competence to grow beyond what used to work so well for us thus far. The way to expand involves going through these crucial transitions.

 

Some back away preferring to stay with the familiar. The brave go onward to levels yet uncharted.

 

For practically everyone, these crucial transitions are too big to do alone. You are not meant to walk through by yourself. Our coaching system is designed to give you the close-in support and guidance you need to change and grow. We do not work on an hourly rate as some coaches do. Under our standard arrangement, you will meet with your coach once a week by phone or in person and have access to us during points of crisis and breakthrough as much as you need.

 

We say: “Go for it. I’m with you…”

Dissolving self sabotage in the boardroom

David serves as an independent director on the board of a number of major growing businesses and non-profit organizations. He and his team understand how to turn around difficult boardroom dynamics and make the top level of the corporation fertile with creativity.

Case Studies

Case 1: From expert to leader

Jerry and his partner had built up a market leading technology business. In order to continue to grow with the market they were leading, something had to change. The business needed a new level of financial muscle and market credibility. Jerry was wise enough to see that the old ways of providing leadership were no longer cutting it.

As the coaching unfolded, Jerry realized that his approach to control was sabotaging his leadership. He was living life as a burden: a seemingly unstoppable wave of problems that had to be survived. Their market was set to blow wide open but the prospect of growing the operation hardly looked like fun.

Jerry was a deeply spiritual man. Somehow his work life had become dissociated from his prayer and meditation life, from his desire for transformation and his sense of destiny. We began to heal some of those places of disconnect and rekindle Jerry’s love and care for the people he works with. Where once he was afraid to trust them with tasks he had always felt only he could do, he is now enjoying seeing people flourish and grow as the business grows.

The corporation was successful in forming an alliance with a major multi-national. The operation has grown 300% in short order and is poised for another leap. Thanks to Jerry’s openness to the coaching work, he has walked through all of the typical traumas experienced by rapidly growing organizations—insufficient information to plan properly, crazy busy periods where everyone has to stretch beyond their limitations, interpersonal conflicts, grief at the loss of the old family culture, corporate bosses who don’t understand what it takes to deliver the competitive advantage they crave—taking each challenge as a learning opportunity for him and his colleagues.

Jerry’s partner is amazed at how he has grown to encompass an operation so transformed from what it was less than a year ago. For Jerry, yes there are challenges of course, but the feeling of burden he used to carry is replaced by the pleasure of playing a part in bringing forward the best in the people around him. He graduated from highly skilled expert to become an inspirational leader.


Case 2: From confusion into strength

Lisa is a highly talented management consultant and trainer. She trained top managers and had the sensitivity to unlock deep resources of insight and creativity in people. Her career seemed set to go on to greater and greater heights. Suddenly she hit a wall. Her whole world seemed to collapse around him. She lost the confidence to continue, gave up her consulting practice and began a spiritual quest.

Although she found some help along the way, she also had her hopes betrayed by some charismatic but unreliable characters and other well-meaning folk who did not really understand who she was and what she was looking for. She also did not have an easy time with the men in her life. Lisa was in therapy, using anti-depressant medication and yet she still had the spark that was so obviously the source of the talent that was once so respected.

Lisa embarked on the coaching work in parallel to therapy. She knew that her personal healing was linked to her finding direction for the next phase of her life. Through a series of telephone sessions and personal retreats, we fleshed out Lisa’s options and possibilities. The factors inhibiting her forward movement became apparent.

Of course, everything was interlinked. The challenges in relationship were driven by the same factors that were blocking her creativity and sapping her energy. Lisa was willing to commit to a program that included a potent body-energy practice, deliberate prayer and meditation exercises and learning new ways to approach relationship. Through the coaching work she had the guidance to help meet the challenges that continued to present themselves and, step-by-step, Lisa has found a deep inner strength that is always present for her regardless of the ups and downs of circumstance.

As I write this, Lisa is in the midst of leading her first professional training for many years. She has completed her therapy and come off the medications. She is looking at the rest of her life with positive excitement once again and I am sure many people in the years ahead are going to benefit from what she has to offer.


Case 3: From small business to national brand

When I joined the board, Swan Gully Inc (not the real name) was a relatively small business with 100 employees operating a single property very successfully. The CEO wanted to grow the business but the evident potential was bumping up against both internal and external roadblocks. Stockholders and management were in conflict as to future direction, there was tension between board and the senior executives, the corporate structure made the balance sheet unattractive to outside sources of finance and the magic that made the single property so successful was not understood in way that others beyond the CEO could replicate it in other places.

Through the appointment of David Lesser as an independent director, the stockholders began to relax. They had representation on the board that they could trust. The next step was to convert trust into agreement. Although the CEO had remarkable vision, this corporation had never had a long-term plan. We implemented a carefully crafted business planning process. We began to draw that vision into ten-year development, financial, human resources and marketing plans. The stockholders were able to understand where the business was headed. They agreed to a balance sheet re-structuring, which enabled the corporation to access the outside capital needed to fulfill the plan. At the same time, the board and CEO forged clear agreements about the goals for which management would be measured and compensation was aligned with the core components of the plan.

People did not really believe that the ambitious aims articulated in this plan could all be achieved. Five years into the first ten-year plan, the plan had not merely exceeded the revenue, profit and stock value targets, we had way exceeded them. The new ten-year plan recognized that the business was no longer managing properties but developing a brand.

Now the corporation has opened a number of new properties and its brand is being sought out by other serious players who see how working with Swan Gully can enhance their developments and operations. Now recognized as an established regional brand, opportunities are showing up to make possible this corporation’s emergence as the leading national brand in its segment of the industry.

I’d like to know more about your Executive Coaching

Case Studies

case 1. from expert to leader

Jerry and his partner had built up a market leading technology business. In order to continue to grow with the market they were leading, something had to change. The business needed a new level of financial muscle and market credibility. Jerry was wise enough to see that the old ways of providing leadership were no longer cutting it.

As the coaching unfolded, Jerry realized that his approach to control was sabotaging his leadership. He was living life as a burden: a seemingly unstoppable wave of problems that had to be survived. Their market was set to blow wide open but the prospect of growing the operation hardly looked like fun.

Jerry was a deeply spiritual man. Somehow his work life had become dissociated from his prayer and meditation life, from his desire for transformation and his sense of destiny. We began to heal some of those places of disconnect and rekindle Jerry’s love and care for the people he works with. Where once he was afraid to trust them with tasks he had always felt only he could do, he is now enjoying seeing people flourish and grow as the business grows.

The corporation was successful in forming an alliance with a major multi-national. The operation has grown 300% in short order and is poised for another leap. Thanks to Jerry’s openness to the coaching work, he has walked through all of the typical traumas experienced by rapidly growing organizations—insufficient information to plan properly, crazy busy periods where everyone has to stretch beyond their limitations, interpersonal conflicts, grief at the loss of the old family culture, corporate bosses who don’t understand what it takes to deliver the competitive advantage they crave—taking each challenge as a learning opportunity for him and his colleagues.

Jerry’s partner is amazed at how he has grown to encompass an operation so transformed from what it was less than a year ago. For Jerry, yes there are challenges of course, but the feeling of burden he used to carry is replaced by the pleasure of playing a part in bringing forward the best in the people around him. He graduated from highly skilled expert to become an inspirational leader.


case 2. from confusion into strength

Lisa is a highly talented management consultant and trainer. She trained top managers and had the sensitivity to unlock deep resources of insight and creativity in people. Her career seemed set to go on to greater and greater heights. Suddenly she hit a wall. Her whole world seemed to collapse around him. She lost the confidence to continue, gave up her consulting practice and began a spiritual quest.

Although she found some help along the way, she also had her hopes betrayed by some charismatic but unreliable characters and other well-meaning folk who did not really understand who she was and what she was looking for. She also did not have an easy time with the men in her life. Lisa was in therapy, using anti-depressant medication and yet she still had the spark that was so obviously the source of the talent that was once so respected.

Lisa embarked on the coaching work in parallel to therapy. She knew that her personal healing was linked to her finding direction for the next phase of her life. Through a series of telephone sessions and personal retreats, we fleshed out Lisa’s options and possibilities. The factors inhibiting her forward movement became apparent.

Of course, everything was interlinked. The challenges in relationship were driven by the same factors that were blocking her creativity and sapping her energy. Lisa was willing to commit to a program that included a potent body-energy practice, deliberate prayer and meditation exercises and learning new ways to approach relationship. Through the coaching work she had the guidance to help meet the challenges that continued to present themselves and, step-by-step, Lisa has found a deep inner strength that is always present for her regardless of the ups and downs of circumstance.

As I write this, Lisa is in the midst of leading her first professional training for many years. She has completed her therapy and come off the medications. She is looking at the rest of her life with positive excitement once again and I am sure many people in the years ahead are going to benefit from what she has to offer.


case 3. from small business to national brand

When I joined the board, Swan Gully Inc (not the real name) was a relatively small business with 100 employees operating a single property very successfully. The CEO wanted to grow the business but the evident potential was bumping up against both internal and external roadblocks. Stockholders and management were in conflict as to future direction, there was tension between board and the senior executives, the corporate structure made the balance sheet unattractive to outside sources of finance and the magic that made the single property so successful was not understood in way that others beyond the CEO could replicate it in other places.

Through the appointment of David Lesser as an independent director, the stockholders began to relax. They had representation on the board that they could trust. The next step was to convert trust into agreement. Although the CEO had remarkable vision, this corporation had never had a long-term plan. We implemented a carefully crafted business planning process. We began to draw that vision into ten-year development, financial, human resources and marketing plans. The stockholders were able to understand where the business was headed. They agreed to a balance sheet re-structuring, which enabled the corporation to access the outside capital needed to fulfill the plan. At the same time, the board and CEO forged clear agreements about the goals for which management would be measured and compensation was aligned with the core components of the plan.

People did not really believe that the ambitious aims articulated in this plan could all be achieved. Five years into the first ten-year plan, the plan had not merely exceeded the revenue, profit and stock value targets, we had way exceeded them. The new ten-year plan recognized that the business was no longer managing properties but developing a brand.

Now the corporation has opened a number of new properties and its brand is being sought out by other serious players who see how working with Swan Gully can enhance their developments and operations. Now recognized as an established regional brand, opportunities are showing up to make possible this corporation’s emergence as the leading national brand in its segment of the industry.

I’d like to know more about your Executive Coaching