When it comes to developing one’s leadership skills, there’s nothing more valuable than working with a leadership coach. These passionate professionals, who specialise in a variety of fields, can help entrepreneurs and business leaders in any industry achieve their most ambitious goals.
With a wealth of knowledge and experience, effective approaches, valuable and actionable programs, insight into human behavior, and more, leadership coaches can make a big difference in your personal and professional life. To help you find the right fit, here are the top 10 leadership coaches of 2023!
Rebecca Sparks
Meet Rebecca Sparks, Leadership Coach for Accor Academy & proud Founder of The Daily Guru, a media platform for Growth & Development.
Rebecca became a coach in 2012 and therefore leverages over 10 years of experience in her work. She believes Self Development is a core human need and everyone should have access to the tools and information it requires.
It doesn’t matter who we are, where we come from, or what our background is, we all face challenges in our lives & it is at these pivotal moments that the tools and skills within Personal & Professional Development can radically transform our direction and options.
The Daily Guru helps with this by gathering and sharing the tools, resources, and insights people need regarding Leadership, confidence building, imposter syndrome, Life transitions, career fulfillment & growth, living an exceptional life and so much more.
The Daily Guru has amassed a community of over 50k modern women focused on flourishing and it hits all the topics they’re interested in. As a coach, Rebecca believes in dreaming big, investing in oneself, creating productive habits, cutting out the fluff to make room for the best, hard work, kindness, and inviting adventure. She lives and breathes Self Development, making her highly effective at helping others on their growth journey & this is why she is on our list of Top 10 Leadership Coaches to watch!
Fiona Damon
Specialising in empowering clients to be the “Leader of Leaders”, Elite Coaching was Co-Founded by Fiona Damon in 2017. As Head Coach Fiona leverages world-class coaching methodologies to help clients up-level their vision and support them to do the work required to achieve their version of success.
Before becoming a business owner and executive leadership coach, Fiona served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), where she led a diverse team in ensuring critical capability was online and ready at a moment’s notice. Following this, she entered the corporate world and rose through the ranks in large multinational companies, where high performance and results set her apart.
Having held a variety of senior roles, she understands the weight on leaders’ shoulders and the many challenges they face. As an executive leader, business owner, coach, and mum, Fiona has experienced burn-out, imposter syndrome, and fighting to be heard as often the only female voice in the room.
Realizing she could have a bigger impact, Fiona dove into coaching and behavioural science. Along with first-class honours focused on human behaviour in business, and an MBA in leadership, Fiona is also a certified Master Coach. Co-founding Elite Coaching was a natural evolution and alignment of theory and real-world application.
Fiona developed the Elite Coaching IMPACT philosophy to make Leading Leaders more predictable, less stressful, whilst adding a splash of fun. It challenges the status quo and promotes effective strategies to bring clients’ leadership skills, teams, and organisations to the next level.
Chris March
Chris March, the founder of Chris March Coaching, is a dynamic and innovative leadership coach making waves in the industry with his unique SUCCESS framework. With over two years of experience, Chris has earned a reputation as a sought-after thought leader in leadership development.
His personalized approach sets Chris apart, as he tailors his coaching to each client’s needs. He starts by helping them set clear, measurable goals that provide a roadmap to success. With an in-depth understanding of their current situation, leadership style, strengths, and areas for development, Chris helps clients create innovative solutions to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals.
Chris’s commitment to his client’s success is unparalleled, and he establishes an action plan with specific steps and milestones to track progress while providing ongoing support, encouragement, and feedback. His holistic approach to leadership development considers his client’s professional and personal aspects, ensuring a well-rounded and sustainable approach to success.
As a renowned speaker, Chris shares his wealth of knowledge and insights on topics related to leadership, team building, communication, change management, and strategic planning. Additionally, his articles have been featured in reputable publications like Digital Journal and Influencive. Not to mention he’s done interviews and podcasts on leadership and personal development.
With a proven track record of success, Chris March is the go-to leadership coach for seasoned executives and business owners looking to elevate their leadership skills and achieve their goals. His personalized coaching approach and SUCCESS framework can help you unlock your full potential.
Esther De La Cruz
Esther De La Cruz is an amazing leadership coach with a contagious passion for people. She has an unwavering commitment to helping leaders create change success for everyone involved while achieving greater staff engagement. She has spent over 20 years as a Change Specialist, implementing complex transformations in large blue-chip organizations across four different countries and in a diverse range of industries.
What sets Esther apart is her ability to simplify the complex and unite people behind a common goal. Her warm and vivacious energy combined with her exceptional communication skills allows her to mobilize teams, coach individuals to lead through change with compassion, and facilitate workshops that bring people together on the path to success.
As the author of the book “Leading Technology Driven Transformation,” Esther has developed a proven Lasting Change Framework, which goes beyond just providing guidance and expertise. She shares practical tools, templates, and review outputs to help senior leaders effectively engage and communicate with their staff.
Esther’s approach is both strategic and highly practical, bringing innovative ideas to the table to create an environment of transparency, trust, and teamwork. She is dedicated to creating sustainable change and helping individuals and organizations thrive by building a change-resilient culture.
Whether it’s mergers, restructures, technology transformations, etc., Esther’s goal is to humanize change in the workplace and create change success for everyone involved. With her expertise, insights, and unwavering support, Esther empowers leaders to transform change into an opportunity for growth and greater engagement.
Veronica Haslam
Better known simply as Vee, Veronica Haslam is an inspired leadership coach, founder of Heartful Leadership, and current Deputy Chair of The Australian Transformation and Turnaround Association, the National Peak Body for Transformation Executives and Professionals. Her biggest passion lies in helping transformational leaders and teams make heart-centered decisions during times of change to achieve greater performance and wellbeing.
Vee’s approach to leadership coaching enables her clients to explore bimodal connection and go further into their thought. The goal is to expand beyond rational thought by activating the mind, heart, and spirit to make new discoveries and move outside the norm.
Take Einstein, for example. He uncovered incredible scientific discoveries while playing the violin. This is the core idea of Vee’s leadership coaching philosophy. By enabling curious and heartful bimodal play, she can help executives and their teams uncover new insights, ideas, and connections. With a unique human-centered mindful approach, clients can consciously explore inner transformation, which is vital in the business of inspiring, leading, and collaborating with others.
Vee’s mission is to co-create a corporate paradigm where everyone can share their unique gifts to achieve more and improve the world. That’s why she’s focused on helping transformational leaders navigate the human side of things in the face of change. Through mindfulness, embodiment practice, bimodal play, organisational dynamics, group dynamics, systems thinking, and many varied healing modalities, Vee provides self-empowering, positive, and inspiring services.
Sally Parrish
Leveraging 20 years of experience coaching boards, businesses, and executives, Sally Parrish founded the Board Coaching Institute. Sally has developed an effective coaching framework called the Board Success System™ which combines an online course and group coaching program to help clients transition to board roles.
Sally is an established coach and mentor. She is credited with creating the first nationally accredited coaching diploma qualification in 2005 and working with Standards Australia in 2011 to develop the guidelines for ‘Coaching in Organisations’.
Sally believes that success as a Non-Executive Director is about finding your individual uniqueness and using it to develop a positioning to set yourself apart from competitors. This is the principle her coaching approach is based on. When done effectively, this allows leaders to articulate a powerful and diverse board value proposition to survive and excel in today’s market.
Business has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. As such, boards must evolve beyond the traditional governance practices served solely by lawyers and accountants if they mean to effectively deal with the challenges of today. The Board Success System helps executives with non legal and financial backgrounds land paid board roles.
The Board Coaching Institute offers effective leadership training, board education, a flexible coaching program, a valuable online course, and a highly-engaged community of high-performing senior executives who are united in their quest. These leaders are provided with opportunities to make connections and to test and share ideas with a focus on having impact and influence as leaders.
Simi Rayat
Executive Leadership Coach and Psychologist Simi Rayat is the Founder, Director, and Principal Psychologist of Wellbeing Face Pty Ltd., a thriving Psychology Coaching and Consulting practice helping leaders globally to cultivate an inclusive, high-performing, and psychologically safe culture. She’s also an author, beautiful storyteller, and facilitator. Simi is recognised as one of the Top 15 Coaches in Melbourne and she has 20 years of experience working as a Chartered Organisational Psychologist in the UK and Australia.
Simi has studied human behaviour and she’s an expert in the field. She leverages that knowledge and understanding to help leaders shape their behaviour at the individual, group, and organisational levels to become truly brilliant and impactful in what they do.
Additionally, Simi leverages her experience in breaking moulds and shattering ceilings to help women of colour thrive in their professional careers. Having found herself in the “minority” in all aspects of her life, she understands their experience and can help them navigate their careers more effectively.
As a leadership coach, Simi is particularly interested in working with organisational leaders who want to create more inclusive cultures to attract and retain the best diverse talent. She provides them with the tools they need to develop an inclusive leadership mindset which she believes is essential to developing a sustainable, inclusive, and safe culture. Simi’s approach and Wellbeing Face services are founded on evidence-based scientific rigour and the most relevant strategies available. This is how she confidently facilitates incredible results for all her clients!
Gabrielle Harris
Founder and CEO of Interchange, Gabrielle Harris, is a much sought after Leadership and Executive coach committed to making a difference in the world of culture, behaviour, and organisational performance. She leverages more than 20 years of industry experience to disrupt the old order of putting process before people and bringing back some of the heart, creativity, and colour that enables change.
Interchange was inspired by Gabrielle’s passion to do things differently in the industry and it has grown into a multi-award winning Australian consultancy with a diverse team of strategists, psychologists, creatives, producers, and facilitators. This combination of expertise allows them to support both domestic and International organisations of all shapes and sizes.
Gabrielle’s approach is focused on instilling change based on an understanding of what makes people tick and delivering meaningful messages in novel ways. Interchange advises across many dimensions of consulting and they specialise in working with CEOs and leadership teams to enable purpose, large-scale cultural transformation, strategic alignment, leadership maturity, and learning/capability development.
Traditionally, management consultancies focus on strategy, processes, and procedures as a way to achieve cultural transformations. Interchange takes a different approach by focussing on the intangible ‘hearts and minds’ of organisational culture – connecting individuals to the behaviours, mindset and values which help successfully drive the culture forward. Gabrielle and her team deliver creative activations through VR, film, gamification, and immersive learning experiences, making genuine improvements to their client’s cultures.
Mags Bell
Mags Bell is a Leadership Coach, Speaker, Author, and Awareness Expert who specialises in working with major influencers and leaders to help them reach a whole new level. She’s the director of Creating Powerful Results and leverages over 30 years of experience in business and speaking, along with 60,000+ hours in coaching, to offer valuable services and assist clients to become better decision-makers and bring out their own brilliance to achieve powerful results.
As a leadership coach, Mags has worked with Business Owners and ‘C Suite’ Executives from Australia and around the world to help them cut, polish, and reset their inner diamonds. Mags believes all leaders have an inner diamond, comprised of their unique talents, personalities, and experiences. To operate at optimum levels and reach new heights, that diamond needs to shine.
The issue is that the inner diamond becomes clouded over time by disappointments, in-house politics, and disregard for our own values. That’s when Mags comes in with her proprietary coaching system LeadingME® that focuses on self-discovery, re-evaluation, and renewed focus. This helps the diamond shine again, allowing leaders to become unstuck, increase their performance, and have greater motivation.
Mags’ approach makes a big difference for leaders because it allows them to stay grounded, hold themselves accountable, and regain excitement about the future. Mags has created her own tools based on years of experience, a wealth of knowledge, and unique ideas about leadership, which not only sets her services apart but also guarantees results.
Garie Dooley
Garie Dooley is a fantastic and experienced leadership coach who has helped businesses and teams achieve phenomenal success over the last 15 years. With a passion for high-performance teams and leadership, Garie has worked with renowned clients such as Amazon, Sydney Swans, Redcape, Cricket NSW, and more. His expertise spans various sectors, from elite sports to corporate settings and everything in between.
Garie’s approach is focused on creating an environment of trust and clarity of purpose, leading teams from fake to phenomenal and helping leaders shift from salvager to legend. He offers a high-impact, game-changing structure and process that has been praised by his clients. Through one-on-one coaching sessions, Garie provides a breadth of experience, focus, and a structured framework for businesses and their leaders.
As a sought-after speaker at conferences and a facilitator of team-building workshops and programs, Garie’s leadership coaching programs have helped businesses become iconic by driving high levels of performance and success. With his wealth of experience and proven track record, he is a trusted and respected leadership coach who helps businesses and teams achieve legendary status.
Dr. Tim Baker
Dr. Tim Baker is not just your average leadership coach – he’s a dynamic force in the field of organizational development and performance. With a remarkable 18 years of experience under his belt, Dr. Baker is the founder of WINNERS-at-WORK, a cutting-edge consultancy that helps leaders level up their performance to achieve extraordinary results.
What sets Dr. Baker apart is his unwavering belief that investing in leadership is the key to unlocking high performance in organizations. He’s a firm advocate of workplace culture change, change management, and executive coaching as powerful solutions for driving leadership excellence.
His unique approach has earned him accolades and recognition as one of the “50 Most Talented Global Training & Development Leaders” – an honor that speaks volumes about his expertise and impact. Dr. Baker’s reputation extends far and wide, being featured on the “Top 10 Change Management Consulting Services Companies in APAC 2020” by HR Tech Outlook, the “20 Australian Leadership Experts to Watch in 2021” by The Australian Business Journal, and the “Top 10 Emerging Change Management Companies 2021” by Manage HR Magazine, among others.
Dr. Baker is also the author of 13 books, including his latest: “WINNING TEAMS: The Eight Characteristics of High-Performing Teams.” Moreover, he has conducted over 2,430 seminars, coaching programs, workshops, and keynote addresses in 13 countries across 21 industry groups.
With a proven track record and an incredible wealth of both knowledge and experience, Dr. Baker offers individuals, teams, and organizations truly powerful solutions to leadership development.
Make sure to go and follow all these amazing leadership coaches as they continue to make their mark on the world.
