Coach profile: Cath King
A highly experienced executive coach, Cath provides coaching
to clients making or facing changes in their professional life in
commercial, private and public sector organisations. She
supports senior leaders to navigate change, make transitions,
raise their profile or their game. Her clients report increased
influence and impact, and greater clarity in their leadership.
Coaching experience at a senior level
NHS: Since 2003 Cath has twice been selected as a world class coach by the NHS
Institute through rigorous competitive processes. She works with Chief Executives,
Clinicians, Top Leaders, Directors, Chairs and Public Health professionals across the
spectrum of NHS organisations, care and quality organisations, private health and care
organisations, NHS Confederation.
Government: Senior Civil Servants, Directors, Managers to DG level in DWP, HMRC, DWP
Private Office, HM Cabinet Office, Scottish Government.
Education: Senior staff in a range of HE institutions in England and Scotland.
Local Government: Chief Executives and Senior Managers in Local Authorities, Police.
Facilitates Action Learning Sets for Directors in Health and Social Care and Heads of Service
in Local Authorities.
Private Sector: Senior staff energy, banking, fund management, biotech, manufacturing,
engineering, IT, retail property.
Coaching experience in Higher Education
VCs and senior leaders at institutions in England and Scotland - recently worked with 10
senior managers who were part of an institution - wide leadership programme. These
clients were at varying stages of their careers and institutional experience and the work
focused on exploring the differing aspects of the leadership and personal challenges they
each faced.
Coaching style, approach and influences
Cath is renowned for her tenacity and has high expectations of her clients. She works well
with clients who are open to new ideas and perspectives. Cath is attentive, incisive and
empowering, supporting clients to identify significant issues challenge habitual ways of
thinking and instigate change. She has an ability to challenge accepted norms and to ask
powerful questions to promote insight she enjoys working with mavericks and with clients
who may initially be sceptical about the value of coaching.
She approaches coaching as a joint exploration where her role is to simplify the complex,
help clients make connections and begin to distinguish essential aspects from noise in the
system. From these insights further work can be determined to bring about the changes,
whether cognitive or behavioral, that the client is seeking. Clients achieve greater clarity
about the role they play, the scope of their influence and the action they choose.
Example of issues explored in coaching sessions
Clients work with Cath to increase their influence and impact, manage difficult
relationships, bring out the best in others, raise their profile or raise their game. Clients
seek to be more resourceful leaders, taking authority and managing better. She has
maintained an interest in organisations throughout her career and this combination of
business credibility with natural empathy informs her work.
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Increasing visibility and impact at a strategic level
Managing difficult relationships with colleagues
Developing leadership skills and presence
Managing personal and organisational transitions
Getting the best out of teams
Navigating organisational politics
Career and talent management.
Developing greater clarity, about expectations of self and others
Improving personal resilience
Professional background
As a Chartered Psychologist with a background in industrial HR, career consultancy,
relationship counselling and project management, Cath is well placed to apply her expertise
to produce changes in clients' behaviour and performance. She understands the
commercial, political and cultural imperatives of organisations and rapidly assimilates
significant aspects of her clients’ contexts.
Qualifications and accreditations
Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Chartered Psychologist
Associate Fellow, British Psychological Society
B.P.S. Register of Coaching Psychologists
Certificate of Professional Development in Coaching, University of Strathclyde
Certificate in Executive Coaching, Quorum Occupational Psychologists
Accredited Coach, Ros Taylor Group
BA Hons Psychology, University of Manchester
Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance, Napier University, Edinburgh
B.P.S. Certificates of Competence in Occupational Testing Levels A and B
Case Studies
Clients report being challenged, working hard and making important changes in thinking
and approach as a result of working with Cath.
Two anonymised case studies.
A Director of HR in a newly merged HE institution, whose operational contribution risked
her being sidelined by a new senior team. We explored her interpretation of her role and
audited the contributions she was making to the development of the institution. She began
to recognise that she could operate differently through conceptualizing her role in a
different way. She then worked on strategies for maintaining this broader approach and
avoiding her accustomed hands on default. We worked on her confidence and presence to
develop different ways of managing others’ expectations of her operating differently. We
looked at ways for her to develop greater visibility and stamp her identity as a significant
player in the institution.
Outcome
She has moved HR to a more central place in the Institution and has won the support of
the Vice Principal. She sees her role as initiatory rather than reactive and feels she is
making a significant contribution to the trajectory of the institution. She believes her
greater clarity of approach and positioning is having a beneficial effect on her department
as a whole.
An NHS Director, considered ready for his first Chief Executive post who wanted to use the
coaching to be as well prepared as he could for CE opportunities that arose. His own CE
suggested he needed:
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to temper his enthusiasm to get buy in and avoid alienating others
Delegate whilst still holding colleagues to account and to move away from
influencing logically to handling on the spot situations more effectively.
I developed sufficient trust to be very frank with him about his personal intensity and
impact. He made a determined effort to work differently with his peers, his team and his
CE. He worked on his personal expectations that habitually caused him to disempower and
potentially alienate reports and peers. We explored and rehearsed more inclusive styles,
language and behaviours which enabled him to respond more consistently.
He began to approach his role differently which permeated many interactions within and
outside the PCT where he received positive feedback
Outcomes
He expresses frustration with others in more productive ways. He is comfortable taking
authority on his own terms, recognising that his previous role (by accident or design) over
played his abilities to the detriment of building more constructive relationships with fellow
directors. He is now a Chief Executive.
Quotes from previous clients.
Senior Manager HE Sector.
Cath builds rapport quickly and puts people at ease. She works very intuitively especially at
the level of personal impact and the belief systems that drive her clients’ behaviour and the
impressions they make on others.
Director, NHS
Last week was crazy because of meetings but could not have been better in terms of
demonstrating the benefits of our sessions!
Blasted the minister on Monday – to a roomful of dropped jaws and with my customary
passion but no embarrassment and no qualification, stormed through Lead Clinicians on
Weds, told … exactly what the …strategy should be on Friday.
If you hear I got sacked, maybe you overdid on the confidence building – otherwise I think
you can regard me as a very satisfied customer.
Senior Manager, Housing Association
This was my first experience of coaching and I found it extremely valuable and stimulating.
As someone not used to speaking about my feelings or exploring the emotional aspects of
my working life, I found Cath's style very effective.
Whilst coaching doesn't guarantee you any specific answers, it does provide a way of
exploring one's feelings in a way that helps you to make better decisions about your
working like, that ultimately have a huge impact on your life overall.
Director, Government Department
I was at a real crossroads in terms of my professional life, a situation compounded by some
significant events in my private life. That made for some tough decision-making and I
found that by discussing the situation with Cath, who obviously had no personal baggage in
terms of my situation, it made me challenge my thinking a lot more than would have been
the case otherwise.