When your role is no longer self-evident
Decisions require more coordination than necessary.
Others wait for you — or work around you.
You correct what is not yours to carry.
Or leave what you should be taking responsibility for.
Your mandate is formally clear.
In practice, something is shifting.
From the outside, things work.
On the inside, energy drains away.
Leadership coaching is rarely about competence.
It is about position.
Over six to eight ninety-minute sessions, we explore concrete situations from your leadership practice.
Taking your position
Knowing what your role requires —
and where it ends.
Intervening with clarity
Creating space where it belongs.
Intervening where it is needed.
Hold your position under pressure.
Not becoming harder than necessary.
Not smaller than your role requires.
What is really going on
Leadership challenges do not begin with behaviour. They arise when role, expectations and mandate start to diverge.
What your position formally requires.
What others implicitly expect of you.
What you take on.
And what needs to be left alone.
When those lines do not align, you start compensating.
You take over what is not yours — or leave what is.
You work harder than necessary. Or you withdraw at crucial moments. What is formally clear becomes negotiable in practice. Decisions slow down. Results suffer. Because your position is no longer clear.
When your position is unclear
Pressure shifts. Not to where it belongs, but to whoever carries it.
The team adapts. Some wait. Others take space that is not theirs. Decisions are postponed — or made too quickly to relieve tension.
Structural issues become personal. This costs momentum, trust and results. Not because people are unwilling, but because leadership is not being taken.
Where do you stand as a leader?
Use a spatial reflection exercise to explore your role and how you relate to the people you work with.
Get the exercise by email
What becomes possible
When role, mandate and responsibility align again, the dynamic changes.
Decisions take less energy.
Interventions become more precise.
Discussions become shorter.
You say what needs to be said — without having to justify yourself.
You leave what is not yours to carry.
Responsibility lands where it belongs.
The team finds direction again.
Momentum returns.
Results recover.
Not because you work harder.
But because your position is clear — and you take it.
How I work
We work through a series of six to eight ninety-minute sessions, spaced over time. This creates room to see what is really going on.
Not to optimise behaviour, but to clarify where role, mandate and responsibility have diverged.
We explore concrete situations in your current leadership: where responsibility is being taken over, where decisions get stuck, where you take space that is not yours — or leave space that is.
Systemic work is part of this process. When your position becomes clear, behaviour changes from within. Decisions become simpler. Interventions become more precise.
If the same dynamic keeps repeating — with different people or in different situations — we make visible what lies beneath it.
When questions extend to the management team, board or governance, the work shifts towards team coaching for management teams and executives.
We begin with an initial conversation. To establish what is going on — and whether this is the right place to work on it.
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(…) “Not the answers I expected, but exactly the clarity I needed.”
Frequently asked questions
Who is leadership coaching for?
For leaders whose position is no longer self-evident.
For people who formally carry responsibility —
and notice a shift in how that responsibility is taken.
For senior leaders, founders and experienced professionals
who are willing to examine their own role —
not just the dynamics around them.
Executive coaching here means individual coaching for directors and senior managers. You work on your own position, the responsibility you carry and the relationships in which you lead.
This is not a programme for those seeking tips or techniques.
It is for those who want to understand and take their position.
What if the issue actually lies with my team?
It often seems that way.
But when positions are unclear, responsibility naturally shifts.
We always start with your role.
From there, it becomes clear what is genuinely yours to carry — and what is not.
If it later becomes clear that a team-level intervention is needed, we discuss the options.
What if my question turns out to involve the wider organisation?
The work can then extend to the management team, board or organisation.
This only happens when it follows logically from the issue.
What does leadership coaching deliver in concrete terms?
You gain a clearer understanding of your role, mandate and responsibility.
As a result, decisions require less energy, interventions become more precise and discussions become shorter.
The aim is not a new leadership style, but to take up more clearly what is yours — and leave what belongs elsewhere.
How does an engagement work, and how do we track progress?
An engagement usually consists of six to eight 90-minute conversations, spread over time.
We work with concrete situations from your leadership practice.
Throughout the engagement, we assess what changes in how you take your position, make decisions and act. This makes insights visible in practice.
How soon will I see results?
Clarity often emerges within a few conversations.
As your position becomes clearer, behaviour changes noticeably.
Not by working harder, but by taking your position more precisely.
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Tristan is an experienced coach with a strong capacity for empathy, without telling you what you want to hear. He offers practical perspectives that are relevant in both work and life, and shares theory you can apply long after the conversations end.
Vera Kleinendorst,