Executive Leadership Services

PAUSE Coaching Programmes have been developed by Báirbre Meehan, who has worked in senior management roles for multinational organisations across financial services, banking and manufacturing sectors.

Báirbre is a qualified and accredited business and executive coach and has coached extensively for 10 years. PAUSE Executive Leadership Services include Executive Coaching, Leadership Development and Team Coaching.

Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching is a one-to-one coaching programme that works with the individual to assess their current situation and develop personal strategies that will help them to achieve their full potential and future goals.

Why Executive Coaching?

Executive Coaching is a hugely beneficial process that offers clarity, insights, alternate perspectives and new ways of thinking. It supports individual growth and change. People come to executive coaching for many reasons and the following represent the most common:

An individual that feels stuck in a career or is not fulfilling their potential as a leader.
A senior leader or CEO who finds it is difficult to get honest feedback or an impartial perspective.
An individual experiencing a strained or challenged work relationship(s) that is limiting their ability to achieve their potential.
A person seeking career expansion and in need of focused personal development.

A person who has been newly promoted or is new to an organisation and is looking to create an impact quickly.
An individual who is finding the pressures of a stressful working environment is limiting their effectiveness.
A person who would like to develop strategies to manage upwards effectively, planning for and clearly expressing desired future goals.
Individuals who would like to be more fully engaged with life, personally and professionally.

How our Executive Coaching Works

Coaching Sessions

Our first session will overview the coaching journey; where are we starting from, where are we going, what will success look like and what might be key milestones, along the way. Where we are starting from is often assessed independently, with the use of a 360 survey and other objective tools, which shed light on the client’s current reality.

Coaching always follows the client’s agenda, with clients coming to a session with between one to three topics. As the sessions progress we also allow time to discuss what’s been happening in the ‘real world’, since our last session. We make sense of what’s going on in the ‘real world’ by, understanding it within the client’s wider organisational system, introducing perspective-giving frameworks reflective of current leadership thinking.

Sessions take place in a private space, mostly in the coach’s or the client’s office, but can also be in a neutrally agreed venue or via Skype/phone. The first two sessions are always face-to-face, to ensure a relationship of mutual trust and rapport is established.

Coaching sessions are typically two hours, once a month, for between 6-12 months.

Executive Coaching Experiences

‘I have worked with Báirbre for the last 2 years as I progressed through a very difficult transition at work which affected me both professionally and personally. The coaching, with particular emphasis on my mental wellbeing, was critical to my path to success.

Being self-aware and being able to manage my mental wellbeing was lessons well learnt and were paramount to my success. I would not have considered this before and had not experienced this in the past, which limited my success. The clarity of thinking I experienced through these coaching sessions enabled me to create my own vision for my career and my personal life. Delighted with the outcome, I will continue to use this service on an on-going basis, as now I see it critical to both my personal life, as well as my professional life.’

Mary Ann Fergus, President, PennEngineering EMEA

‘I have been working with Báirbre for about a year and a half and approached her as my business was in a difficult transition. I needed guidance and perspective. I needed a qualified opinion.

I was looking for someone who had lived in the trenches, knew exactly what I was working my way through, could advise on leadership techniques to improve performance but also had real coaching ability. Báirbre has this rare combination. She has brought a lot of clarity to my work-life but the positive impact extends beyond work into everyday life; she has an innate understanding of people, their psychology, what motivates them and enables people to stand back and assess their approach and behaviour. I highly recommend Báirbre.’

Wayne Allen, CEO, Perfuze

Leadership Development Programmes

An organisation, at its most basic level, is made up of a network of people communicating with each other and their stakeholders.

How each person in that network ‘shows up’ is critical to the organisation’s success.

Why Leadership Development Programmes?

Our Leadership Development Programmes focus on helping leaders see how they are ‘showing up’ and teaching them to choose their response rather than reacting to others.
By teaching leaders to be more fully present to what is happening in the moment, they become increasingly aware of how their behaviour influences and impacts their immediate team, the wider organisation and ultimately the organisation’s customers.
Developing self-awareness so that leaders can understand themselves and others better can be a key catalyst for change within an organisation. It can open up possibilities, creating a new energy that optimises working relationships and leads to more effective collaborations.

How our Leadership Programmes Works

We work collaboratively with an organisation to understand their requirements, and design bespoke Leadership Development Programmes tailored to their development and organisational needs.

An example of one-year Leadership Development Programme (LDP)

The programme was run for a multi-sited US organisation and saw representatives from across the US, Mexico, UK and Asia come together for three days, on six occasions, over a period of one year.

The programme began with orientation, followed by extensive 360 and behavioural profiling for each individual leader, culminating in an individual set of coaching objectives. The cumulative goals and the organisation’s needs drives the content of the bespoke programme, which comprises one-on-one executive coaching, group project work, leadership workshops and the cross-transfer of knowledge, skills and collaborative executive networking.

The following testimonial is from the organisation’s CEO:

‘I have been fortunate to work with Báirbre on multiple engagements and companies. In all cases, Báirbre’s unique combination of successful management experience, use of leading edge personal & team development tools, and strong interpersonal communication skills have had a significant positive impact on both individual leadership development and improving the effectiveness of senior management teams. Her passion for driving improvement for the individual, the team and the company is unmatched.’

Dan Croteau, CEO, Surgical Specialities Corporation

An example of a two-day In-house Programme

The two-day programme was run for a multi-national company as part of its ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ Strategy. The focus for the initial Leadership Coaching Programme was on gender diversity and the organisation targeted its female leaders across facilities in Ireland, UK, US and Asia.

The programme was practical and reflective, allowing participants to take time away from their busy work lives to reflect on how things are for them – where they are in their lives and in their careers currently.

Introducing frameworks and new ways of thinking about how they are ‘showing up’ in relation to others, we provided participants with the opportunity to get to know themselves better, to think about what might be limiting them and give thought and time to how they can be at their best.

In line with the organisation’s culture the two days were experiential, allowing new skills and behaviours to be explored in a safe environment.

The following testimonial is from the organisation’s ‘Head of Talent & Transformation’:

‘The feedback from our Women in Leadership programme has been phenomenal, in terms of the value that each participant got from the programme; finding better ways of managing stakeholders and relationships, changing self-limiting ways of working, managing energy and resilience and using their network.

The programme itself also allowed us to create a very strong network within this global group. The facilitators create an environment from the start that allows for real conversation and honesty and they bring a level of expertise to participants that is of great value”.

An example of an External off-site Programme

The Satori-Experience, is a two-day personal development workshop for senior female leaders. It invites you to slow down, in order to experience and embrace more of who you truly are, providing time to reflect on your leadership journey, inspiring confidence and empowering change within you. The Satori-Experience is held in a luxurious off-site location and is delivered jointly with fellow coach, Eileen Duggan.

View the Satori-Experience brochure from the personal development workshop held in January 2020.

Team Coaching

Team Coaching enables a team to function as more than a sum of its parts. It supports the team by clarifying what the team is there to do and by improving its relationships, both within the team and between the team and its internal and external stakeholders.

Why Team Coaching?

Some common reasons to engage a team coach include:

A team that is not performing at its best or is misaligned.
A team that has been newly formed or has had a significant change of membership.
A new leader takes over and wants to ensure alignment and clarity of its vision.

A team that is performing well and wants to stay on course or get ahead.
A team that is faced with significant challenges and needs to re-group and re-assess.

How Team Coaching Works

A 9 to 12 months Team Coaching Programme

A 9 to 12 months Team Coaching Programme begins with an evaluation process, assessing the current state of the team. We then work with the leader and all team members to create a collective vision for the future state of the team.

Based on the evaluation outcomes and our work with the leader and team members, we then design and facilitate a series of bespoke two-day workshops, over the period of the coaching programme.

We work with the team members, both together and apart, supporting them to achieve desired business results and improved performance.

Team Coaching Experiences

‘We engaged with Báirbre to support our Senior Leadership Team specifically in the areas of strategy and organisation structure. She was an excellent support in terms of her coaching style and her ability to challenge and support in equal measure.

Báirbre very quickly developed a deep understanding of our team dynamics and facilitated excellent work on developing clarity around Directors roles and responsibilities while also focussing on individual strengths and areas of interests. Her probing questions challenged our current strategy and thinking and brought a really insightful strategic perspective to the coaching process.

I would strongly recommend Pause to any senior management team looking to develop clarity around strategic direction and organisational structure.’

Niall Murray, Managing Director, Collins McNicholas

Báirbre Meehan

Few executive coaches come as steeped in business and corporate life as Báirbre, who has significant experience in leadership, people management, deal brokering, as well as board room and head office dynamics. Her career has encompassed financial services, banking and manufacturing sectors, where she has held a number of senior management roles in multi-national organisations.

Having joined a US-owned Medical Device company as Finance Manager, to play a lead role in a Management Buy Out, Báirbre took over as CEO, growing the business significantly over the next 11 years, overseeing its sale to a US multinational.

Following her tenure as CEO, Báirbre transferred to a Corporate Organisational and Leadership Development role within that same organisation, establishing Leadership Development Programs and Organisational Change Initiatives across their 12 facilities.

Accredited Coaching

Báirbre is a qualified and accredited business and executive coach and has coached extensively for 10 years.

She is currently coaching senior executives and runs leadership coaching programs in Ireland and the US. Understanding the complexities of corporate life, Báirbre knows what is needed to bring about behavioural change for the individual, in combination with growth for the organisation. She incorporates a wide array of coaching skills, her vast business and corporate experience and recognised psychological frameworks, to help her clients understand and achieve lasting change.

Passionate about mental well being and driven by the increasing need for support within organisations, Báirbre undertook a five year research project which resulted in a unique Mental Well Being Coaching Programme that supports people struggling with lower levels of mental well being; be that toxic stress, anxiety or low mood.

It is commonly observed that she ‘senses and awakens the potential that people often cannot see in themselves’.

Qualifications

Masters in Business and Executive Coaching, Smurfit Business School
Masters in Management Practice, Trinity College
Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants
Certified Focusing Professional and Trainer with the International Focusing Institute

Báirbre Meehan is a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and adheres to their code of practice www.emccouncil.org

Get Started

Contact Pause to discuss how our Coaching Programmes can benefit your organisation.