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Karen O'Connor

Coaching in English

750+ hours of coaching experience

Leadership Coach · Executive Coach · Team Coach

London

United Kingdom

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Overview
About me Credentials Reviews Blogs
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About me

Leadership Coach - London


Karen brings insight into navigating change and empowering teams, from 30 years of experience as a Senior Leader in the fast-changing media content and news industry. Her style is direct - with careful listening, empathy, and challenge.

She works with global senior leaders in business, media, tech, and finance, including in Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies , and the social sector. Leaders face the enormous challenges of being confident through accelerated change and empowering and motivating teams.

Understanding ourselves, how we think and act, what we believe, and what we need, gives us confidence in our authentic ability to thrive through uncertainty.

Leadership issues my clients have brought to coaching include:

*finding an authentic leadership style and voice.
*leading with purpose.
*motivating and retaining key talent.
*dealing with fear, lack of confidence, or imposter anxiety.
*staying out of the weeds.
*leading sustainably - avoiding burnout.
*tackling difficult conversations and performance.
*transitioning roles.

Karen assures clients of certification and ethical practice from both global professional coaching bodies - as both an individual and a trained team coach. She is also committed to democratising the benefits of coaching by working with the social sector at special rates

Karen believes in bringing the whole person to coaching and has an unshakeable belief in the ability of clients to increase their success and happiness. She was a working parent for most of her career and understands the issues around balancing herself can bring those responsibilities and needs.

Some testimonials include:
“Karen’s coaching sessions were excellent – whether helping you brainstorm a management challenge or pushing you to reflect on your own work and thought patterns.”
“She has provided fantastic support, challenging my thinking and assumptions.”
“She created a safe environment of positive self-reflection which has been transformative.”
“Absolutely invaluable at a time I took on a new leadership role.”
“She helped me have as much impact as possible.”
“She helped me reboot clarity in my skills values and direction.”
“She helped me see myself and what I can offer from a variety of lenses which I hadn’t previously considered.”

To contact Karen, please send her a message to arrange a 30 minute appointment to talk further.
Credentials
Professional body membership

International Coach FederationEuropean Mentoring & Coaching Council Global

Level of membership/accreditation

ICF - Professional Certified CoachEMCC - Accredited Practitioner

Qualifications

Academy of Executive Coaching (London) Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching.Academy of Executive Coaching Zurich, Certificate in Systemic Team CoachingGlobal Team Coaching Institute (Clutterbuck and Hawkins) -Team Coach Practitioner.Accredited with the International Coach Federation at ACC level.Accredited with the EMCC as Global Team Coach practitioner and Individual Coach Practitioner,

Reviews
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Karen's coaching was incredibly useful. She provided really useful insights, challenges and thoughtful questions that get straight to the point whilst being empathetic. I definitely recommend her. CEO, Culture Sector

06/12/2022

Karen is an experienced executive coach. She has a very supportive and empathic coaching style, and a unique ability to challenge in a very constructive way. I found our coaching sessions to be very powerful in making me appreciate some key limiting self-beliefs which were holding me back in exploring a better way to manage an important situation at work. I would highly recommend Karen to any business leader and teams looking to supercharge their development

11/11/2022

Karen has provided fantastic support to me over our sessions: challenging my thinking and assumptions; encouraging me to question my behaviours and habits; and helping me step beyond insecurities to seize new opportunities. She has an uncanny ability to get quickly to the heart of an issue, and to create a safe environment of positive self-reflection which has been transformative. Her knowledge of the media sector was a really helpful backdrop against which she could help me to find what I truly feel about my own work and potential future moves. She is also great fun to be with, making each session a huge pleasure. I would highly recommend Karen as a coach.

04/11/2022

I worked with Karen to explore my leadership style and increase my skills in setting boundaries and being more direct with my team. Our sessions were incredibly helpful and enjoyable. I felt Karen listened brilliantly and was a kind and thoughtful guide who helped me see the positives and the things I was doing right, as well as challenging me to think about potential changes where I thought I needed to make them. She always encouraged me to lead our sessions and re-evaluated as we went through to make sure that I was actively making choices about how we spent our time together in ways that were most productive to me. She helped me set clear goals and take actions that I would report back on so that I could actually experience the changes I was looking for rather than just talking about them. I definitely feel working with Karen has made me more aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a leader and helped me make some improvements and I really value the time we spent working together. Head of Drama / Executive Producer SM

03/11/2022

Karen has a gentle and impactful coaching style. Her approach is to look at the whole person and be able to select parts that are relevant to the client's progression towards their goals. She enables you to navigate and support your own direction - I really liked that. I got many practical actions for me to implement out of these sessions. Karen's style of coaching is holistic; probing in an impactful way to gain deeper insights. She has a beautiful natural flair for actively listening and summarising, and she does so with empathy and respect. A. Tanda, Manager, Medical Standards Body

03/11/2022
Blogs

How do we Thrive? Six questions to check.

For Health & Wellbeing
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Specialist areas
Career Direction Communication Confidence Difficult Conversations Employee Engagement Influencing Skills Leadership New Role Performance Management Personal Impact Presentation Skills Problem Solving Resilience Retirement Strategy Talent Management Transition Partner Offer
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