Explore The Work
The work looks different depending on where you are and what's needed. Sometimes it's one person ready to go deeper. Sometimes it's a team that needs to finally say what's true. Sometimes it's a room full of people who need something to cut through.
Three ways. One direction.
Leadership coaching and facilitation for leaders, founders and teams to lead with clarity, navigate difficult conversations, and build real alignment
The Work
There's no one-size-fits-all here.
Sometimes you need individual space. Sometimes your team needs it. Sometimes you need to step out entirely to see things clearly.
That's where The Work comes in.
-
Hold SPACE: 1:1 coaching
This is your space.No performance required. No need to have it figured out before you arrive.
I typically work with clients over several months, supporting sustained shifts in how they lead. We get underneath what's actually going on. Not the story you've been telling yourself, or the one you tell your team. The real one, the truth.
We start with the Enneagram. Not as a personality test, but as a way of understanding the identity you've built around yourself. The patterns that have protected you. The ones that are now getting in your way. From there, we go deeper into the decisions you keep avoiding, the behaviours that keep showing up, and the gap between the leader you are and the leader you know you could be.
We won't stop at the professional. Because our patterns don't start at work. They follow us there. So if something deeper shows up, and it usually does, we go there too. That might mean sitting with something uncomfortable. Letting go of something you've been carrying for a long time. Doing the kind of work that asks something of your whole self, not just your professional mind.
Body, mind and soul. All of it welcome here.
You'll leave sessions with more than clarity. You'll leave with the courage to act on what you already know.
This isn't therapy or counseling nor consulting.
It's the honest conversation most leaders never get to have. -
Facilitate SPACE — Team & Organisational Work
Most teams don't need another workshop.
They need a space where people can finally say what's true.
Whether it's a leadership team that's stopped being honest with each other, or an organisation navigating real change, this is where something actually shifts. Not in theory but in the room.
We step out of the day-to-day to look at what's really going on. What's not being said. What everyone's working around but nobody's naming.
This isn't a space where you listen, take a few notes and walk away feeling vaguely inspired. It's a space that asks something of you. Where the hard work happens together, in real time. Where people don't just hear new ideas, they feel something change.
The work is structured but never rigid. Direct but never destructive. And people leave having experienced something that shifted, not just attended something.
They leave more connected to themselves and to each other. With a clearer understanding of what their colleagues are actually carrying. With frameworks they can take back into their work and keep using.
Not just a set of action points on a Post-it note, but commitment to something long-lasting.
-
Take SPACE — Speaking & Events
Some things don’t shift in a meeting room.
They shift when something cuts through, when a room full of people recognises what is really going on and what needs to change.
Whether it is a keynote, a leadership event, or a company offsite, the work is not about inspiration. It is about creating a moment that lands and changes how people lead, communicate, and show up afterwards.
I bring a mix of honesty and lightness into the room. I will ask questions, involve people, and create space for real conversation. There is often humour along the way, because when people feel at ease, they are more willing to engage with what is actually there.
I do not perform, and I do not aim to please. I speak to what is often left unsaid, in a way that people can hear it.
Not sure where to start? That's completely fine.
We'll figure it out together.
“Maria is an effective modern coach, Maria will guide you through your own situations and challenges. Maria has the ability to listen and speak honestly guiding you towards clear goals, coupled with her experience and understanding of context around you, company cultures, policies and objectives, uncovering workable solutions. Maria will guide you to establishing an Purpose Statement that is measurable. I would highly recommend Maria as a leadership and a personal coach.”
- Ben van Niekerk Technical Delivery Director and Utility Leader
“Maria supported me in reconnecting with myself. I feel more present, more connected to my body, and more aware of what I’m experiencing in the moment. I’ve learned to trust my intuition, which has brought a real sense of clarity and ease. I’m more open, more myself, and more confident in what I need and want.
As a result, I show up more authentically, with greater clarity around my needs and values, and a deeper trust in how things unfold. Others around me have recognised this shift—particularly in how I demonstrate my values, and speak up when it matters—and it directly led to my promotion into a leadership position at work.”
- Enyonam Glover General Medicine Advanced Trainee at Western Health
To do The Work we need to find SPACE
When a river meets a dam, it doesn't disappear. It builds pressure, it finds ways around, it keeps moving, but not freely.
Our minds work the same way. When something is blocked, a decision that won't resolve, a team that won't align, a direction that used to feel clear and doesn't anymore, we push harder. We think more. We force what used to flow.
What's needed isn't more force. It's space.
Space for yourself, your team and your organisation. Because when we create space, something becomes possible that wasn't before. We gain Self-knowledge, find new Perspective, share Accountability, build Connection and return to our Essence.
Self-knowledge
Not the comfortable kind. This is about seeing how you respond, where you unconsciously get in your own way, and what you keep doing despite knowing better. Once those patterns become visible, they lose their power. We change the story that no longer serves you, so you can have the conversations you've been avoiding and make the decisions you've been circling.
Perspective
Perspective and space are intertwined. When we create space we gain new perspectives, and when we see things differently we create more space. It's a cycle that builds on itself. We look at your situation, your team, your organisation from angles you haven't been able to access from the inside. What shifts isn't just what you see. It's what you're willing to let go of. Old beliefs, old assumptions, old ways of leading that made sense once and don't anymore.
Accountability
Holding ourselves accountable is harder than it sounds. We send contradicting messages. We shift our commitments and our values the moment they become inconvenient or too uncomfortable. We tell ourselves stories that make the avoidance feel reasonable. But once you start seeing clearly how you fool yourself and others for not following through, it becomes a joke impossible to ignore. And from that place, something changes, because you finally stopped looking away.
Connection
Space is an invitation to reconnect. With yourself, with the people around you, with something larger than the immediate problem. In that space, you start to hear what you always knew but couldn't access anymore. The things you were afraid to acknowledge begin to surface. And something shifts underneath all of it. Connection becomes the ground that courage grows from. From here, action isn't forced. It's inevitable.
Essence
We are not our identity. We are not even our personality. Underneath all of that sits something that doesn't change, doesn't perform and doesn't need to prove anything. Your essence. Where your deeper purpose lives, alongside the innate abilities and the unique way of being that was always yours to offer. This is what the work uncovers. Not something new. Something that was always there, waiting to be trusted.
Working with Maria was transformative. From our first session, she had a rare ability to name exactly the challenges I faced, with a refreshingly direct approach that is warm and authentic.
She asked questions I hadn’t thought to ask myself and challenged me without judgment. I highly recommend Maria as an engaging and thoughtful coach.
— Sarah Connolly Director Allied Health at Royal Children's Hospital
