Who is Executive Coaching for?

People who carry responsibility and often carry it alone: CEOs, managing directors, board members, founders and owners, senior executives. And anyone at a turning point: a new role, a bigger company, a succession ahead. Executive Coaching works best before things catch fire: as a working format for people who are good at their job and want to decide better.

Is CEO coaching different from executive coaching?

Not at its core. CEO coaching is executive coaching for the person where everything ends up: chief executive, managing director, owner. The topics overlap with other leaders' topics, minus the boss to talk them through with. Shareholders, succession, your own role in the company: that calls for a counterpart outside the system, and in CEO coaching that counterpart is me.

What's the difference between Executive Coaching and Business Coaching?

The difference is the starting point. Executive Coaching takes the situation of people in leadership roles seriously: strategic complexity, hardly anyone in the building to speak openly with, dynamics between shareholders, board, and team. Business coaching is broader and covers professional questions of all kinds. Which format fits you, or whether it's a mix, we settle in the first conversation.

Do you work with executives outside Germany, and in English?

Yes. In-person sessions take place in Essen, Germany. Online, I work with executives wherever they are, in English or German. Whether we meet in person, online, or a mix of both is something we agree on in the initial conversation. What matters is that you're undisturbed for the 60 to 90 minutes.

How often do executive coaching sessions take place?

That depends on your goal and your pace. Sometimes one session is enough to settle a specific question. Two sessions a month is typical, especially at the start. Intense phases may call for more; a longer development process gets a long way with one session every three to four weeks. We set the rhythm together, and it can change.

Is Executive Coaching confidential?

Yes, without exception. What's said in coaching stays in coaching. Nothing goes to third parties, and no summaries go to superiors or boards unless you explicitly ask for it. That confidentiality is the ground this whole process stands on, and the reason it works at all.

Leadership doesn't need applause. It needs clarity.

You run a company, a division, a team. Every day you make decisions that would keep other people up at night, about strategy, about people, sometimes about survival. Knowledge isn't what you're short of. What your calendar lacks is a room where you can think things through, with no agenda and no audience. That room is what I offer in Executive Coaching: a sparring partner for CEOs, business owners, and senior leaders, direct, confidential, and free of any set program.

Richard Seidl during an executive coaching session, focused and reflective

What Executive Coaching Does for CEOs and Senior Executives

More Clarity

When you lead, everything happens at once: strategy, team, numbers, shareholders, next quarter. Executive Coaching gives you the room your calendar doesn't: to sort, to prioritize, to separate what matters from what merely shouts loudest. So that twenty open questions become the three that count.

Growth

Reading books, going to conferences, listening to podcasts: plenty of people do that. Turning an impulse into a habit that sticks is harder than it sounds. Coaching anchors an insight before the next meeting swallows it.

Reaching Your Goals

Executive Coaching starts from what you want to achieve: a decision, a new role, a team that pulls together again. We work toward that at your pace and by the direct route, instead of spending years on patterns you figured out long ago.

Starting Point

When the System Gets Complex and the Quiet Disappears

Entrepreneurs, CEOs, and executives work inside a system that never stands still. Company goals, employees, customers, shareholders, your own ambitions: all of it pulls in different directions at once. Then there are the questions you can't delegate: Am I still the right person for this role? How do I lead a hybrid team I hardly ever see in person? What do I really want, if I'm honest with myself?

Agile leadership, new work, digitalization, AI: all of it is changing what good leadership means. And all of it lands on your desk on Monday morning as a very concrete question.

And in the middle of that daily churn, one thing is usually missing: the quiet to recalibrate your own compass.

Metaphor for complexity: cliffs and mist representing leadership challenges in executive coaching

Solution

No Advice. Results.

My Executive Coaching follows no template and no standard program that turns into a parade of methods after three sessions.

What you get is a sparring partner who listens, keeps asking the right questions, and helps you develop your own answers. Sometimes that takes friction. Solution-focused, to me, means we look at what it takes for what you've decided to do to happen. Positive thinking alone rarely gets you there.

I bring two things to that table: training as a certified systemic coach and NLP Master Coach, and more than 25 years in IT as a consultant, author, and entrepreneur running my own company. So the questions that keep you up at night are familiar to me from both sides of the desk.

I know your time is scarce. So nothing runs here just because it's part of a package. And what we talk about stays between us.

Clear course: light and horizon as metaphor for strategic direction in executive coaching

The Process

How Executive Coaching Works: From First Conversation to Implementation

A clear sequence that follows your pace.

01

Initial Conversation

A short, open conversation, free and without obligation. We get to know each other, discuss your situation, and check whether and how working together makes sense. Not a sales pitch. Not an elevator pitch. An open conversation that shows whether we're a good fit.

02

Taking Stock

Where are you really, not where you'd like to be? In the first session, we work out your current situation: goals, challenges, patterns that repeat. This is the foundation for everything that follows.

03

Coaching Sessions

Regular sessions (60 to 90 minutes) with a clear focus for each meeting. Perspective shifts, new approaches, concrete decisions: whatever weighs most right now. In person, online, or hybrid, depending on preference.

04

Implementation and Reflection

Coaching doesn't end with the last session of the month. Between appointments, the real work happens: trying things out, implementing, observing. What worked? What didn't? Why? That gets picked up and developed further in the next session.

What Entrepreneurs and Executives Say

Experiences from leaders who have used Executive Coaching.

KB

Katrin Brackmann

"It's all about Mastering Meaning."

"In the coaching process, Richard Seidl is an open-minded and attentive companion who gives his coachee plenty of space, guiding them through structured self-reflection with well-chosen, often pointed questions. Very inspiring! What I particularly appreciate is his calm yet positive and warm presence, which invites a solution-focused and confident outlook."

AS

Andreas Schuster

Energy Transition Company

"Richard, I want to thank you for being my "travel companion" through this. It was a truly wonderful and exciting experience, one I wouldn't want to miss for anything. From not knowing what I wanted at the start to feeling genuinely satisfied and knowing my own value, it was a beautiful journey of discovery. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!"

TH

Theresa H.

Coaching Client

"Richard is a remarkably empathetic person who accompanies the coaching process with expertise and helpful guidance, challenging the coachee to bring out their very best."

Frequently Asked Questions About Executive Coaching

What you want to know before the first conversation. Answered honestly.

Richard Seidl with coffee, in an executive coaching conversation