Sharon Strickland-Clark is a Leadership & Business Performance Coach, supporting personal development and building confidence to make bold and brave decisions in business. Sharon Strickland-Clark’s journey to becoming a leadership coach has been quite an adventure. After spending about a decade as a full-time mum to three high-energy children, she embarked on a new chapter that she hoped would blend her personal passions with her professional ambitions.
Thank you for interviewing with us today, can you introduce yourself to us?
My back-to-work journey began with a deep introspection about what truly mattered to me. I was determined to avoid the ‘needs must’ employment trap that many of my friends and family had fallen into. With my three little ‘whys’ – my children – as my inspiration, I sought a path that would bring meaningful and fulfilling work into my life.
A pivotal moment was when I encouraged Kim, my husband’s long-standing cleaning lady, to pursue bigger and better opportunities. Her success story and gratitude were profoundly rewarding and cemented my desire to make a significant impact on others.
Transitioning into coaching felt natural to me, given my lifelong inclination towards leadership and responsibility, often finding myself in such roles from a young age. This seamless progression from coachee to coach was facilitated by an organisation that recognised my potential and encouraged me to train as a coach.
Today, my insatiable curiosity and commitment to excellence drive me to continually deepen my knowledge in leadership coaching. I divide my time between coaching and a continued pursuit of expanding my knowledge, which has led to a number of qualifications, including being an ICF Professional Certified Coach, a High Flow Coach, a Neuroscience of Coaching Practitioner, and I’m currently working on advanced qualifications in Executive Coaching and Mentoring, as well as Systemic Team Coaching.
My coaching approach is deeply rooted in research and science, drawing from psychology, neuroscience, and systems thinking to provide the most effective and efficient solutions for my clients. Inspired by Daniel Pink’s insight that there is often a mismatch between what science knows and what business does, I strive to bridge that gap by offering tailored, in-depth coaching that goes beyond superficial solutions.
I primarily work with business founders, senior executives, and their teams, focusing on leadership development and collaborative team culture. I believe that the quality of leadership is the cornerstone of success in any endeavour. By establishing solid principles and tools, I equip my clients, and their businesses, to become ‘future fit’ and ready to tackle any challenge that comes their way.
In essence, my mission is to support leaders and their people in unlocking their full potential, ensuring that they achieve not just good results, but exceptional ones.
Can you take us through your journey to where you are now?
There’s a longer backstory with my Edinburgh roots and studying as a mature student, but my coaching journey really began in my determination to return to meaningful and fulfilling work after a career break as a full-time Mum. My husband, who wasn’t happy being a ‘wage slave’ pushed me very hard to find something I love, not just a job. We clashed a little over the practicalities of this for a while and I sought coaching myself to find some answers. That set off a chain of events which saw me increasingly inspired by the work of the coaches and the organisation in which they worked … one thing led to another and before I knew it I was being asked to train as an ICF accredited coach and take on some of their clients.
Since starting, have you made any changes to your business model?
Fundamentally, my ‘product’, the coaching, remains unchanged. I know I’m refining the tools and the approach and I’m very confident that my clients are getting great value and many times return on their investment. What’s changing is how I run coaching as a business. I will admit to a wee internal conflict between the need to promote the business and my natural resistance to ‘look at me!’ self-promotion. I’m having to get over this as I’m developing programmes to give clients easier access to some of my materials and courses. These group programmes and self-service materials will require some level of marketing promotion to let people know they’re available, so I’ll have to get over my resistance and become a little better at marketing my materials.
Have you ever had a mentor? If so, how has this benefitted you either personally or professionally?
Not all coaches enter the market with recognised certifications and qualifications, but apart from my natural inclination to keep learning, I was determined that I wanted to tick as many of the credibility boxes as I could. So I’ve had numerous teachers and mentors in terms of formal education. I started my coaching journey with ‘One of Many’ and I did learn a great deal from Dr Joanna Martin who runs that organisation. Others include the mentors and coaches that supported me on my ICF accreditation journey, the trainers and supervisors who supported my continued learning and development as a professional coach and business mentor. There is actually a large (and growing) number of people who have variously supported me in getting to where I am today. I can’t imagine doing this work without them and I will always have a coach/mentor/supervisor supporting my professional growth. I believe that is fundamental to serving my clients well and I am certain I couldn’t have achieved anything like what I have without their guidance.
What outlets do you use for marketing?
As I suggested above, there’s nothing fancy going on in my marketing. I’m a believer that the message is much more important than the channel, so I focus most of my communication on a small number of channels, primarily LinkedIn, email communication and a teeny bit on Facebook.
What or Who has inspired you most recently?
Oh, where to start? As my husband would gleefully tell you, I am currently in the process of turning our house into a library, with new books arriving every week. In business, and because of the aforementioned resistance to promoting my work, I continue to be impressed and inspired by the writings and teachings of Daniel Priestley – he has a talent for boiling concepts down to principles and action steps which seem so amazingly clear and simple, one is tempted to write them off as too obvious – but he just always seems to hit the nail on the head.
I am currently reading ‘Your Body is your Brain’ by Amanda Blake. Following on from my neuroscience training, I’ve been reading a lot about how everything is connected, how we are “a system made up of lots of systems” (Ellen Langer Ph.D), the principal focus being, to maintain a thriving state – I counsel my clients to place equal emphasis on wellbeing and active recovery, not as a counterbalance to high performance, but as a prerequisite.
What is the best piece of business advice you have received to date?
The single most impactful piece of advice I have been given to date stems from the work I’ve done on flow. Understanding how to interpret what is going on inside my head as I approach a task, activity or decision has given me incredible clarity and purposefulness. It has taught me not just how to do things but also what to say no to. And when you are a coach who gets a sense of achievement from helping others, saying no, well that’s not always easy! If I had to break that down into one piece of advice, I’d say have a purposeful vision, a set of collaboratively designed clear goals, and lead each person in the business in the pursuit of one unified purposeful pursuit.
How do you create an evenly balanced work and personal life?
Not so long ago I observed one of my mentors hit what looked like a burnout implosion – this was something of an irony as her own teachings were directed at avoiding exactly that and that speaks to just how hard it can be to walk one’s talk. I remain determined, regardless of how busy I get, that I will make time to ensure my own needs are met as a priority. This is how I walk my talk and schedule time out – my local health club is my sanctuary and I make time for a swim, sauna and decompress several times a week. With three kids and a husband, it doesn’t always go to plan. I gave up drinking alcohol at the beginning of 2023 – and given where I grew up, alcohol was a big part of our social culture so I thought it would be harder, but I’ve never looked back. I had my nutrition analysed and as a result have cut out a few things from my diet that I didn’t know caused a bad reaction. I take some key supplements, manage my sleep as well as I can and try to make sure I take time out at the weekend. I am fortunate that I love my work so I never feel the need to have hard boundaries – even at the weekend I ambush my husband with conversations about my next ideas for coaching or self-service programmes – so I tend to avoid talking about balance, I prefer to regard them as being symbiotic, inherently linked, mutually beneficial, and yet function independently of each other. For me the symbiosis of life and work is about loving the whole journey and knowing what is and is not good for me.
Name a seminal point in your career so far?
It’s hard to pick out one thing – my career feels like progress up a staircase – a series of small steps which collectively have taken me to a successive series of new levels. If I had to pick something that made a transformational change for me, I think I would say the courses from the Flow Research Collective. As I mentioned earlier, learning their theories, strategies and processes have given me great clarity and direction for my work. I learned what it is to be able to create and manage one’s own ‘flow state’ and then subsequently apply that to whatever pursuit or endeavour is currently on your agenda. This part of my journey was a massive game changer and (you may start to spot a pattern emerging here) put me on the path to gaining my qualification as one of their Certified High Flow Coaches! The greatest surprise was the impact it has had on my wellbeing. I accidentally discovered that in practising some of the techniques in areas of my life that I believed would have “minimal impact”, actually transformed my entire relationship with myself. And that set the stage for a whole new level of working too!
What gives you ultimate career satisfaction?
I love seeing my clients step into a new reality, well outside of the boundaries within which they used to operate. I’ve had clients who have written and published books, one who negotiated the sale of his one-man business for several million pounds, and numerous other transformational changes. But the reward doesn’t have to be the huge headline achievements; as a coach, just seeing the progress of my clients brings joy. And in my mentoring work, sharing my fairly unique perspective, being invited to “keep talking because I learn so much each time you speak” and seeing the impact of my contributions is a huge driver for me. The greatest satisfaction though, and the reason I so love what I do is when a client tells me how the business or leadership coaching has led to a transformational change to a personal situation that we haven’t even discussed. I can walk on air for several days on the strength of those conversations.
Are there any leading entrepreneurs or SME leaders that you admire and if so, why?
Aargh, there have been so many I want to acknowledge here, I’m not sure where to start! I love the SME space, particularly those businesses that are scaling in exciting and often somewhat terrifying ways. I’ve had the privilege of meeting some great leaders who understand that the journey is filled with uncertainty and that the best laid plans must be highly adaptable, they must keep working on their own learning and development as well as investing in their people. I’m inspired by leaders who understand the need to be confident and also humble, to let their entirely human ‘beingness’ be seen. And they challenge me to raise my own standards to meet these people where they are so that I can support them in their purposeful pursuits.
Currently, I’m following influencers like, Brené Brown, Ellen Langer, Steven Kotler, and Simon Sinek. I love that they work so passionately to constantly hone their craft and their commitment to improving the lives of the people they serve.
Given the confidential nature of my work, I can’t name them but every one of my clients, incredible humans who lead with great passion, inspire me in every interaction I have with them. Yeah, I know that sounds cheesy, but I really mean it. The greatest joy of my life is seeing the unfolding of what’s possible for them.
How do you define your own success?
It really is about the success of my clients. Most of us operate within a boundary of what we believe possible – like the field of play defined by the white lines on a sports pitch. When I work with clients we start to re-draw those lines, or remove them completely. I see the confidence, pride, fulfilment and even joy that arises from taking these courageous steps, moving from ‘it’s not possible’, or ‘I can’t’ to ‘I just did!’ is its own best reward. That’s it – that’s really my only measure of success – I really don’t look for anything more than that.
Finally, what can we expect from you next?
I am focused on two things just now:
Firstly, I continue to focus on leadership coaching. Good leaders who want to be great, really need someone walking the path with them. They also must become coaches and bring their teams on the journey. But while I work primarily in business, there is no doubt in my mind that the skills required for great leadership are the same skills required for a great life. Leadership coaching is about becoming a flourishing human who leads others in the pursuit of creating something greater than the sum of their parts. It demands a number of core skills which are the raw materials of exceptionally high quality leaders – I’ll give you an example: Right now, we are in a vortex of overlapping, interconnected revolutions in technology, climate, economy, and science and, for lots of these and other reasons, people are under pressure, even high achievers are living lives of quiet desperation and people need the reassurance of strong leadership to feel OK. So, arguably, one of the most important qualities of leadership right now is to be prepared for an uncertain future. This requires an unravelling of traditional leadership styles that are just no longer fit for the world we live in. A hangover from a largely ego-driven, succeed at all costs culture that has, with mixed levels of success (depending on your perspective), brought us to where we are today. We have learned, I believe, a lot about people that predict the future. We know that anybody predicting how the World is going to change must declare their position and dare to place a bet – everything on red, or black or whatever. When they win, it’s highly intoxicating. When they lose, it’s mercilessly painful. Future fit leaders will be those who can calmly analyse, prepare for and respond to the many variables that an unpredictable future is likely to throw at them. The leaders who are able to assess, plan, strategise, change course and communicate will continue to perform well, continue to guide teams and unite stakeholders regardless of the circumstances. With these core skills I can show people how to achieve whatever ‘peak performance’ means for them while being healthy, happy and human.
My next area of focus is very closely related: I really want to make a difference in how working hard for something can be done while also living well, so one of my areas of focus is how to create self-service materials and group programmes which can reach more people – while one-to-one coaching is fulfilling, it comes with serious bandwidth limitations!
One of the ways I hope to do this is by producing more accessible programmes for groups which make for a lower barrier to entry and the potential to help more people. We’ll eventually have self-service digital content which will form part of a larger package of coaching, mentoring and training for leaders and their teams.
“Sharon is an extraordinary coach who balances holding her clients to account with great compassion. Our clients were always incredibly grateful for her coaching. I’m so lucky to have had her support as we built One of Many.” Dr Joanna Martin
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sharonstricklandclark
