“Studies consistently show that leaders with a high degree of self-awareness are more effective, empathetic, and capable of inspiring their teams.”
— Forbes, How Self‑Awareness Elevates Leadership Effectiveness
Leadership & Workplace Counseling…All Leaders Welcome
Leadership & Workplace Counseling work is for anyone who leads—formally or informally. That includes start-up founders, corporate executives, nonprofit directors, small business owners, government workers, educators, spiritual/religious leaders—anyone who regularly leads others at any level.
Counseling empowers you to confront the emotional and psychological blocks and barriers that may have been in your way for years, and to reclaim a state of strength, flexibility, and openness.
During my own leadership career, I especially enjoyed mentoring new leaders, and I know that if you are new to a leadership role—or stepping into a more senior opportunity—you may be navigating self-doubt, performance pressure, or the fear of not measuring up. These are common, and they’re worth working through with the right support.
All Workers Welcome
Being part of an organization—any organization—comes with stress, even when you’re part of a healthy organizational culture. Knowing how and when to set boundaries with your employer or colleagues, exploring what might be creating communications challenges with coworkers, determining what work/life balance actually means for you, understanding why you seem to sabotage your own progress—these are themes that commonly surface.
When things aren’t healthy, the impacts can go beyond typical stress and shift into the realms of harassment, abuse, bullying, scapegoating, discrimination, and other toxic factors that can lead to actual trauma and moral injury. Therapy can support you, whether you are focused on becoming more effective in general, or when you are facing the painful effects of a toxic workplace.
In this era of accelerated and continual change, professionals are expected to adapt constantly while managing others, navigating uncertainty, and performing under increasing pressure.
Even high-functioning professionals at any level can feel disoriented, reactive, or disconnected from their own values during a time of such disruption.
Therapy offers space to process, recalibrate, and move forward with greater presence, and to find the internal resources you will need to be effective in the world that is emerging.
Navigate Chaos and Accelerated Change
Find Your Blind Spots
We all have them, but we don’t often get useful feedback on them until it’s too late.
… Challenges connecting with and inspiring team members
… Conflict with peers
… Coming across as inauthentic to clients and customers
… Losing yourself in your work
To name just a few.
While you may be smart and capable, therapy holds up a mirror that helps you really understand the inner dynamics and blockages that can sabotage your success before you even know what happened.
Leadership counseling can help you chart that inner landscape en- route to becoming the leader you truly want to be.
Transform Toxic Workplaces
Workplace bullying, chronic disrespect, discrimination, or abusive leadership can leave lasting psychological and physiological impacts. Many clients come to therapy not realizing that their symptoms—hyper-vigilance, exhaustion, loss of confidence—are the result of sustained exposure to toxic work dynamics.
Recent research shows:
Up to 76% of people who experience workplace harassment report PTSD-like symptoms
Persistent bullying and leadership dysfunction can create effects similar to complex trauma
In healthcare, over 60% of professionals report violence or abuse annually—resulting in burnout, anxiety, and trauma responses
These environments erode trust, create chronic stress states, and often go unprocessed—even after we have left the job.
Therapy can help you:
Name and process the psychological effects of workplace harm and moral injury
Rebuild trust in yourself, your judgment, and your voice
Restore nervous system regulation and reduce reactivity
See through gaslighting and discriminatory behaviors
Set and maintain healthy professional boundaries
Re-enter or re-engage with leadership from a place of strength
Toxic work stress isn’t a personal failing, it’s a serious health risk. Therapy gives you the space to recover, reset, and reimagine what’s next.
For leaders, developing the clarity of values and courage to take on the challenging task of transforming a toxic culture can be directly supported by therapy.
Starting Up, Starting Over, or Sailing Into the Unknown
While there are many aspects of traditional leadership and workplace stress where therapy can help, it can be of the greatest benefit to those who find themselves on a solo and/or non-traditional path:
Starting up a new venture
Reorienting after an unexpected layoff or a sudden exit
Changing careers, industries, or roles (FTE to consultant, for example)
Searching for a vocation that enables you to have a positive impact on society
Championing new approaches to business, government, and leadership that meet the chaotic times we find ourselves in, head on
Few things are as rewarding, but also as isolating, as genuinely charting your own path in this world. Therapy can support you in getting and staying connected with the parts of yourself that will give you the courage and persistence to blaze a new trail during a time when new trails are desperately needed.
Are You an Organizational Misfit?
Organizations value culture fit , that’s no surprise. What do you do, however, when you find that you don’t seem to fit in anywhere? While today’s organizations — whether corporate, NGO, or governmental - may not expect the rigid conformity of decades past, there is always a cultural subtext, and you may find that you never seem to be able to pick up on it. Perhaps you are neurodivergent and struggle with social cues. Maybe you come from a non-traditional background that makes you stand out starkly among others in your workplace. Maybe you are a highly sensitive person in a locker room culture., or a minority of any sort in a culture that lacks diversity and sensitivity -there are so many reasons why we can often feel like misfits in our organizations. Being forced to mask your authentic self in order to fit in can be incredibly stressful, and that stress can create real emotional and physiological challenges over time. Having spent much of my early career masking my true nature in corporate environments, I am passionate about helping others find their path to authentic expression.
How Does Counseling Help?
Common Leadership & Workplace Challenges I Help With:
Burnout and emotional reactivity
Stress that manifests somatically or relationally
Unexpected transitions: exits, layoffs, retirement, promotions
Ongoing interpersonal conflicts and communications challenges
Isolation and loneliness in senior roles
Impostor syndrome and fear of stepping up
Difficulty setting or maintaining boundaries
Impacts of toxic workplace dynamics
A desire to lead with clarity, vision, and integrity
How Therapy Supports Leadership:
Build nervous system resilience and stress capacity
Understand and shift emotional habits and internal narratives
Improve relational presence—with your team, your peers, and your loved ones
Address the trauma of workplace abuse and harassment
Reconnect with clarity, confidence, and inner steadiness
Overcome long-standing internal blocks that limit effectiveness or fulfillment
I’ve Been There
I spent 25+ years as a corporate product development and design executive in both tech start-ups and larger enterprises. Having led through all stages of the business cycle, from funding and start-up, to exit via IPO and M&A, I’ve had the opportunity to gain a unique perspective that few other therapists have. I understand the pressures that leaders and professionals face, and the reality of the isolation that can come with leadership roles. I’ve also felt what it was like to be a corporate misfit at times.
Having worked in both incredibly healthy—and incredibly toxic—organizational cultures, and with an incredible spectrum of fellow professionals I have seen the profound impacts that abusive co-workers and toxic cultures can have on people. I have seen far too many endure that suffering in silence and shame, often blaming themselves for the organizational dysfunction around them.
I understand the burdens that leaders carry, because I spent most of my life shouldering those burdens—sometimes joyfully, sometimes not. Many professionals are reluctant to enter counseling because they feel their therapist simply won’t understand the unique challenges they face each day. You may find it empowering to work with a therapist who gets it because they’ve lived it.
When Coaching Isn’t Enough
Why Counseling… and How It Differs
During my own evolution as a corporate leader, I benefitted greatly from both executive coaching, and personal therapy. Each has its unique benefits.
Executive coaching is designed to optimize performance.
Leadership counseling goes deeper. It helps you explore how emotional patterns, chronic stress, past traumas, and relational dynamics shape your leadership from the inside out. If you’re currently working with an executive coach, I welcome collaboration. Counseling and coaching can be powerful partners.
Beyond leadership issues, many people are struggling with the emotional effects of toxic workplaces, abusive bosses and peers, feeling like an outsider or misfit, and many other work-related issues that can have profound and long-lasting emotional impacts.