Richard Black
Executive Coach for Senior Leaders.
Pressure creates patterns.
Patterns shape performance.
You are performing well, and your role is growing. A wider portfolio, business growth or a new mandate brings fresh decisions about where to focus, how to influence and what to leave with others.
Or you are carrying too much. Decisions keep coming back to you. A difficult relationship needs attention. Your team depends on you more than the role now allows.
I help you recognise and shift your responses under pressure, make clearer calls and build greater ownership around you.
I bring more than 40 years of leadership experience, including leading across 15 countries. I know the demands of a wider role and the limits of personally carrying every issue.
Let’s talk about what your role needs from you now.
Does any of this sound familiar?
You are performing well and taking on a wider role or portfolio.
You are building a business or leading growth alongside the demands of your current work.
Your responsibilities now require more influence across people, teams or competing interests.
Everything still comes back to you.
The operational work is crowding out the strategic work.
Your team needs to step up, but you keep stepping back in.
There is a conversation you know you need to have.
You need somewhere confidential to think through your next decisions.
A growing role brings pressure, even when things are going well. Coaching gives you space to recognise the patterns shaping your decisions and relationships, strengthen ownership around you and choose where your attention belongs.
What leaders say changed
Over-carrying and ownership
Richard helped me move from acting as a ‘referee’ between team members to setting clearer expectations, decision frameworks, and accountability.
Patrick Pengel, MD
Difficult conversations and trust
He helped me build awareness of my energy, regulate my responses, and make conscious choices, especially in challenging moments.
Sana Ragbir, Deputy CEO
Bigger role and transition
Working with Richard helped me navigate a significant career transition with more clarity and confidence.
Executive Management,
Energy Sector
I work primarily with senior leaders across the Caribbean, and selectively with leaders elsewhere. They have done well, earned trust and taken on significant responsibilities.
Some are performing well and want space to think through a wider role, business growth or a new mandate. Others find themselves carrying too much, facing a difficult relationship or leading a team which still depends too heavily on them.
Pressure shapes how you respond in both situations.
Knowing the detail, solving problems quickly and staying close to decisions often help you succeed. As your responsibilities grow, you need to choose where to apply those strengths and where others need room to take ownership.
Under pressure, you might step in too quickly, over-prepare, put off a difficult conversation or become more guarded when a relationship is under strain. Over time, these responses affect your judgement, trust and the space you have to lead.
My work helps you recognise these patterns, decide which still serve you and change the ones getting in your way.
Sometimes we work through priorities and stakeholder relationships as you take on a larger mandate. Sometimes we look at leaving a decision where the responsibility belongs, setting clearer expectations or having a conversation you have been putting off.
I bring more than 40 years of leadership experience across oil and gas, software, financial services and organisational transformation. I have led businesses, large teams and regional operations across Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
At one point, I was leading across 15 countries. I learned the limits of personally carrying every issue or making every important decision. Leading at this scale required clearer choices about my attention and greater responsibility from others.
I also learned to examine my own contribution when something was going wrong. This still shapes how I work with leaders today.
I understand the pressure from inside the role: making difficult calls with incomplete information, working across competing interests and knowing when to step in and when to leave responsibility with someone else.
Coaching gives us a confidential place to examine your decisions, relationships and responses under pressure. We work through what your role requires, what to retain, what to change and where your attention is best spent.
Supporting a senior leader or executive team?
An experienced leader is taking on a wider role, leading growth or working through a new business mandate.
Too many decisions are escalating back to one executive.
Stakeholder tension is starting to affect trust or execution.
The organisation is becoming too dependent on one senior leader.
I work with organisations to give leaders a thinking partner as they grow, prepare for wider responsibilities or work through a new mandate. Coaching also addresses patterns affecting judgement, relationships and ownership.
The coaching relationship remains confidential.