Researcher Coaching
I specialise in coaching interventions for researchers, academics and professionals in Higher Education & research environments.
I offer one-to-one confidential coaching interventions to individuals in need of an external stimulus to challenge their inner conversations.
What is Researcher Coaching?
Coaching is a form of support focused on identifying solutions to specific challenges that individuals face.
It is based on non-judgmental conversations that allow researchers to reflect on issues.
Coaching focuses on the very issues that are hindering the progression of an individual towards fuller research potential or making their work context particularly challenging.
Coaching does not hand over solutions. It is much more potent as it offers you the tools to explore your own solutions to your challenges.
Coaching is about holding the space for you to experiment and reframe thinking.
“Coaching is a way for individuals to think aloud through probing questions and the guidance of thinking tools and models to structure the reflection process.”
Priorities pile up
Your responsibilities and commitments seem to have become endless. All your tasks seem urgent and important. You feel pulled in too many directions. Too many people want different things from you and you have lost track of what you want for yourself.
Messiness of the interpersonal stuff
Research leadership means working in teams. Working with others can feel like such hard work. You’re still finding your feet in figuring out how to motivate and lead others in research. You want to do this well, without depleting your own energy.
Decision paralysis
You have so many decisions to make in your research life; you’ve started to overthink things and you’re feeling wobbly with your next round of decisions. You’re not really sure who could help and who to talk to.
Seeking clarity
Coaching helps you untangle issues that have crowded your thinking, so that you can focus your energy on what matters to you most.
Setting strategic goals
Coaching is about forward looking to encourage you to reflect and take actions. It motivates you to be bold in being ruthless prioritising goals.
Increasing confidence
Tackling limiting beliefs and negative thoughts will help you take actions, move towards new opportunities and dare difficult conversations.
Thinking aloud
Coaching helps to streamline and speed up the discovery of solutions to your challenges. It encourages you to explore different ways of thinking to open up more meaningful solutions.
Exploring purpose
In periods of personal and professional transitions, coaching helps you in re-evaluating bigger goals, values and purposes to simplify decisions you have to make.
Motivating others
You want to do a good job at working well with others, but it is hard. Coaching helps to reflect deeply on how you engage with others to ease interactions and build trust.
What have you achieved as a result of the coaching intervention?
What do you get from working with me?
A safe and confidential space to reflect creatively about your work and life.
Thinking tools to carve your own bold solutions.
The ability to give yourself permission to generate new ideas, switch perspectives and reveal alternatives.
A supportive but challenging accountability to set into motion your reflections and actions.
Whatever challenges you are facing, we will tackle them one at a time, so you feel energised through new ways of looking at your situation and context.
Although I focus my practice on coaching individuals working in the Higher Education and research sector, I welcome coaching clients from all walks of life.
How do I describe my coaching philosophy?
My coaching values are anchored in respect and integrity.
I seek to empower individuals to regain independence and autonomy from set views and identify new, more effective and rewarding patterns for actions and interactions.
I am an expressive, enthusiastic and dynamic coach, who wants to “rock your boat”
I give individuals a sense of openness to all options and possibilities.
As a foreign national having worked all my career abroad, I understand what it feels like to adapt to working and living in a different country; this certainly helps me as a coach working with researchers having international careers.
My coaching credentials
I started coaching in 2012 following my participation in some coaching training.
I am an EMCC accredited coach at Senior Practitioner level and certified coach through the ILM Level 7 in Executive Coaching and Mentoring.
I am a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and of the Sheffield Coaching Exchange.
I take my coaching professional development seriously through continuous reading, workshop participation and coaching supervision.
Testimonials from coaching clients
What aspects of the coaching intervention particularly helped you?
Being challenged on my current thought process, and the beliefs I had in place for what I wanted to achieve, and the way I wanted to achieve it. Having someone to question why I was thinking in a certain way, or aiming for a certain thing, to get me to think about this in a deeper way.
Coaching was great at crystallising my wishy-washy ideas and turning them into a series of small achievable actions that I can do right now. I also found it very helpful to be able to carve out time to reflect on the ‘big picture’ of my research and career plans. I spend so much time rushing from one task to the next that it is great to have the space for reflection and planning.
Explaining things that seemed difficult for me to someone else was already a big part of the work. Explaining who I am, how I interact with the world and what’s important for me was part of it, but then I had from Sandrine an external perspective, a different approach to things and questions that opened my mind to new solutions.
Sandrine really helped me unpick why some tasks (like writing papers) make me feel anxious and why I feel overwhelmed when I remember I have to do them. Knowing why this is doesn't immediately solve the problem, but it made me feel like I'm in control of the situation now. I feel more confident in my ability to make decisions and finish difficult tasks.
Sandrine also helped me reflect on how I think about myself as an academic and what assumptions I hold about what a good academic looks like. She was very patient and didn't rush me at all when I tried to articulate those largely automatic/unconscious beliefs. Thinking aloud was a very useful exercise for me. It made me realise what expectations I have of myself and others (even though it was uncomfortable to admit it to myself). This has helped me value some skills I took for granted more and gave me the confidence to advocate for my career progression.
The coaching intervention offered several key elements that significantly aided my progress. Foremost, the personalized one-on-one space and time provided a haven for genuine engagement with my thoughts. This environment allowed for uninterrupted listening and genuine understanding, which was truly refreshing. Furthermore, the straightforward yet impactful advice proved invaluable. Learning to give myself permission to ease up and concentrate on what truly mattered was a game-changer. I particularly appreciated the spontaneous questions posed during sessions, as they compelled me, as an overthinker, to focus and worry less. Notably, Sandrine's unique approach and wealth of expertise were evident in every interaction, fostering insightful perspectives and fostering a growth-oriented mindset within our coaching relationship.
We identified some of the reasons I was finding time management difficult and some of the underlying reasons for those. This definitely changed my thinking on what my issues are and so helped me make strategies that worked around my own barriers instead of just assuming I was simply bad at time management.
Space to uncover my issues for myself, with specific pushing when I got stuck. Some very direct suggestions on how to address them.
I was able to get reassuring feedbacks on my thoughts and actions. I was able to share my thoughts and plans, however, tentative these were. Working on a 1-2-1 basis and having the protected time to think about my coaching and/or professional development needs. I also found it helpful to have a neutral sounding board separate from my department so that I could discuss issues I had been experiencing. 1:1 conversation in private. Online meeting – as it just happened that online was more convenient for me at that time.
Talking through my research trajectory helped me to realize that I was now in a different situation to the past; this helped me to think about the future. Some of the insights of the New Research Leader programme (especially those from the Vox Coaching session), the experience of writing a research proposal, and the support of three colleagues at work had all helped; in the coaching session I was able to articulate this and make plans. Doing all this helps me to leave a lot of the shame I felt about my work (and about not doing research) behind.
I found all our discussions extremely helpful and I came out of each of the three sessions with a list of actionable points that I have been reflecting on and have since been applying or trying to apply to my professional and personal life. One thing I can point out as particularly helpful was our discussion on the process of building creativity in view of the Belbin Team Roles. Sandrine encouraged me to think of ways to use and take advantage of my "Implementer traits" to be doing the things that people with "Plant traits" find easy to do. One key thing that came out of this was creating thinking space for myself during my normal working hours, rather than taking this time off the time that I spend with my family.
Having someone listen without judgement and then offer solutions but in a challenging way (i.e. need to adapt behaviours to improve and make positive changes) was very helpful. Each session we tackled a particular issue (meeting a big funding deadline, managing PhD students, general time management) and I felt positive at the end. Things that seem so simple that I had not considered previously are really useful strategies.
Guided me on my fellowship interview and troubles I encountered in my work.