I coach leaders who are "doing all the right things,” yet still feel stuck. I'm here to support you in your efforts to corale, guide, motivate, and empower your people. As a leader. Together, we'll work through the internal patterns—shame, fragmentation, old coping—that keep your most important goals from emerging. At the same time, I'll help you navigate the relational and systemic forces you need to be steering as a leader in your life. # Coaching for leaders Most coaching traffics in uplift. - “Become the best version of yourself.” - “Rewrite your own narrative.” - “Set your intention and the universe will respond.” - “The only limits are the ones you create.” To which I say, "what ridiculous, self-aggrandizing, individualistic crap." You don’t have bootstraps. And if you did, no amount of pulling on them would meaningfully change your life—except, perhaps, a herniated disk from all the straining. As a leader, there's a lot you're already good at. You're smart. You have good ideas. You work hard. You solve problems—maybe better than anyone else in your life or your organization. And that's your problem: despite your best efforts, you're struggling to activate, enliven, motivate, and "turn on" the people around you. You need to enroll others in your vision so they help you carry the water. That's where I can help. > [!abstract] **Who is this for?** > - Leaders facing transition—organizational changes, life changes, destabilizing events > - Visionaries tired of pushing string up hill, on their own > - > [**Schedule a conversation**](https://fantastical.app/camcarrick/introduction) # **Turning conflict and shame into momentum** Leaders get stuck on what I call “the unfavorables”: frozen by shame, burdened by unprocessed grief, interrupted by broken trust, or old coping patterns take over. You feel like you have to hide your doubts from your team. We'd all rather hide these pieces of ourselves. Nonetheless, it is these parts of ourselves that we need to look at if we want our lives to feel different. But it gets awfully dark and crowded in their, doesn't it? Alone, we'll never “find answers within.” We find them *in deep relationship and loving challenge*. If you had everything you needed, you’d have done it by now, don’t you think? That’s what I create in our coaching relationship. > [!abstract] **How we can work together** > I offer two ways of working, depending on the kind of support you’re looking for. > > **Integrative Coaching (6 months)** > A structured, in-depth engagement focused on internal patterns, relational dynamics, and sustained change. > > **Leadership Support (monthly)** > Ongoing, lower-commitment support for leaders navigating transitions and relational complexity. > > We’ll talk through which option fits during an initial conversation. # What to expect from a coaching relationship **Nourishing challenge.** One of my mentors has what he calls a “sacred prayer” for shame, and it goes like this: “FUCK SHAME”. (Which, I admit, is a little shaming in its way). But the sentiment remains. One of the mechanisms that keeps us stuck in organizations is shame. So expect to encounter your shame in the course of our work. It won’t be comfortable, but we will make it as safe as possible. Our container is more what I like to call "brave space"[^1] — a container where discomfort doesn’t mean something’s wrong; it means something real is happening. Shame will show up in our work. So will resistance. That’s expected. My job is to help you meet those moments without collapsing or abandoning yourself. **Accountability.** - “Hold me accountable, would you?” - “I’ll hold you accountable to that.” Nope. I won’t check in with you to see if you did your homework on Monday morning. Accountability comes from you. Together we’ll set goals. Ideally, you’ll “fail". I’ll be there to help recognize those patterns; to notice when you drift, rationalize, or self-betray—and ask you to try again. Stop outsourcing your agency. Own it. **Responsibility.** Responsibility: “the ability to respond.” So much keeps us dull to our capacity to respond. - shame - mistrust - broken trust - fear - anxiety I see my role as your coach, in part, to help you increase your ability to respond. The truth is that you have a beautiful life and it deserves your attention. **Integrity.** From the Latin *integer*, meaning “whole, complete.” Integrity carries the idea of disparate parts moving together toward eachother to become a larger “one”. The real question behind integrity is, “am I who I want to be in the world?” I’l hold you to develop robust answers to this question. > [!abstract] **Outcomes from this type of work:** > Over time, people I work with often notice shifts like: > - Less internal drag when making decisions > - Greater capacity to stay present in difficult conversations without shutting down or over-functioning > - Clearer access to what actually matters—beyond urgency, obligation, or role expectations > - Reduced shame and fragmentation—parts of themselves no longer pulling in opposite directions > - More sustainable leadership energy, especially under relational or organizational pressure > - A felt sense of alignment between inner values and outward action > > These changes tend to show up gradually and practically—in how you speak, decide, relate, and recover. **Curious what this work feels like in practice?** > [!link] [Schedule a conversation](https://fantastical.app/camcarrick/introduction) >[!bio] About Cam > I’ve never belonged neatly to one world. My development as a coach comes out of the intersections of organizational life and deep emotional work—two environments that rarely speak the same language but need each other desperately. > > For more than a decade, I’ve worked inside organizations navigating politics, leadership tensions, restructures, performance stress, and the subtle pressures that slowly bend people away from themselves. I hold an M.A. in Organization Development & Leadership, and I’ve co-authored books on what helps humans actually thrive at work—not just perform well. > > At the same time, an equally long thread in my life has been devoted to grief, men’s work, shame resilience, and spiritual practice. I’m trained as a grief tender, certified in shame and courage work, and have spent years in circles where people tell the truth about their lives with a kind of precision you rarely see in professional spaces. > > The coaching I offer is born from these two lineages: the strategic clarity of OD and the emotional rigor of depth work. I’m not interested in manufacturing breakthroughs or selling a story of self-optimization. My work is much quieter, and much harder: helping people stay in honest relationship with themselves, especially in the places where they’ve historically split, performed, or gone numb. > > ### My training & influence > #### Core Training & Certifications > Grief work (Francis Weller, Malidoma & Sobonfu Somé) > Shame resilience & courage (Brené Brown) > Organization Development & Leadership (M.A., Group process facilitation) > > #### Influences > Parts work (Internal Family Systems) > Meaning-making (George Lakoff, phenomenology) > Artistic recovery (Julia Cameron) > Somatics > [!link] If you feel pulled toward this work, you can schedule a conversation [here](https://fantastical.app/camcarrick/introduction). --- **Notes:** [^1]: "Bravespace" comes from the work of Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens, Diana Ali, in educational spaces. It is also the title of a [book](https://www.amazon.ca/Bravespace-Workplace-Making-Company-Human/dp/1938548434) I co-authored with my mentor.