• About

What is Executive Leadership Coaching?

Executive Leadership Coaching is a strategic, goal-oriented partnership designed to help leaders strengthen their capabilities, elevate performance, and expand their ability to influence and inspire others. It is especially valuable for leaders stepping into new roles, navigating transitions, or pursuing continued growth.

Effective coaching requires more than generic guidance—it demands a coach with deep, relevant leadership experience who understands the realities, pressures, and complexities of executive life. A seasoned coach brings practical insight, situational awareness, and the ability to translate leadership theory into real-world action.

The coaching experience blends assessments, targeted feedback, goal-setting, skill-building, and consistent support. Together, we identify opportunities for development, clarify priorities, and create a customized coaching plan aligned with the leader’s most important challenges and aspirations.

Throughout the engagement, leaders receive ongoing guidance, accountability, and practical tools to put insights into action. Executive Leadership Coaching empowers leaders to unlock their full potential—and, in turn, drive meaningful organizational impact.

What does a leadership coach actually do?

  • Helps professionals and businesses clarify their goals and focus on their needs, values and vision
  • Guides the clients to better understand their strengths, gaps, and potential blind spots
  • Works closely with the clients to consider various options and generate strategies for action
  • Holds the clients accountable to what they commit to do, thereby generating momentum
  • Supports clients in maintaining a healthy balance between their personal and professional lives
Who Benefits from Leadership Coaching? Leaders who are:
  • New to a company or organization
  • Taking on new assignment or a broader more complex role
  • Looking to build trust, inspire others and connect more authentically with their teams
  • Already high-performing but want to take it to the next level
  • Looking to define their legacy or shape succession planning for an organization

Measurable Benefits of Leadership Coaching

For senior leaders, the stakes—and the expectations—are high. Leadership coaching has become a proven catalyst for accelerating performance at the top of the organization, especially during moments that matter: stepping into a broader role, leading through transformation, building a high-performing team, or breaking through a performance plateau. Research shows that targeted, experience-based coaching drives measurable improvements in decision-making, influence, alignment, and execution. Stakeholders consistently report meaningful—and often significant—advances in the effectiveness of leaders who engage in coaching.

John Burt

Owner | Managing Partner

Meet John Burt

John Burt is an executive and leadership coach dedicated to helping executives, senior leaders and teams elevate their influence, presence, and impact. Drawing on more than three decades of enterprise leadership experience, John partners with executives to strengthen their ability to lead through complexity, build and inspire trust, and drive performance across their organizations.

Before establishing his coaching practice, John held senior leadership roles that spanned strategy, business operations, technology innovation, and organizational transformation. His career included leading enterprise-scale initiatives that improved strategic alignment, operational excellence, accelerated growth, and enabled sustainable cultural change. This firsthand experience navigating both strategic business and human challenges informs his pragmatic and results-oriented coaching style.

John’s coaching focuses on three core areas: developing leadership presence and confidence, enhancing communication and building trust, and managing change and conflict effectively. He works with leaders who want to sharpen their executive influence, those ready to move beyond just managing teams to inspire entire organizations. His clients describe his approach as calm, insightful, and deeply strategic—combining empathy with accountability to help them uncover blind spots, strengthen decision-making, and lead with clarity and confidence.

With a systems mindset and a passion for innovation, John integrates frameworks from neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and organizational psychology into his coaching. He helps leaders not only achieve measurable outcomes but also expand their awareness and adaptability—the hallmarks of resilient, future-ready leadership. His four-stage methodology encourages clients to align their leadership behaviors with their values, transforming how they show up and engage at every level of the business. His clients often describe their work with him as “transformational,” noting not only professional breakthroughs but also renewed purpose and confidence.

John’s work has spanned industries including technology, manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services. He has partnered with Fortune 500 executives, mid-career and emerging leaders, and leadership teams across North America and internationally. In each engagement, his goal remains consistent: to create meaningful growth that drives both individual fulfillment and organizational success.

John holds Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Science from Cal Poly. Pomona as well as advanced certifications in executive and leadership coaching, including an International Coaching Federation (ICF) ACC Credential and a Master Certified Intelligent Leaderhship Executive Coaching certificate; he is committed to maintaining the highest professional standards in his practice. John is based in Pasadena, California.

My philosophy:

My path to leadership coaching began long before I called myself a coach. It started in the rooms where decisions were made, strategies were debated, and leaders were stretched to their limits. Over the course of my consulting and corporate career, I noticed a consistent truth: technical expertise might open the door, but leadership presence, communication, and the ability to influence are what determine success.

Again and again, I saw talented leaders struggling not because they lacked intelligence or drive, but because they were navigating pressure, conflict, and competing expectations without the support or clarity they needed. I watched organizations lose momentum because leaders weren’t aligned. I saw high-potential individuals derail under stress because their instinctive patterns took over. And I saw how the right conversation — at the right moment — could change everything.

That is why I coach.

I believe leadership isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about how you show up when the stakes are high. It’s about trust, presence, and the ability to move people — not through authority, but through influence. My “why” is to help leaders unlock that capacity, so they can lead with clarity, integrity, and confidence.

I coach because I care about the ripple effect. When a leader gains self-awareness, communicates with intention, or manages conflict skillfully, teams thrive. Cultures shift. Organizations grow. And people around them experience more meaning and less friction in their work.

My purpose is simple:

To help leaders show up at their best — consistently, authentically, and with impact.

Because when leaders grow, everything around them grows. 

Client Results

I have taken many leadership courses, but something clicked for me in this one. The word “must”. Who must I be? What leader must I be? It really challenged me to examine my core purpose in a clear and actionable way. John was always highly prepared and supremely organized and had a seamless grasp and confidence with the material which made you at home with processing their expertise. This program was life-changing. Thank You. — Robin H., Director of Development

Our School of Pharmacy is in the initial phases of updating our strategic plan.  This was a perfect time for us to bring in an expert in leadership development, and John Burt was the perfect prescription for us.  Our leadership team benefited from the workshop and exercises that John designed and brought to us, and he incorporated personal assessments for understanding our personal strengths and how they will contribute to a more dynamic and effective team.  John brought a wealth of experience from industry and coupled that with his in-depth understanding and experience with higher education, which was the perfect mix for us and what we needed to kick start our process.  I highly recommend John!  — Dr. Russ Melchert, Dean UMKC School of Pharmacy

Client Testimonial Executive Coaching
I have had the pleasure of being coached by John Burt.  John has helped me develop successful strategies to improve my commercial real estate brokerage and consulting team become productive, efficient and more profitable.  John is a good listener, asks important questions and gives compelling ideas and advice to improve my team. I highly recommend John as a Coach for individuals and teams.
— Bill Ukropina, Commercial Real Estate Broker
© John Burt Leadership