Michelle Stewart

Personal Development Coach

I am passionate about working with individuals going through life transitions and I am awed and honoured to be a collaborator and a witness to their self-insights and personal growth. I partner with clients to move forward and claim their right to live a fulfilled and balanced life that is authentically aligned with their values.

As a co-active coach, I hold that:

• The client has the answers and my job is to listen and empower, rather than inform and advise.
• All people are naturally creative, resourceful, whole, and completely capable of finding their own answers to whatever challenges they face.
• There is innate wisdom within each of us. I partner with my clients to discover and understand this.
• All parts of people’s lives — their careers, relationships, recreation, personal growth, and finances, for example — are interrelated and should be addressed as such. In other words, I coach the whole person.

In order to forward the action and deepen my clients’ learning, I employ various methods and styles which may include assessments, 360° questionnaires, Psychoneoroimmunology (PNI) diagnostics and insights, “homework” tasks, NLP techniques,  or “marinating” questions.

I expect my clients to be passionately involved in their coaching process and in return they can expect a coach who will passionately challenge and champion them. I haven’t merely fallen into coaching – it is something I have specifically trained for and have actively pursued as a career path. I derive a huge amount of personal fulfilment from working with my talented and interesting clients and strive to add value to each person I engage with.

I am proudly South African and endeavour to use my time, talents and expertise to empower and nurture others and to foster positivity.

Education and training

• Master of Arts degree in Industrial-Organisational Psychology from the University of the Witwatersrand.
• Registered Industrial-Organisational Psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa
• Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner through Inspiritu
• Certified Professional Co-active Coach (CPCC) through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI). Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, CTI is the largest in-person coach training school in the world and the very first organization accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF).
• Certified Neuromodulation Coach through Dr Ian Weinberg (Neurosurgeon and pioneer in the clinical application of Psychoneuroimmunology)
• Accredited to administer and provide feedback on the following psychometric products:
  • Hogan Development Series
  • MBTI Step 1 and 2
  • OPQ and all other SHL products
  • LPCat
  •  EQ
  •  Wave
  •  Swift
  •  Cut-e
  • HFM Talent Index

Experience

I have over 20 years experience working in the fields of organisational, personal, professional and leadership development, servicing predominantly the financial and professional business services industry. I have been involved in and managed projects relating to:

• Performance enhancement
• Team development
• Change management
• Leadership development
• Psychometric assessment
• Coaching
• Mentoring
• Interpersonal skills training
• Diversity and transformation

Areas of Expertise

• People in transition (professional and personal)
• Interpersonal relationship management
• Leadership development
• Working mothers
• Confidence, assertiveness and impact

Client Profile

• More than 200 clients over 15 years
• Junior Manager to Executive Level
• Various Industries

Testimonials

Our coaching sessions helped me to understand my personality and gave me some tools to practice/use in the work environment (e.g. building self-confidence and participating in meetings and tips in connecting with the audience in my presentations). I also gained a listening ear and your perspective on different issues faced which helped me to put things into perspective. I felt valued and looked after!

I gained a deeper insight into the type of “tools” available to me to understand my deeper drivers and goals in life. This in turn helped me to help define areas where I needed to apply additional focus/change. Aside from just the tools, your calming, circumspect approach to dealing with any issues or negativity I brought forward certainly made the difference in being able to apply these tools. Thank you again for what was a very positive experience in my life!

I now know what is important to me as well as the barriers that I myself am putting in progressing down the path that I would like to proceed upon. My experience has been great and it has been effective in growing and has helped me in identifying what is important and what is holding me back.

Northcliff, Randburg, Gauteng, South Africa