Executive coach Kristian Aa Rasmussen
Executive coaching and leadership development for those who want an even more meaningful work life.
“My strongest recommendations for Kristian.
Kristian has been coaching me for a bit more than a year now, and it has been truly transformative.”
Coaching of leaders
Most leaders reach a point in their careers where working harder no longer takes them further.
Maybe you have big plans that you’re passionate about realizing, but they demand something different from you than what you can muster right now.
Or perhaps you’re on a downward spiral, with your energy waning, and you recognize that something needs to change.
It could also be that the only thing you know is that something needs to be different – you just don’t know what or how.
In coaching sessions with me, we’ll explore this landscape together, so you’ll gradually experience your life in and outside work becoming (even) more meaningful.
Executive coaching does not require you to be a leader. It requires only this of you: Wanting to find your way in life and to gather the energy you need to be a whole person in the long haul.
Career counseling
What direction should your career take? What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing? And where do you want it to lead? Career coaching often involves clarifying what is fundamentally important to you in life.
Leadership development
A good leader is someone who consistently takes their own leadership development seriously. The need for leadership development can stem from, for example, a new strategy, a merger, or a new team. But it can also arise when you get promoted or become a parent. It is always more about understanding yourself than acquiring new leadership tools.
Executive coaching
Top-level leadership is an extreme sport. The mental strain is immense, you make significant personal sacrifices, and everyone in this type of role experiences some form of exhaustion over the course of their career. Executive coaching mobilizes your energy, enabling you to be a achieve whatever is important to you. While you remain whole person in relation to work, family, friends, and health, over the long haul.
Organizational development
Alongside my work as an executive coach, I also conduct organizational development for various clients. I have worked on culture-building in connection with mergers, established leadership teams, created talent development strategies, and evaluated leadership teams. A distinctive aspect of my skill set is that I have enough experience with rewards to integrate it into my work.
The organizations that enjoy working with me typically appreciate my creativity, challenging approach, and care. Several of my clients leverage my interdisciplinary expertise to gain a holistic perspective on their organization.
What can you work on during an executive coaching program?
Personal development always takes place in the dynamic space between what you can do and what you want to do.
For example, we can work on:
Career coaching
Finding a meaningful direction where you are both skilled at and enjoy what you do.
Stress
Addressing early signs of stress or overload, or how to prevent it during a challenging period.
Strategy
How to effectively implement a strategy that is important to you – here, we focus more on relational dynamics than on the content itself.
Leadership Coaching
Finding a leadership role that feels natural for you and helps your team and their results to grow.
Challenging Relationships
How to engage constructively in relationships without losing yourself.
Work/Life Balance
How to balance work and personal life – some experience this as a choice between sacrificing friends and family or sacrificing their career.
Typically, a client arrives with a work-related challenge, but in my experience, work life is so intertwined with the rest of life that it often makes sense for us to explore all the aspects of your existence that you are willing to examine more closely.
“It has been very enriching to work with Kristian over 10 sessions in 2024. Kristian has managed to offer a fresh perspective on the challenges I’ve been struggling with. Through personal reflections and refreshing innovative thinking, I feel much better equipped for the future.”
How does an executive coaching program work?
We meet at my welcoming office in Copenhagen, situated by the canals of Christianshavn. Virtual meetings are also an option, although in my experience, in-person meetings tend to work best. Additionally, I have a few days each month when I visit clients at their location.
In our first session, we usually cover what you would like to work on, and we confirm whether we are a good match – meaning I believe I can help you, and you believe you can benefit from the program.
No two coaching processes are the same. It typically takes 10 to 15 sessions to thoroughly address an issue, but ideally, I want all my clients to achieve results in as few hours as possible. Sometimes, however, it requires many more hours. In the meantime, we build a solid foundation that can last a long time.
We adjust how often we meet based on your needs – it can be weekly, monthly, or anything in between. Along the way, we assess together whether we are on the right track and whether progress is being made as it should.
How I Work with Executive Coaching
I am a trained psychotherapist with a background in philosophy. I have also been a sailor and a top executive. This diverse experience forms the basis of my toolkit. Therefore, we can delve deep into what it means to be you; we can discuss the big questions in life as well as business matters. Fundamentally, everything is closely interconnected.
On my journey from sailor to top executive, I have met people from all walks of life and corners of the world, learning that people with wisdom and dignity live meaningful lives in many different ways. Work life is characterized by competition for status, and we put that on pause when we work together in a coaching process. You can be who you are, and you can count on me to meet you without prejudice, allowing you to explore the path you wish to take with me as your experienced guide.
There are many ways to be a coach, and many of them focus on helping the client become “a winner”. What you can be assured of with me is that I do not work that way. I help you find a path that is meaningful to you, and I assist you in summoning the energy for the long haul so that you can continue to excel in your work and in all the other aspects of life that matter to you: friends, family, your health, and the good life in all its dimensions.
Who are my clients?
I welcome clients from virtually all backgrounds, whether you are a top executive, a middle manager, or an employee. Whether you come from a large or small organization, private or public. It does not matter to me how many stars you have on your shoulder – what matters is that you are motivated to work on your own development.
That said, the typical client for me is a top executive or middle manager in larger organizations. It may be a board member in a large company seeking leadership advice, or a middle manager looking for career counseling. It could also be a newly promoted leader wanting to work on their ability to lead their team or an experienced specialist who finds the company moving in a challenging direction.
“My conversations with Kristian have given me invaluable tools that I use both as an individual and as an HR professional to guide my leaders. Kristian has a way of providing insight through asking the right questions in a way where even the most frustrating challenges instead become valuable learning opportunities. He really succeeds in guiding me to find the big picture when I get caught on the details and focus too much on what’s next instead of where we’re going overall.”