You are honest with no one
The board hears confidence. The team hears direction. Your spouse hears the curated version. Somewhere in the last few years you stopped saying the unedited thing to anyone.
CEO Coaching for the Person Behind the Decisions
Brian BachmanExecutive Coach · MA, LPC
The licensed counselor CEOs hire when the problem is not the business.
You have advisors for finance, law, strategy, and governance. What you probably do not have is one confidential person whose only job is to understand you: how you decide, what you avoid, what the role is costing at home, and which of your strengths has quietly become the problem. I coach CEOs and founders privately, and I bring ten years of clinical practice to it. That combination is rare, and it is the whole point.
Does this sound like you?
The company is fine. You are the constraint, and nobody can say so.
Work gets your best and home gets the rest
You are patient, present, and regulated for the company. Your family gets what is left at 7 p.m., and they have adjusted their expectations accordingly.
The wins stopped landing
Revenue, valuation, a big hire. Each registers for an afternoon and then the mind moves to the next threat. You are not sure when you last enjoyed something you built.
Your strengths have started running you
Control built the company and is now corroding your marriage. Vigilance kept it alive and now keeps you up at 3 a.m. Nobody in your orbit can tell you that.
You cannot switch off
On vacation, in bed, at your kid’s game. The body leaves the office and the brain keeps operating the company.
You have a decision you keep not making
A succession, a sale, a partner, a hire, a marriage conversation. It has been sitting there for months, and every advisor you have is the wrong person to think it through with.
What CEO coaching actually is here
Not leadership competencies. Not operating advice. The human system underneath the role.
Traditional executive coaching works on presence, communication, and team performance. Useful, and not what most CEOs I meet actually need. I am not a management consultant and I will not tell you how to run your company. What I do is find the pattern connecting the complaints: the defensiveness the board mentioned, the quiet marriage, the drinking that is getting attention, the sleepless nights, and the company you cannot stop running from bed. Five problems, usually one system.
I use a whiteboard more than a workbook. When the loop is drawn out, from an old fear to a leadership habit to a home dynamic and back, most CEOs say some version of “oh, that makes a lot more sense.” That moment is where the work starts, and it is why clients tell me I see patterns other experts miss.
A story I see often
A CEO came in with an executive-presence problem. The problem was in his kitchen.
Details changed. His board found him defensive. Three sessions in, it was clear the defensiveness had a source at home: a marriage that had become a well-run partnership and a wife who had stopped bringing him anything hard. He was managing everyone’s disappointment at the exact moment he most needed to hear it, and he had been doing that since a childhood where being wrong was dangerous.
We worked on the marriage and on the fear underneath the defense. His board noticed within a quarter. That is not because every business problem is secretly personal. It is because you do not have separate nervous systems for the boardroom and the dinner table, and a coach who can only see one of them is going to miss the cause.
How an engagement starts
Four steps from “something is off” to a plan you can actually run.
A 20-minute call about fit
You tell me what is actually going on. I tell you honestly whether it is the kind of problem I help with, and whether coaching or clinical care is the right door. No pitch, and no pressure to decide on the call.
We pick the right depth
One defined problem is Focused Coaching. A problem that crosses work and home is Integrated Coaching. If you want a full working model of how you operate, that is Private Advisory. I will tell you which one fits, including when the answer is the cheaper one.
I build the map
Integrated and Private Advisory engagements start with assessment and a written synthesis: strengths, blind spots, the patterns connecting your complaints, and the two or three leverage points that will change the most. See a sample Whole-Person Profile
We test it against real life
Meetings roughly every other week. Between them you run specific experiments: a conversation you have been avoiding, a decision, a boundary, a different response under pressure. The map gets corrected by what actually happens.
Three depths of engagement
The engagement should match the problem, not force every client through the same process.
Focused Coaching
$2,750 · 2 months
One defined problem, four private meetings, specific experiments between them, and a written continuation plan. For people who already know what needs attention.
Integrated Coaching
$4,500 · 4 months
Most clients start here. A problem that crosses several areas of life, a targeted whole-person assessment, a written synthesis, eight meetings, and a check-in between them.
Private Advisory
$7,800 · 6 months
A comprehensive Whole-Person Profile, twelve meetings, priority access, optional spouse perspective, and a final synthesis of what changed. For a select few who want the full model.
“Brian sees patterns other experts miss. I could never turn my brain off or simply enjoy the life I built. Now, with Brian’s expertise, money serves me. I do not serve it anymore.”
Questions
What people usually want to know before they book.
How is this different from a CEO peer group or a traditional executive coach?
Peer groups are excellent for tactics and for knowing you are not alone. A traditional executive coach works on leadership skills. I work on the person: the patterns underneath the decisions, and the way work and home are affecting each other. I am also a licensed counselor, which means I can tell a leadership problem from a clinical one and will say which is which.
Is this therapy?
No. Coaching is future-oriented, goal-directed, and organized around patterns, decisions, and implementation. My LPC credential informs how I see, but coaching is provided under a separate coaching agreement and is not a substitute for clinical care when that is what is needed. If it is, I will tell you and help you find it.
Is it confidential?
Yes. Nothing goes to your board, your company, or your spouse unless you choose to bring it. The engagement is with you, not the organization.
Can my company pay for it?
Often, yes. Many clients run it through a professional development budget. The relationship and the confidentiality remain with you either way.
Do you work with CEOs outside St. Louis?
Yes. Most engagements are by video across the United States. For St. Louis-area clients, I can also meet in person at your office or home.
Keep reading
Related pages.
Private whole-person coaching
You do not need another advisor with an agenda for the company. You need one with an agenda for you.
A 20-minute private conversation. No pitch. You describe what is happening, I tell you honestly whether I am the right person, and we decide together whether to go further.
Book a private 20-minute consult