Danielle Tait Leadership & Executive Coach
About
You have raised it. More than once, in more than one way. You were right, and it is still there.
At some point you stopped expecting it to change and started managing around it. It still goes round in your head at ten at night.
Effort was not the missing ingredient. When two years of sensible effort has not moved something, the effort was usually aimed at the presenting problem and not at what is driving it. More often than not, what is underneath is not what you thought.
That is the whole of my work. Not advice about what to do. Getting underneath one stuck thing until you can see what is driving it, then shifting it.
If it is yours
If you are the HR voice on a leadership team, you know the particular version. You can see it coming, you cannot get it heard, and the people you would normally think it through with are the people it is about.
I know that seat. Twenty-five years in HR in New Zealand organisations, fifteen at executive level. I have sat with something I could see clearly and could not get heard, and carried more than my share of what nobody else picked up. You will not have to explain the context, and what is said stays between us.
If it is someone you support
A manager who has had the feedback, agreed with it, and still has not changed.
I have also been the HR leader commissioning coaching for someone else, so I know what you are carrying when you do it. A three-way conversation at the start to agree what success looks like, and enough confidence it is working without breaching what was said in the room.
"Danielle has a unique ability to ask the right questions ... Her deep HR expertise, combined with her intuitive coaching style, has helped me lead with greater impact."
R – HR Leader
Two ways to start
A free 45-minute conversation about the one thing that has not shifted. Bring yours, or theirs. You are not committing to anything.
Or if you are considering coaching for someone else and need it approved, tell me about the situation and I will send a one-page proposal you can forward to your budget holder.
ICF Professional Certified Coach. I write about this at www.danielletait.co.nz/articles.
HRNZ Q/A
Describe your product or service and what it delivers:
One-to-one coaching for HR professionals, and for leaders they support, on a single problem that sensible effort has not shifted. Most leadership problems are not what they look like on the surface. The work goes underneath the presenting issue to what is running beneath it.
What size business or organisation does your product/service suit?
Any. This is bought for a person, not an organisation. It works for the sole HR practitioner in a fifty-person business and for an executive in a large one.
What kinds of organisations may be interested in your product/service?
New Zealand organisations with an internal HR function, particularly where HR is a single voice at the leadership table.
Also organisations sourcing coaching for a capable leader who is stuck on something rather than underperforming, where the feedback has been given, accepted, and has not changed anything.
How long has your product/service been on the market?
Twenty-five years in senior HR in New Zealand organisations, fifteen of them at executive level. I coached alongside that career for five years before moving to it full time, and I have been an ICF Professional Certified Coach since 2024.
What does your standard product cost?
A full engagement is six sessions over three months. If there is one specific thing you want to work on, that is five sessions.
What it costs depends on whether your organisation is paying or you are, and the two are different. Rather than put up a figure that is wrong for one of you, I would rather tell you the appropriate figure. The first conversation is a free 45 minutes, with no pitch and no obligation.
And if you are looking at this for someone else, just tell me about them. I will put together a one-page proposal with the cost on it, so you have something to pass to whoever needs to approve it.
Is your product an off the shelf solution, or does it require customisation?
The container is fixed: an agreed number of sessions over an agreed period, with the focus and the intended shift agreed before the work begins, and where an organisation is paying, a three-way conversation at the start to agree what success looks like.
What happens inside the sessions is entirely the client’s own situation.
How long does your product take to implement? How does customisation impact this?
Three months for a full engagement of six sessions. Around six to eight weeks for a focused five-session engagement.
The first session is usually within a fortnight of the initial conversation. Sessions are 60 minutes, in person or online in Auckland or online anywhere in New Zealand.
The elapsed time is deliberate rather than an overhead. Most of the useful work happens between sessions, in the client’s actual situation, and the intervals are what make that possible.
What is your post-implementation support? Are there costs to this, or is the up-front cost inclusive of additional support?
Included in the price. Brief contact between sessions is part of every engagement at no extra cost.
