Ola Molade

Did you know?

According to Gallup's "State of the Global Workplace" 2025 report, disengagement cost the global economy US$438 billion in lost productivity last year. In the UK, only 10% of employees are engaged!

Consider…

• Each disengaged employee costs roughly 20% of their annual salary in lost output
• Managers account for 70% of variance in team engagement
• Teams with engaged managers are twice as likely to be engaged themselves

But this goes way beyond reduced productivity…

When trust is missing, phycological safety is absent and fear calls the agenda and unprecedented (sometimes very public) missteps result…

Loud scandals – Volkswagen, Enron, The Post Office, Boeing – all lost public trust and reputation because people who saw things that were not right felt unable to speak up.

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I'm a leadership coach who works at the intersection of culture and commercial performance. 

I help senior leaders in financial services, social services, and consulting turn culture from a liability into a competitive advantage.

What I Do Differently

Most coaches focus on individual development. I focus on measurable organizational impact.

I work with leaders and teams who struggle to:

• Empower without losing control
• Build trust across silos
• Speak truth to power
• Drive genuine engagement

Together, we address fears—often unconscious—that keep talented leaders playing safe. 

I help you lead with the confidence and authenticity your organization needs, especially when the stakes are highest.

Two Principles That Set Me Apart

1. I reject win-lose thinking. The "us vs. them" mentality—employees vs. shareholders, compliance vs. growth—creates the conditions for failure. I coach leaders to build win-win ecosystems where all stakeholders thrive together.
2. I track impact. You'll see measurable progress: engagement scores, team performance metrics, cultural indicators. You'll know the ROI of this work, and so will your board.

The Outcomes We Achieve Together

• Psychologically safe cultures where people challenge groupthink and raise concerns early—before they become crises
• Engaged, empowered teams who collaborate to solve complex problems for all stakeholders
• Enhanced performance and profitability—because trust enables strategy

Who I Work With

I work with leaders who read about scandals at household-name organizations and think: "That could be us."

Leaders who understand that:

• Walking the talk isn't optional—your visible ACTIONS create your culture
• The big picture matters more than siloed wins
• Continuous improvement in leadership creates sustainable competitive advantage

If you're in a sector where trust intersects with risk—financial services, social services, consulting—and you know your culture needs to evolve faster than your risks are growing, let's talk.

Specialisms

Leadership coaching – building beyond managing to leading. Identifying behaviours that support success and how to model these, thereby creating environments within which team engagement and productivity grows.

Business coaching – supporting business growth and helping founders maintain momentum and motivation

Perfectionism – quietening the procrastination and anxiety that can be brought about from Perfectionist tendencies

Work/life balance – helping maintain energy whilst practicing self-care and achieving the balance.

Stress and/or overwhelm – support to work through stressful work or personal situations without impacting morale or motivation at work.

Confidence – dealing with impostor syndrome in a business, professional or personal setting

Health – achieving health improvement goals especially around energy, weight and nutrition

I invest time to build a relationship with you. This way you and I can both determine whether / how we can best work together.

During the conversations it will take to build that relationship and come to a decision, I expect to add value to your thinking by challenging you and pushing you to start the change you want to see. These conversations are complimentary.

When we are both sure it makes sense to work together, we will tailor a package that makes sense from both perspectives.

I am a complete convert to the power of coaching, and I get support from two coaches regularly to keep learning and improving. That said, I am still amazed at how much value I get out of each and every session.

I come from a consulting background, and I have worked with business owners ranging from early start-ups to medium sized companies turning over 10s of millions. In addition, I have run multimillion £ programmes for global corporations and worked with clients and suppliers across all the continents. I thoroughly enjoy the rational side of business – strategy models, finance projections, standard operating procedures, etc… 

However, I find coaching to be even more rewarding than consulting.

Coaching provides me with the opportunity to touch more than “rational” or “technical” aspects of a business – I get to touch the very soul of the business as I work with the hopes & fears & feelings of its leaders. 

I am privileged to have the opportunity to do this type of work.

What people say about working with me:

-       Adjusting to a director role has been challenging. Ola’s coaching and questions allowed me to define what I wanted to achieve in my new role and step by step I’ve been able to divest the activity that was distracting me from my goals. In short, my overwhelm has reduced and I feel much more productive and confident. E.R. Bristol

-       While going into sessions looking for practical actions, what Ola helped me do the deeper work and understand what was really driving all of the practical actions I was trying (and failing) to implement!... Ola is the perfect combination of the gentle friend and the challenging personal (development) trainer. There's support and encouragement but also challenging hold-a-mirror-up coaching that gets you making REAL changes. Highly recommended! S.B. London

-       I was getting frustrated as I felt the other partners in my firm were not pulling their weight. Talking with Ola allowed me to see options for redesigning the partnership. Ironically the partnership changes I instigated created attitude changes from my partners and now we are all winners. S.C. Harrow.

-       I had not realised I was the one holding myself back. Ola and I talked about what I was scared of (losing money) and as we talked, I could see why my fears were not valid. She also gave me tools to understand my pricing better. I have now taken on a new distribution partner and two new members of staff. T.I., Kent

-       Ola helped me understand how my perfectionism was stopping me from growing my team. Together we talked through how I would assess new tutors based upon values that I knew would ensure they gave my pupils the best support possible. I have since added 6 more tutors to my team and we now work as far as London K. M. Essex