Best Corporate Coach in Canada

CEO Business Coaching Program

Corporate coaching is nothing new. What is new is the approach some corporate coaches are taking to helping leaders and businesses thrive in a constantly changing global landscape. We recently caught up with Melissa Dawn, a Montreal-based corporate coach who’s doing things in a more conscious way.

As founder of the coaching service, CEO of Your Life, Melissa started her coaching journey as a graduate of the Coaches Training Institute, and has since grown her business and expertise by earning certifications in Team Performance Coaching, Leadership Coaching, and Conscious Business Coaching. She also holds a Bachelor of Commerce and, prior to coaching, spent over two decades working her way up the corporate ladder to become VP of Marketing and Talent Management.

What is Unique About CEO of Your Life?

Led by Melissa, CEO of Your Life takes a holistic approach to coaching that starts within. 

Although corporate coaching is about success at work, Melissa understands that our lives are not meant to be siloed into “personal” and “professional”. No matter how hard we may try to keep things separate, what’s happening in one area will spill over into other areas.

She uses the example of getting caught in traffic on the way to work, which is a scenario many of us are familiar with. If we feel triggered by a traffic jam, we may take that trigger into the office once we arrive. We maybe feel frustrated or agitated, maybe we’re even short tempered. That traffic had nothing to do with our jobs, but it is now impacting our jobs.

But, as Melissa points out, the reverse is true as well. When we do the work to create peace and purpose in one area of life, that too will start to spill into other areas. A solid morning routine that includes time for inner reflection, for example, can set us on a path for success before anything else can influence our state of mind.

For this reason, Melissa approaches corporate coaching from a whole-life (i.e. holistic) perspective, guiding people to take an honest look at all aspects of their lives and to get in touch with their most authentic, core selves, which gives them clarity into what will genuinely work for them. From there, she guides people to identify the areas of their lives that need to shift, and to begin taking steps to align their lives with the strengths, values, passions and purpose that drive them from within, and to bring their highest selves forward, both personally and professionally.

How Does This Approach Benefit Businesses?

As Melissa says, “To master leadership of others, you first have to master leadership of yourself.” The most successful organizations have strong leadership; people who are able to positively influence the people they lead, and drive engagement by drawing out people’s natural strengths, then helping them to align those strengths with corporate objectives. Being able to do that demands the type of person who is very much at ease with themselves, confident in their own values, and able to approach situations from a place of curiosity, compassion and co-creativity.

Melissa believes that these skills are not innate, but can be learned. In her years of coaching, she has put that belief to the test by working with individuals and teams from small businesses, all the way up to Fortune 500s and Fortune 100s.

“What I see consistently is that when people truly connect within, do the work to really love and care for themselves, it comes out in their leadership in a powerful way. They become more open to new perspectives, capable of having difficult conversations with empathy, start leading by example, and the people around them start to really shine as well. It’s an amazing domino effect,” says Melissa.

Melissa has found that when companies take this inside-out approach to developing leadership, organizations tend to experience increases in:

• Employee engagement
• Productivity
• Collaboration (within and across teams)
• Communication skills
• Decision making skills
• Self-management
• Accountability
• Creative problem-solving

As well as decreases in:

• Behavioural issues
• Persistent roadblocks
• Employee turnover
• Interpersonal conflict
• Blame-shifting

Melissa says that when the corporate culture shifts in a way that people start to feel safe trying new things, sharing ideas, broaching difficult topics and even bringing their “weird” to work, all that energy people once spent upholding personas and protecting themselves from blame or judgement gets redirected towards doing great things within the company.

Not only are the benefits of coaching very real, they are also measurable and sustainable. As Melissa has observed, when businesses take an outside-in approach, focusing on things they feel they can control such as policies and procedures, any changes they see tend to revert because mindsets have not changed. People eventually fall back into old patterns and ways of being. With an inside-out approach, change happens at a fundamental level that shifts mindsets, facilitates the development of healthier habits and patterns, and guides people to really bring their best selves forward. This fundamental change also empowers businesses to build resilience into their corporate culture, so that they are able to successfully navigate times of chaos and uncertainty, such as market shifts, or global pandemics.

How Does Corporate Coaching Work in a Pandemic?

For Melissa, resilience and the ability to dance with whatever comes along is part of what she helps people to develop. So, it seems only natural that she was able to get flexible and adapt her business model to work with (and for) the changes happening across the globe.

With the technology available today, coaching can easily happen virtually, both one-on-one and in groups. However, as many of us quickly realized during the pandemic, “Zoom fatigue” is a very real thing. Having recently completed her certification as a Master Practitioner of Energy Medicine, Melissa has begun weaving energy work into her virtual coaching sessions, drawing on techniques that create connection, helping people feel open and at ease, so that even in front a computer screen, coaching becomes an energizing experience that teaches people how to fuel themselves from within, even in the most chaotic times, as well as how to “reset and reconnect” when they get caught in fight-or-flight mode, which many of us have experienced – and continue to experience – throughout this pandemic.

How Can You Work With Melissa?

You can visit Melissa’s website, CEO of Your Life, to get the bigger picture of how she helps people and organizations succeed, and you can also connect with her directly to see if her approach to corporate coaching is right for you.

Related article:

• Montreal Team Performance Coach 
• Montreal Conscious Leadership Coach