Stefan - How Can You Help?
A few words on how I work with leaders at points of stretch - when pressure rises and stewardship matters more than response.
Hello - As you read in the first of this three part series; I’m Stefan. A father, son, brother, and lifelong student of what it means to lead well. My work sits at the intersection of identity, systems, and stewardship.
In this second piece in the series, I want to explore a question I’m asked almost every week, in different guises:
“Stefan, how could you help me?”
It’s a fair question. And one worth answering properly.
Because if you’re reading this, it’s probably because something in you cares - about your work, your people, your purpose, or the impact you’re trying to make in the world. And people like you deserve a real answer.
How I Actually Help
I work with leaders when responsibility, pressure, and complexity stretch them beyond what they’ve navigated before - when politics, competing priorities, or unexpected challenges create a melting pot of demands — and when they aspire to steward the system, rather than merely respond to it.
Sometimes that means helping you:
Find clarity when everything feels noisy.
Make decisions that matter - and follow through on the ones you’ve been avoiding.
Lead people who don’t think like you, don’t agree with you, or don’t yet trust the system.
Turn ideas into action, and action into results people can feel.
Stay grounded when the stakes rise and pressure climbs.
Reconnect to the “why” that got you into this work in the first place.
Other times, the work is deeper. It’s about who you are becoming:
What you stand for.
How you show up when the lights are bright and the margins thin.
How to lead without losing yourself - your steadiness, your values, your humanity.
Because leadership, at its core, isn’t just a set of skills. It’s an identity. And identities need tending.
How I Help Teams
Teams are living systems - not just collections of high performers, but ecosystems of dependence, trust, memory, fear, ambition, and potential.
I help teams:
Move from capable individuals to coherent systems.
Build trust that isn’t just psychological safety - but psychological honesty.
Transform conflict into clarity, alignment, and momentum.
Communicate in ways that connect intent to impact.
Commit to shared outcomes and deliver them together.
Most teams don’t fail because they lack knowledge. They fail because they lack coherence. I help create that coherence.
How I Help Organisations
Organisations are stories - often competing ones - pulled through people, politics, processes, and pressure.
I help leaders and systems:
Translate strategy into action across functions and hierarchies.
Build operating rhythms that create clarity and cadence.
Align Boards, executives, and frontline realities around a shared purpose.
Embed change that outlasts presentations, programmes, and consultants.
Create systems that help people deliver well, without burning out quietly.
Good organisations aren’t built by chance. They are stewarded - patiently, consistently, intentionally. And stewardship is a muscle we grow.
How I Help Beyond the Walls
Some work doesn’t stay internal. It touches industries, policy, communities, culture.
I help you:
Engage stakeholders with clarity and credibility.
Shape market or societal impact with integrity.
Lead in ways that honour the long-term consequences of your choices.
Because leadership is never just about the next quarter. It’s about the next generation.
The Real Work
Through all of this, I help you stay you.
Not the polished, LinkedIn ready version. The real version - the one with values, edges, doubts, ambitions, fears, hopes, and history.
Leadership is demanding. Identity is fragile. Without care, the work can consume the person doing it.
My work is helping you lead big things without becoming small on the inside. To stay human while doing work that is anything but simple. To keep space for the bike ride, the run, the family, the art - whatever reminds you that you are alive beyond the role.
Why I Do This Work
I’ve lived it - across 24 years and multiple sectors: as a coach, strategist, leader, coffee-house founder, artist, musician, and endurance cyclist.
I know what pressure feels like. I know what purpose feels like. And I know how much difference the right conversation, at the right moment, can make.
So - How Can I Help You?
By offering a space where your leadership, identity, ambition, and humanity can all belong.
By asking the questions that shift things.
By naming the patterns you’ve been circling around.
By bringing models and insight that work in practice, not just on paper.
Textbooks are heavy. Clarity is light. Action - the right action - makes you feel alive.
If something in you moved while reading this - or even whispered “I’d like to explore this…” - send me a note and say:
“Can we talk?”
No obligation.
No pressure.
Just a conversation that might change something important.
As my Dad once told me:
“If you can’t speak positively about yourself, how can you expect others to one day do the same?”
So here I am – speaking honestly, and inviting you to do the same. Click HERE to read part three, where you’ll have the opportunity to reflect on the stretch you’re facing, the system you’re part of, and the way you want to steward your influence
Enjoyed reading this? Consider doing one of these:
Get in touch - If any of this topic resonated with you and you have something you’d like to share with me or if you’d like to discuss working with me on this topic - stefan@stefanpowell.co.uk works really well for me.
Book an inquisitive session with me to find out more about what I do and how I do it or run a challenge or thought you have passed me.
Connect with me on linked in and read my long form posts on the rotating topics of Work, Rest. Play, Sustenance and Love every Thursday
Sign up to my newsletter ‘Be The Waves” here - which collates each weeks long form post on a monthly basis and you’ll get to read it later in the month
Follow me on strava.
For now; Thank you.
I am…
An executive coach and the CEO of Be The Waves, growing stewardship for a thriving planet.
I helping good people lead great things; in other words - I empower Stewardship
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it. It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist and a go getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here