Leadership Coaching
I partner with startup and scale-up leaders, from first-time managers to directors, to transform reactive firefighting into strategic clarity, reclaiming the agency and mental bandwidth required to drive business impact and retain their best talent.
Welcome! I’m happy about your interest in growing as a leader and in building high-performing teams without the burnout – this already says a lot.
- First-time leader with only “good luck” as guidance
- Team achieving mediocre results and suffering from undesired attrition
- Team members not as productive as they could be
- Leaders who feel pulled in multiple directions, overwork, lose their best people, face performance degradation, lose focus, struggle to balance stakeholder expectations and advocate for themselves and their teams.
| FROM | TO |
|---|---|
| First time managers struggling to lead former peers I was good friends with everyone making jokes about our manager and now I am the manager and I don’t know how to set the line and really make the transition. I also feel guilty others didn’t become manager. | Clear boundaries, authority, confidence, priorities, values, clarity. I don’t feel guilty about managing my former peers. I have clarity on where to draw the line, what behaviors to change and I am confident on my authority and leadership. |
| First time managers lack confidence I never received training or guidance, I don’t know what to do, I am afraid to ask or that they find out. I try to mimic old managers and don’t have my own style. | Clear boundaries, authority, confidence, priorities, values, clarity. I have confidence in my leadership, I know my values and have confidence in my principles and decisions. I feel my authority is respected and I have enough courage to ask questions. |
| First time/mid managers reactive, overwhelmed by priorities I feel I am running from fire to fire, committing to many things and have to please many stakeholders. I am only reacting to requests and events. It’s like I don’t have my own path, but get pulled into various directions, some opposing each other. | Proactive systemic and situational leadership I have my own principles, strategy and agenda. My priorities are clear, and I look at the whole system when deciding in which direction to go and where and how to say “no” without ruining relationships. |
| Managers torn between delivery pressure and team wellbeing I am constantly torn between two opposing needs – product and management push for delivery and results, and we are overstretched already for months, and the workload only increases. Everything is an emergency and I fear others and myself are close to a burnout. | Results and retention (impact and wellbeing) I have a way to achieve impact and wellbeing at the same time, by abiding to principles and clear strategy, knowing what is urgent, what is important and what to drop. I have a plan to reduce the urgencies. My managerial practices are effective for both impact and wellbeing. |
| Managers torn between speed and quality I am torn between the need to deliver fast and the need to produce quality deliverables. When we work on quality, we are not fast, so management and customers push. When we focus on speed, quality drops and it makes us eventually slow as we fix our previous work. We’re in a vicious cycle, and we’re all confused and suffer from lower performance reviews. | Results and retention (impact and wellbeing) I have a way to achieve both speed and quality at the right amount. Quality issues are rare and the impact we make on customers is evident. I have clarity on how to address the speed and quality needs, which also gives clarity to the team. |
| Managers struggling with time management I have so many tasks of different types and I switch context frequently. I overwork and it affects my family, and even this is not enough. | Clear priority framework and time management strategy I control my calendar, I invest the time in my top priorities. I know how to delegate effectively and my family time is kept. |
| Managers struggling navigating a transformation We’re asked to adopt AI and the strategy even has “do something with AI” but there are no goals or guidance. As a result, I don’t know what to lead and how to answer my team’s questions. | Grounded, confident change leadership and management I am clear about why we adopt AI, how we do that and what’s the metrics that will change as a result. I confidently translate it to my team and lead the transformation, even supporting other teams. |
| First time/mid managers reactive struggling to manage up I fear my manager will know I don’t know some things and the struggles I have. She doesn’t know what I am dealing with, and I have no observability, internal mentoring and career path. I don’t have goals from her or coaching on the job. | Observability, alignment, support from their manager I have good relationship with my manager. We’re aligned on my goals and she’s aware of my efforts and successes and create opportunities for me. |
You are an aspiring manager
Understand whether it’s really for you and gain confidence
- You never dared lead people because you thought you were not born for it
- You want to learn the skills before assuming a leadership role
You are already managing people
Become an effective leader
- You invested so much in learning your technical profession but never learned about management
- You were a strong individual contributor who was asked to lead others
- You are merely replicating former managers’ behavior
- You doubt your ability to manage effectively
- You already know which aspects you wish to improve on
You are a manager of managers
Grow the next generation of effective leaders
- You want to transition an individual contributor to their first management role
- You see need for these managers to grow and become more effective
I have 25+ years of experience in tech, from tiny startups, to scale-ups and AWS.
With 8 years as an engineering manager and head of engineering, I know what it is to be a leader firsthand.
As a leader, I always trained my managers in a program that I had built.
I am a certified systemic business coach.
All of these allow me to offer a unique combination of training, teaching, mentoring, consulting and coaching.
Read more here.
See training content here.
A Startling 98% Of Managers Feel Managers Need More Training – “87% of middle managers wish they had received more management training when they first became a manager”
Ample surveys and research that very few managers receive any training.
Employees usually leave managers, not companies. How can you instead be the reason for talent to join, stay and grow?
The answer to these questions is not the mystery intuition that some unique managers have.
It is teachable and replicable!
Every week that passes with a manager’s ineffective or even damaging behavior is a waste.
We already know that there is no silver bullet, but what you can do, is invest in management skills, which will place you above so many other managers who do not.
Rather than investing months in reading or applying advice from the internet, often based on anecdotes and very specific experience, I have compiled actionable guidance based on decades of research, which I deliver in 1:1 or group sessions, to optimize value for the time invested.
What others say
Clarity in Complexity
Through both experiencing Yaniv’s coaching directly and observing his work during our systemic coaching training, I saw how his past experience informs the way he holds a session. His coaching is well-guided, carefully structured, and strongly reflective in nature. He invites you to examine your context more closely and has a particular ability to help bring different strands of thinking together into a cohesive plan of action. The sessions feel focused, safe, and purposeful, supported by a caring and goal-oriented approach.
Management coach
I would not be where I am in my engineering management career today without Yaniv’s guidance, mentorship and support. As someone new to people management, he was instrumental in advancing my knowledge to be the best manager possible. Yaniv introduced me to numerous resources and embodied the spirit of radical candor, as both his constructive criticism and his supportive words pushed me forward in my career. I very strongly recommend Yaniv as a coach.
Product Manager – career coach
Yaniv coached me into my first product role. He helped me make this career change and planted both the self-confidence and humbleness needed to be successful in tech. Almost 3 years later I’m still happily working in tech, as a senior platform product manager.
An exceptional coach
Yaniv was instrumental in helping me build my confidence, especially in managing upwards and navigating situations with ill-defined roles or very busy line managers. His constructive challenges provided me with an invaluable sparring partner for the various challenges I face in my role. Reflecting back, I only wish I had started working with Yaniv sooner.
Over-communication is better
One of the most critical things I have learned from Yaniv is to communicate more efficiently with my stakeholders. Especially how important over-communication is.
The one concerned with days, plants wheat;
with years, plants trees;
with generations, educates people.