Organisations · Singapore & APAC
For CHROs, Heads of L&D, and CEOs. We work on the business challenges that sit in how your organisation is led. A leader in transition. Influence that is not landing. A successor nobody can say is ready. A restructure the leadership has not caught up with. The evidence decides the format: coaching, LCP 360°, diagnostics or team work.
The challenges
Four situations bring organisations to this practice. Each has its own entry point and its own evidence.
01 · Transitions
A leader in the first year of a bigger role, performing while the organisation forms its view. Sponsored coaching with LCP 360° evidence, built around the first hundred days and what follows them.
Executive coaching for transitions →02 · Performance
The talent review said presence, and nobody can say what to change. We make the feedback specific, measure it with LCP 360°, and coach against the evidence.
How that works →03 · High potential
Succession plans built on potential ratings stall when the role actually opens. LCP 360° readiness evidence, then development that closes the named gaps, leader by leader.
The readiness evidence →04 · Change
The chart moved and the behaviour didn't. A three to four week Leadership System Diagnostic finds what is actually stuck before anyone buys a fix.
How the diagnostic works →Not sure which one
Five questions, ninety seconds. It names the problem behind the request, and tells you when leadership work is not the answer.
Start the check →What we hear first
Senior people leaders bring us one of four patterns. The development budget goes out every year. The behaviour it should buy is not arriving.
"We invest in leadership development every year. The behaviour stays the same."
The classroom evaluations are positive. The post-programme behaviour reverts. Researchers have documented this transfer-of-learning gap for decades. Usually someone chose the format before anyone understood the problem.
"On paper we have a bench. In practice, when a role opens, we hire externally."
So the role goes outside, at external-hire cost, and the bench watches it happen. The development investment has not closed the gap. The pattern repeats.
"Our directors are technically strong. They will not have the conversation that needs to happen."
It is rarely a skills gap. Senior leaders avoid certain conversations because of what saying the thing would require them to claim about themselves. No curriculum reaches that far down. That is why the work starts with a diagnosis.
"We have plenty of training options. What we need is a thinking partner for our senior team."
A vendor sells a course. A partner holds a senior team through a difficult quarter, a transformation programme, or a leadership transition. The right relationship looks nothing like a catalogue.
The order of operations
Yet organisations often begin by buying coaching, training or an offsite before they've properly understood the issue. The intervention should follow the diagnosis.
We assess what's happening, identify what's driving it, then recommend the approach the findings support. Sometimes that's executive coaching. Sometimes it's facilitation or a workshop. Sometimes it's team coaching or organisational change work. Often it's a combination.
And when the honest answer is a generic training rollout, we say so and refer.
The Method
The reframe arrives early and is rarely what the sponsor expected. The work between sessions is where the change happens.
Diagnose
A forensic read of the leadership system: stakeholder interviews, LCP 360° where appropriate, observed dynamics. What is actually happening, not the version being reported.
Reframe
The presented problem is rarely the actual problem. Culture problem revealed as decision-making problem. Capability gap revealed as identity gap. The work becomes specific.
Build
Specific commitments inside the organisation between sessions. The change happens in the executive committee, the appraisal conversation, the cross-functional review, not in the coaching room.
Embed
Final stages consolidate the shift. Where appropriate, peer learning, refresher coaching, or a 12-month review against original baseline. Identity-level change needs scaffolding to hold.
The four stages sit inside the Three-Pillar Clarity Method™. Forensic · Rigorous · Deeply human.
Read the methodology →Engagement Structures
Most engagements combine two or three of them. Scope and pricing are agreed in writing before work starts.
01 · Cohort
A peer cohort of senior leaders who do not necessarily work together day to day. Often used for high-potentials drawn from across functions or business units. Each leader gets one-to-one coaching threaded through group sessions, building individual capability and lateral relationships across the organisation.
02 · Assessment
A research-validated 360° assessment. It measures creative competencies and reactive tendencies. Often the diagnostic anchor for a cohort programme, or a standalone development tool for one senior leader.
03 · Team
Work with an intact team. The people who already report into the same leader or who run a function together. Builds the team's collective ability to make decisions, surface what is not being said, and hold pressure as a unit. The team itself is the client, not the individuals inside it. Different from team-building, and different from cohort coaching.
04 · Individual
One-to-one executive coaching for a designated senior leader, funded by the organisation. Same diagnostic-first method as our individual engagements, with scope shaped to the leader's role and the situation they are navigating. A common sponsored pathway for a high-priority promotion, a stretch assignment, or a leader carrying enterprise-scale decisions.
05 · Diagnostic
A standalone diagnostic of how the leadership system actually operates: confidential interviews, decision-rights mapping, an executive readout, and a roadmap. Bought on its own terms, and "no further work needed" is a legitimate finding.
How the diagnostic works →06 · Workshops
Bespoke, facilitation-led sessions for a leadership team. Output: a shared decision-making framework, or a named pattern the team commits to changing. Often used for a team mid-transition, or as a primer before an offsite.
Discuss a workshop →The Engagement
No two corporate engagements run the same way. They share one outcome: leadership capability that holds beyond the launch event, into the operating reality of the organisation. Scope and structure are shaped collaboratively, once the situation is fully understood.
The outcome
Certificates and self-assessments are easy to produce. The harder result is decisions made differently in the rooms that matter, measured against the baseline the diagnostic set.
What returns to the organisation
The standard
MBA. MBSR trained. Accredited Practising Management Consultant (SBACC). Three decades across London, California and Asia, including operational leadership, not only coaching. The standard is consistent across every engagement.
About the practiceThe average leader who received coaching ended up performing better than roughly seven in ten comparable leaders who did not. That figure comes from a 2023 meta-analysis of 37 randomised controlled trials with 2,528 participants, the gold standard of evidence.
We prefer this evidence to the industry's famous ROI multiples, which come from a trade-body survey most respondents could not substantiate. Peer-reviewed trials are a harder test, and coaching passes it.
Source · de Haan and Nilsson (2023), Academy of Management Learning and Education.
2,528
leaders across 39 study samples in the randomised-trial evidence base for coaching.
460,000+
leaders worldwide have completed the Leadership Circle Profile®, the 360° instrument used across these engagements.
45%
of Fortune 100 companies use the Leadership Circle Profile®. Both figures from Leadership Circle's current factsheet.
30 yrs
of investigation, operations, and senior leadership across London, California, and Asia.
Proof
Two voices from the kind of leader who passes through the cohort and 1-to-1 engagements. Drawn from clients across financial services and professional services in Singapore and the region.
"What sets Gary apart is the depth of his questions. They are thoughtful, insightful, and often lead me to explore broader perspectives I wouldn't have reached on my own."
Kexin Yong, VPJP Morgan · Singapore
"Through our sessions I received practical, actionable insight that enabled me to run more effective meetings and present with far more confidence."
Karla MacquilingBaker McKenzie · Philippines
Sectors
Each sector has a different way of buying leadership development. Procurement structure, budget framing, and the language of impact differ. The work, when it begins, is recognisably the same.
01 · B2B
MNCs, regional banks, professional services firms, technology, FMCG. CHRO, VP People, and L&D buyer.
02 · B2G
Ministries, statutory boards, and public sector agencies in Singapore. Procurement via GeBIZ or direct engagement.
03 · NGO
Charities, foundations, and social enterprises in Singapore and the region. Subsidised pricing available on request.
Fit · Honestly
Right fit
Wrong fit
Developing first-line managers? Ask about Coaching Mindset for Managers, a separate, workshop-format engagement designed for the manager layer. If you are not sure where your situation fits, a scoping conversation is free and exists to answer this question.
FAQ
Common questions from CHROs, L&D heads, and CEOs scoping a leadership development engagement. If yours isn't here, ask directly.
Diagnosis comes first. Engagements begin with a forensic read of what is happening in the leadership system before any prescriptive intervention. What follows is built against the findings: coaching, assessment, team sessions, workshops, or a combination. It targets the level where the behaviour actually lives. If the situation calls for a generic training rollout, we say so and refer. On how to tell the three apart before you buy, see coaching vs training vs consulting.
Most organisations combine two or three of our engagement structures over a relationship. A common pattern starts with an LCP 360° to establish a baseline, then a cohort programme or team coaching. Sponsored 1-to-1 coaching for designated senior leaders often runs alongside. Engagement details are shared on enquiry after a scoping conversation.
Yes. Regional cohorts run across APAC virtually. For cohorts spanning multiple countries, sessions fit around time zones, with asynchronous integration work in between. In-person sessions are available in Singapore and on request elsewhere.
ROI is measured against the baseline established in the forensic diagnostic at the start of the engagement. On the wider evidence, a 2023 meta-analysis of 37 randomised controlled trials with 2,528 participants found a moderate effect of coaching on performance. The effect held under randomised controlled conditions, though the authors report signs of publication bias. We are explicit about which outcomes are measurable and which are leading indicators.
Yes. We deliver leadership development for ministries, statutory boards, and public sector agencies in Singapore. Procurement can be structured via GeBIZ or direct engagement. See the dedicated government leadership development page for details.
Yes. We deliver leadership development for charities, foundations, and social enterprises in Singapore and the region. Subsidised pricing is available for non-profits on request. See the dedicated non-profit leadership development page for details.
Sometimes. Enterprise Singapore's Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) supports qualifying consultancy projects at up to 50% of eligible costs for local SMEs. Gary McRae holds the SBACC Practising Management Consultant certification EDG requires, and the Leadership System Diagnostic can be a qualifying consultancy project. The headline conditions: Singapore registration, at least 30% local shareholding, and approval before the project starts. Coaching on its own does not qualify. These terms are subject to change. Enterprise Singapore has announced that EDG folds into the new EDGE scheme from the second half of 2026. Source: Enterprise Singapore, enterprisesg.gov.sg. Nothing here is a promise of approval; we point you at the current rules in a scoping conversation.
Cohort programmes are sized to the organisation's bench, from a handful of leaders upwards; there is no fixed ceiling. Team coaching addresses an intact team, whatever its size, from a single session to a longer arc. Where a larger population needs development, cohorts run in parallel through a vetted associate network. We make engagement boundaries explicit during scoping.
One-to-one executive coaching for a designated senior leader, funded by the organisation. Same diagnostic-first method as our individual engagements, with scope shaped to the leader's role and the situation they are navigating. Common pathways: a high-priority promotion, a stretch assignment, or a leader carrying enterprise-scale decisions. Tripartite alignment with the sponsoring leader where appropriate.
Yes. Gary holds ICF accreditation (ACC), with PCC in progress. He is also Leadership Circle Profile certified, MBA qualified, and MBSR trained.
Six engagement structures: the Leadership System Diagnostic, cohort coaching programmes, Leadership Circle Profile 360° assessments, team coaching for intact senior teams, sponsored 1-to-1 executive coaching, and half-day or full-day leadership workshops. All engagements share the same diagnostic-first method.
CHROs, Heads of L&D, CEOs, and senior people leaders in private sector, government, and non-profit organisations in Singapore and APAC. Most senior leadership engagements run with directors, VPs, and C-suite leaders. For first-line manager development, a separate Coaching Mindset for Managers workshop is available. Engagements are not designed as generalist training rollouts.
Begin
A scoping conversation is a working session. Bring the leadership challenge as it really is. We work out what is actually happening and what kind of engagement, if any, fits. There is no pitch deck.
