For 24 years, the relentless, fast-paced world of retail was my home.
Today, I’m taking everything it taught me about leadership, survival, and human performance into an entirely new space.
What retail really teaches you about leadership
I spent those 24 years learning what leadership looks like when the pressure is relentless and there’s nowhere to hide. I worked my way up to Regional Director level, and along the way I saw what sustained pressure does to good people in senior roles — and what it takes to come through it still standing, still growing.
Retail is unforgiving in many ways. The targets don’t move. The calendar doesn’t slow down. Customers still walk through the door whether you slept well or not. And the people you lead are watching you, consciously or not, for a signal about how to feel.
That environment forced me to understand leadership in a way that no textbook ever could.
I learned that composure is a skill. That honesty builds more trust than certainty. That the conversations you avoid are usually the ones that matter most. And that the best leaders aren’t the ones who know all the answers — they’re the ones who create the conditions for good thinking to happen.
The shift I didn’t expect
When I moved into coaching, my focus was retail leadership. That was the world I knew. The language, the culture, the specific pressures of trading weeks and area reviews and Christmas trading — I understood all of it instinctively.
But over time, something became really clear to me.
The leaders I was sitting with weren’t struggling with retail problems. They were struggling with being human in an incredibly demanding role.
They were struggling with exhaustion they couldn’t admit to. With a quiet loss of confidence after a run of difficult months. With the constant performance of being “fine” for everyone around them, when privately things felt much harder than they appeared. With a difficult conversation they’d been putting off for longer than they should.
None of that is unique to retail.
Different sectors. The same experience.
So when I started working with leaders in healthcare, education, charities and the public sector, I wasn’t surprised by what I heard.
The same exhaustion. The same feeling of being squeezed from every direction. The same dread before a difficult conversation. The same quiet loss of confidence that creeps in when you’ve been pushing through for too long.
A ward manager in the NHS navigating chronic understaffing. A head teacher holding together a school community through constant change. A charity director carrying the weight of mission alongside the pressure of funding cycles. A senior manager in local government who has been the steady hand for so long that nobody thinks to ask how she’s actually doing.
Different sectors. The same experience.
Because leadership at its core isn’t really about industry. It’s about what happens when a capable, committed person carries more than they show, for longer than they should, without the space to think clearly or speak honestly.
I’ve always coached the person, not the problem
This is what I’ve always believed and what I’ve come to understand more deeply over time.
When I sit with someone, I’m not trying to understand their sector inside out. I’m trying to understand them. What’s driving them. What’s getting in the way. What they already know but haven’t quite let themselves say yet.
Because when someone genuinely feels heard — not managed, not advised, but heard — something shifts. The thinking changes. The clarity comes back. And they return to their work with the kind of energy and direction that has a ripple effect on the people around them.
I’ve seen it happen again and again. And the sector has never been the deciding factor.
A word on confidentiality — because it matters
One thing I want to say clearly, and I’ll say it here as well as anywhere else on this site.
Everything we do together is completely confidential. What you share stays between us, without exception.
I know that sounds straightforward. But I also know that for many leaders — particularly those in visible, senior, or publicly accountable roles — the fear of being seen to struggle can be a real barrier to getting support. There’s a concern, often unspoken, that reaching out for coaching is an admission of weakness. Or that somehow the fact of it might become known in a way they can’t control.
So let me be direct.
I work as a sole coach. There is no wider organisation, no team, no system logging what you tell me. I don’t keep digital records of our sessions. Any notes I take are anonymised, kept securely, and destroyed once our work together is complete. As an EMCC member, I follow a strict ethical code that puts your confidentiality at the centre of everything.
The conversations that actually help are only possible when there is a real sense of safety to say what is actually going on. That’s not a small thing. That’s the whole foundation.
Read more about how confidentiality works in practice →
If you’re wondering whether this could work for you
You don’t need to be in retail to work with me. You never did, really.
If you’re a leader in healthcare, education, the public sector or the third sector — if you’re capable and committed and carrying more than you let on — I’d love to hear from you.
Not because I have all the answers. But because I know how to create the space for you to find yours.
References
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European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) – Coaching Ethics & Confidentiality
https://www.emccglobal.org -
International Coaching Federation (ICF) – Coaching Effectiveness Research
https://coachingfederation.org -
Harvard Business Review – Leadership, Psychological Safety & Coaching
https://hbr.org -
CIPD – Leadership Development & People Management
https://www.cipd.org
Your Next Step
If any of this resonates, let’s have a conversation.
Book a Free 20-Minute Leadership Conversation
We’ll:
- Talk about where you are right now and what’s making leadership feel harder than it should
- Explore whether coaching is the right kind of support for you
- Answer any questions you have — including anything about how confidentiality works
No commitment. No pressure. Just a proper conversation.
Ute Thomas is a former Regional Director and ILM Level 7 certified executive coach. She works with middle and senior leaders across retail, healthcare, education, the public sector and the third sector — in English and German.
