Coaching Consulting Training
Expert in leadership and change in turbulent times
A clear vision. On equal footing. With empathy and a sense of what makes good strategy.
What I stand for
I advise managers, CEOs and organizations facing a wide range of challenges in these turbulent times.
As a leadership coach, my job is to provide you with assistance, support and strength when things get tough, confusing or complex. Drawing on extensive executive-level experience and comprehensive practical knowledge of leadership challenges, I am pleased to offer professional coaching and consulting expertise tailored to your needs and goals.
Discover more
eI have a particular passion for supporting people who manage complex change projects in organisations as well as guiding and advising women in leadership positions and women who are on the path towards leadership.
Over the course of two decades of experience as a manager (most recently more than ten years as Director of Corporate Development and Operations and member of the management board), it has become apparent to me:
Effective, sustainable, and healthy leadership of people and processes requires five elements: the right attitude, clarity of roles, transparency, communication and participation.
For me, this means that people are at the centre of all management tasks.
An increasingly more complex and agile world demands more and more of managers and managing directors and requires them to bring their entire personality to work. I have learned in my own career how much easier it was when I was given knowledgeable, pragmatic and simultaneous empathic support in challenging situations.
This experience has fuelled my motivation to help others facing similar issues.
Culture of leadership in turbulent times
The path that will take us there
Peter F. Drucker, pioneer of modern management theory, coined the saying “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” To ensure success of your strategies, you need a corporate culture where change and innovation can flourish. I know from experience that transformation projects that were started a long time ago only later became successful when the issue of leadership culture was addressed and new answers discovered.
Women lead differently
Men do too
Recent scientific studies confirm what I have personally experienced in more than 20 years in leadership positions: for good leadership, your gender does not matter. Ultimately, a successful management team is simply about a mix of different people with different qualifications, personalities and perspectives. Nevertheless, leadership can be a very different experience for women than for their male colleagues.
New in leadership
The role – The team – The organization
Taking on a management role for the first time means facing up to new professional challenges. Your technical expertise that helped you gain more responsibility now takes a back seat. Instead, your leadership skills are in demand. Developing these skills does not happen automatically, but it is not magic either – becoming a leader is a mission.
Experience in leadership
Complex challenges
Things have become confusing and demanding? You know you are facing a great challenge in your project, and perhaps even open resistance towards change? This is where I come in as a leadership coach to help even experienced managers to provide new perspectives and clarifying, solution-oriented perspectives on your project.
Leading without “hierarchical power”
Lateral leadership
Anyone who has managed a large project knows how it is: management expects you to drive jobs forward successfully – and this often goes hand in hand with great responsibility for strategically important change processes. On the organization chart, you as the project manager are usually wedged between all kinds of power structures. Successful leadership in situations of existing hierarchies, and maybe even fiefdoms, is extremely demanding.
Who am I?
How I became an expert in leadership and change
What others are saying
This is what my clients have to say about working with me
“Brigitta Nickelsen combines extensive methodical and professional competence with an intuitive understanding of challenges in different constellations. It is fun to explore the extensive field of leadership together with her. She gives clear messages that immediately lead to the expansion of my own perspectives and reflections. In this context, it was very helpful for me that we developed and evaluated options in our joint sessions. Through this approach, I was able to use what was discussed immediately and in a very concrete way. That was and is important for me. My conclusion: I really felt in good hands with her – humanly, methodically and professionally.”
“A coaching experience with a power lady. And that’s exactly the point.
Brigitta Nickelsen supported me over the course of a year and coached me in many different management situations. She is very good at putting herself into your shoes in corporate structures that are initially unknown to you and quickly manages to get me to work out a solution myself by asking specific questions. As a young manager I was able to learn and implement a lot when it came to the issues of: “Visions in life”, “Self-esteem” and “Women in leadership”.
“Brigitta Nickelsen balances extensive experience in the field of leadership as well as in accompanying change processes with personal affinity and professional distance! Her support, which she individually tailored to my situation, has contributed significantly to the positive development of my management career. This is why I’m always recommending her to my own managers or colleagues from my environment”.
“I am the managing director of a property management company in Schleswig-Holstein. Brigitta Nickelsen has guided me for about a year now in matters of corporate and personnel management. Coaching takes place in a very relaxed atmosphere. She always coaches in a way that supports you and her advice is easily implementable. Ms Nickelsen helps me to recognise and understand the possibilities and advantages of the solutions we develop together. I’m greatly motivated to implement what I learn from her and I see the results of this every time. Ms Nickelsen is familiar with the property and real estate management industry and has an excellent understanding of the structure and particularities of our company. She always coaches me in a way that is very personal to me and to my company”.