Skip to content
ADLBusiness Coach

Services

Executive coaching in Adelaide

For the owner-director or senior leader of a South Australian business with roughly 10 to 50 people in it, where the job has quietly changed from doing the work to deciding what everyone else does.

Coaches pay me a fee for each enquiry I pass on. That's how this free service is funded, and it means I introduce you to coaches in the network rather than every coach in Adelaide. How this works

What changes at 10 to 50 staff

There's a point in a South Australian business, usually somewhere between 10 and 50 people, where the owner's job stops being a bigger version of the job they started with. You're no longer the fastest person in the building at anything. You're the person 6 other people are waiting on, and the real constraint on the operation becomes how quickly and how well you decide things.

That shift arrives without warning, and the habits that got the business to 10 staff are usually the ones that slow it down at 30. Working harder than everyone else, knowing every job, staying across every detail: all of that reads as commitment at 8 people and as a bottleneck at 28. Executive coaching is a structured, regular conversation about exactly that transition. What are you still holding? What are your managers allowed to decide without asking? What is it that only you can do?

It's also, for a lot of owner-directors, the only place they get an honest reading. The more senior you get, the more carefully people phrase things around you. A coach has no stake in your comfort and no position in the business to protect, which is the point of paying for the conversation at all.

Executive coaching is 1 of the areas covered on the Adelaide coaching services hub. If the description above sounds a size too large, the small business coaching page is written for the owner still doing the work.

Is this you?

  • You've got managers, and you're still doing their job for them the moment it gets difficult.
  • There are 6 people waiting on a decision only you can make, and you haven't had a clear hour to make it.
  • Your diary is full of meetings you called, and the thinking you're actually paid for starts after 6pm.
  • The other shareholders or the board want a plan, and you've moved that conversation 3 times.
  • You've been the owner for years and nobody in the business has ever told you honestly how you come across.
  • The business has grown past the point where you know what everyone is doing, and that keeps you awake.

What a coach works on at this level

Every coach in the network runs their own approach, so treat this as the ground the conversation usually covers rather than a fixed curriculum. Ask any coach you speak to how they'd handle the 2 items that matter most to you.
  1. 01

    Where the week actually goes

    A real look at the calendar rather than the version in your head: what you're doing that a competent person 1 level down could do, what you're doing because it's comfortable, and what genuinely needs the owner-director.

  2. 02

    The decisions that drifted up

    Senior calendars fill with decisions that migrated upward because nobody stopped them. Sorting which ones belong to you, which belong to a manager, and what has to change before that manager makes them without checking first.

  3. 03

    The layer directly underneath you

    Whether the people reporting to you carry authority that matches their responsibility, whether you'd back their judgement in a room you weren't in, and what you'd need to see before you would.

  4. 04

    The conversations you're avoiding

    The manager who isn't performing, the shareholder disagreement, the price rise to a customer you've had for 12 years. Working out what you want to say, then rehearsing it out loud with someone who isn't involved.

  5. 05

    The numbers you actually steer by

    Which 6 or 7 figures you look at weekly, whether they tell you anything you can act on this week, and which reports you've been reading out of habit since the business had 10 people in it.

  6. 06

    How you come across under pressure

    Senior people stop getting honest feedback, and the more senior they get the less of it arrives. A coach is 1 of the few people in your week with no stake in keeping you comfortable.

  7. 07

    The 12-month plan you keep not writing

    Turning a set of intentions into a short sequence with dates, owners and a review point, then being asked about it every fortnight by someone who remembers exactly what you said last time.

What executive coaching doesn't cover

Business coaching is not a licensed occupation in Australia, and a coach who wanders into regulated territory is a problem, not a bonus. The list below is the right person for each of those questions.

A coach works on how the business runs and how you run yourself inside it. These sit outside that, and a coach in the network will send you to the right professional rather than have a go.

Investments, super and insurance
A licensed financial adviser. Coaching covers what the business earns, not what you do with the money once it's yours.
Tax and the annual return
Your registered tax agent. A coach should send the question back to them rather than answer it.
Shareholder agreements and anything with a legal consequence
A lawyer. That includes agreements between owners, customer terms and staff matters.
Preparing or auditing the accounts
Your accountant or bookkeeper. A coach helps you read the numbers, never produce them.
Filling a senior role
A recruiter or search firm. Coaching covers the decision about the role and what it has to produce, not the placement.
Psychological treatment
A registered psychologist. Coaching is a business conversation, and a good coach says so when the ground shifts.

What executive coaching costs in Adelaide

Executive work sits in its own band, well above a standard SME engagement. The figures below are the published Adelaide ranges, ex GST. Each coach sets their own fees and quotes you directly, and you'll be told a coach's fee band before any introduction is made.
Executive 1-to-1 retainer, any cadence
$5,000 to $9,000+ a month
Executive or C-suite hourly rate
$400 to $900 an hour
Standard SME retainer, fortnightly, for comparison
$1,500 to $2,800 a month

Indicative Adelaide ranges, ex GST, checked September 2026. A retainer is not the hourly rate multiplied by session time: it prices preparation, access between sessions and the accountability, which is why the monthly figure looks high next to the hourly one. See the full Adelaide pricing guide.

Why a monthly retainer is not hours multiplied by a rateA single bar split into 2 parts. The first part, 1x, is the session itself. The second part, about 2.5x more, is everything around the session: preparation before each session, access between sessions by phone or email, materials and templates, and accountability, which is being asked what happened. A monthly retainer runs at roughly 3.5x raw session time. Multiply hours by an hourly rate and you'll under-quote a retainer by roughly 2 thirds. Each coach sets their own fee and quotes you directly.A retainer isn't hours x rateIt runs at roughly 3.5x raw session time.1xabout 2.5x moreThe sessionEverything around itPreparation before each sessionAccess between sessions, by phone or emailMaterials and templatesAccountability: being asked what happenedMultiply hours by an hourly rate and you'llunder-quote a retainer by roughly 2 thirds.Each coach sets their own fee and quotes you directly.

How the matching works

There are 4 steps, and you decide at every 1 of them.
  1. 1

    You tell me what's going on

    A short form: your industry, how many people work in the business, what you want to change, and roughly what you can spend. It takes about 3 minutes.

  2. 2

    I read it and check the network

    I read every enquiry myself. I look for coaches whose actual background fits your industry, your size and the problem you've described. If nobody in the network works on it, I'll tell you that.

  3. 3

    I tell you who and what they charge

    Before any introduction, you get the coach's background and their current fee band. You decide whether you want the introduction made.

  4. 4

    Up to 3 coaches get in touch

    I pass your details to up to 3 coaches in the network, and only after you've ticked the consent box. You take a first conversation with whoever you want to, and you're under no obligation to go further.

The full version, including the 13 things checked before a coach joins the network, is on the how it works page.

Executive coaching questions

Is executive coaching different from ordinary business coaching?
The subject matter is different. Business coaching for an owner-operator usually starts with pricing, cash flow and getting out from under the daily work. Executive coaching starts a layer up: how you make decisions, how much authority sits with your managers, how you handle a board or co-owners, and how you land with the people who report to you. The fee bands differ too, because coaches working at that level generally carry a senior operating background of their own.
My business has 25 staff. Is that big enough for executive coaching?
Size matters less than the shape of your job. If most of your week goes on deciding, delegating and managing people who manage other people, the executive conversation fits, and plenty of South Australian businesses reach that shape somewhere around 15 to 30 staff. If you're still the person doing the work and the business stops when you stop, small business coaching is a better use of the money, and I'd tell you that rather than route you to a more expensive band.
Why do executive coaches charge more than other coaches?
Published Adelaide executive retainers sit at $5,000 to $9,000+ a month ex GST, against $1,500 to $2,800 for a standard fortnightly engagement. The gap reflects who is sitting opposite you: coaches at that level have usually run a business of similar size or held a senior role in one, and the engagement carries more preparation, more work between sessions and more exposure to your real numbers. Whether that is worth it to you is a judgement only you can make.
Can the same coach work with my leadership group as well as with me?
Some coaches in the network do individual and group work, and some only work 1-to-1. It's worth asking in the first conversation, because the answer changes both the shape and the cost of the engagement. A coach working with you and with the people who report to you at the same time has to be clear about what stays confidential, and any coach worth engaging raises that boundary before you have to.
How long does an executive engagement usually run?
The pattern across the market is 6 to 12 months, because the things being worked on (delegation, the leadership layer, the conversation you keep postponing) move over quarters rather than weeks. The market has also shifted towards rolling 30-day terms, and a 12-month upfront lock-in is widely treated as a warning sign. Ask what happens if you want to stop at month 3, before you sign anything.

Get matched with an Adelaide executive coach

Tell me the size of the business, what your week currently looks like and the decision you keep postponing. I'll look for coaches in the network whose own operating background fits a business of your size, and tell you if there isn't one.

  • You'll hear from me within 1 business day.
  • You'll be told a coach's fee band before any introduction is made.
Tell me about your businessHow the matching works

Coaches pay me a fee for each enquiry I pass on. That's how this free service is funded, and it means I introduce you to coaches in the network rather than every coach in Adelaide. How this works

Related pages