Mari Williams

Mari Williams Leaders | Public Figures | Elite Athletes
Executive Therapy, Leadership Coaching & Strategy
Confidential advisory for complex, high-pressure lives.

Sustaining success across your whole life, without compromise. Empowering c-suite, leaders, entrepreneurs and hnwis to lower their stress, raise their self-worth and find the vision. You will: • Increase your capability to make fast, effective decisions. • Understanding and managing conflict better • Hone your communication skills to convey your vision with ease. • Boost your resilience. • Reduce

your stress. • Clear auto-pilot unconscious behaviours that are holding you back. • Enhance your self-worth. • Address taboos like anger and shame. • leave you feeling in control. Are you fed up with trying to be your best and yet nothing seems to work? Same patterns, same tripwires, even when you work so hard to do things differently. I understand that frustration. I used to be there too. You may be struggling with: making good decisions, managing conflict and challenging relationships. Worrying what others think of you - Imposter syndrome, stress, lack of self-confidence, or fear of failure. Struggling to delegate, emotional baggage from your past • An inability to find a whole life balance. • Feelings of not being good enough. If you’ve become dissatisfied with standard leadership coaching. You want something that goes deeper and creates fast and permanent change. You are highly ambitious but want quality of life also. You want to be respected for leading with honesty, empathy, and integrity, and you are courageous and smart enough to know you have some work to do to get the future you want. Being average is not for you...

My 5 principles work fast because we’re working directly with the unconscious (with you wide awake as normal) this means we don’t spend hours trying to work out the issues holding you back, we just go directly to them and shift them. Permanent change comes from working this way because research suggests we are run approximately 95% by our unconscious so if it isn’t working with you, it’s working against you... These changes don’t require willpower to maintain because they become naturally part of who you are. Most of my clients have had leadership coaching that only focused on their work life, leaving them imbalanced. I have a rare mix of qualifications and on the ground experience working directly with leaders but also with families, children, schools, couples and I’m a mum of 5. My combined approach gives you an across-the-board solution, and rock-solid foundations. I’m often described as ‘challengingly empathetic, real & direct.'

📘 🎙 My book and podcast can be found here: www.mari-williams.com

When not working to boost world peace through brilliant leadership, I can be found: working out, trying to persuade my teenagers to spend time with me, or dancing around the kitchen hoping no one is watching.

04/06/2026

BOARD DYNAMICS / POWER STRUCTURES

At board level, leadership dynamics are rarely just about what’s being said out loud.

You can sit in a room with people who are experienced, capable, and used to operating at a high level, and still be aware that what’s happening underneath the conversation matters just as much.

You notice where people hold back, where things are being managed rather than addressed, where language is being chosen carefully to avoid shifting something.

So you adjust.

You think about timing, about how to say something, about when to say it, not because you lack clarity, but because you understand the consequences within that structure.

And over time, that becomes part of how decisions are made.

Things move forward, outcomes are agreed, but not everything is fully owned or fully resolved.

And most people learn to work within that.

Until you start to notice how much is being shaped by what isn’t being said.

And whether that still fits.

You think you’re being rational.You’re not.Your emotional state creates your decisions. You might attempt to apply reaso...
03/06/2026

You think you’re being rational.
You’re not.

Your emotional state creates your decisions. You might attempt to apply reason afterwards but what if you didn’t have to work so hard, what if your decisions came with a healthy side of rationality attached

02/06/2026

For years I was the person everyone came to when things went wrong.

I was terrible at setting boundaries. I’d help everyone, anytime. When you’re the one people rely on, it becomes very easy to become the one who holds everything together. You stop noticing when that stopped being a role and started being something people list as part of your personality.

I had to do this because I had a mother who didn’t.

I grew up, taking care of myself and everyone else and that became a pattern. I just started to take care of the whole world!

I see this pattern in others.

You stay strong, you do all the decision-making, and you absorb what needs to be absorbed, both at home and at work, you feel anxious but guilty for feeling it. So what happens when you want to change it?

You may have some difficult conversations as some people will try very hard to stop you, they don’t want to take back their responsibility. Some will worry you will change. Some will cheer you on!

Set your boundaries, choose where and when you want to help

Catch this feeling early because losing your sense of self and being under constant pressure isn’t good for anyone, least of all you.

Choose what you want to be held accountable for. Enjoy your downtime, set boundaries.

28/05/2026

LEADING TEAMS YOU DON’T FULLY TRUST

When you’re leading a senior team, you can have people who perform, deliver, do what they’re meant to do, and still find yourself staying closer to things than you really need to.

Not because they can’t do it, but because something in you doesn’t fully settle when you step back.

So you keep visibility, you check progress, you stay involved in areas that, at this level of leadership, shouldn’t need you.

And over time, that becomes how you lead.

From the outside, it looks like high standards, being across things, strong leadership.

But internally, it means your role never really reduces, it just expands.

And if you’re honest, it’s not always about them.

It’s about what happens in you when you let go of that level of control.

And whether that still fits.

26/05/2026

Why strategy isn’t just for leadership or sport.

In leadership, we often talk about strategy: strategy for the business, strategy for the team, strategy for the organisation. We rarely talk about strategy for the leader.

Unusually for an executive therapist and coach, I talk about strategy for your personal life a lot. A lot of my clients come when everything is working, but they feel distant from their own lives. Not in a way that feels dramatic or obvious, just a sense of being more in their head than in reality.

They don’t feel they have space to think, pause, or step back from something without immediately moving to solve it. They are on autopilot.

So let’s talk strategy, because that is what we need before we even decide whether it’s a bit of coaching, deep therapy, business coaching, etc. Without knowing where you are and where you want to be, we can’t choose where to start. Strategy is crucial and often something left out of these conversations.

Executive coaches and therapists are taught: step back, wait for the client to ask, don’t suggest.

I disagree. We’re here to help you get where you want to go as fast as possible. I absolutely will step in, offer suggestions, and help you identify where you want to go.

Unfortunately, I can’t decide that bit for you. 😀

I find when strategy is in place, the pace moves fast and, as it does, you learn the process for the future.

The challenge is: are you brave enough to lift your head up and explore what’s wrong, so you can get back to enjoying what’s right?

21/05/2026

STRATEGIC CLARITY VS INTERNAL NOISE

In leadership strategy, you can be completely clear on what needs to happen next, the direction makes sense, the plan is solid, and still feel a layer of thinking underneath it that doesn’t quite switch off.

It’s not confusion, it doesn’t stop you moving forward, but it’s there, running alongside what you’ve already decided.

You move ahead, you act, you lead, but part of you is still reviewing it as you go, checking it, adjusting it, not because anything is wrong, but because it hasn’t fully landed.

And most people respond to that by adding more thinking.

More input, more conversations, more perspectives, as if clarity in leadership needs to be built further.

But often, it’s not that the strategy is unclear.

It’s that something internally hasn’t settled once the decision was made.

And whether that still fits.

It’s not a communication problem.It’s what people are avoiding saying.What’s not said often causes more issues that what...
20/05/2026

It’s not a communication problem.
It’s what people are avoiding saying.

What’s not said often causes more issues that what is.

19/05/2026

One of the biggest causes of leadership stress is…

not feeling present.

It always makes me laugh when I hear people STILL talking about leaving your emotions at the door. Cue emotions laughing!

A leader is one person, one life. Stress, decision making, anxiety, arguments, tiredness, work conflict, just follows you into conversations, into how present you are, into how much of your attention is actually there.

You can be sitting with people you care about, listening, responding, saying the right things, and still not fully in it. Kids are the first to notice this.

It’s not because you don’t care, but because your mind has learned to stay slightly ahead of everything. (A useful skill when used to read ahead when reading children’s stories from the 50’s!)

After a while you just get used to it. I find it’s only when we clear that and clients realised what they have been missing (and that they get everything done anyway), that they Always anticipating your next more, or planning your list of jobs.

After a while, that doesn’t feel like pressure anymore.

It just feels like how you are.

Until you notice how rarely you’re actually where you are.

14/05/2026

Tired of making decisions as a leader?

At a senior level in leadership, you can go through an entire day making decisions, some that carry real weight, others that feel smaller but still require your attention, and still notice that none of them have fully left you by the end of it.

It’s not that you’re stuck on them, you’re still moving, still responding, still doing what’s needed, but they don’t quite close; they sit slightly open while the next thing takes its place.

And you notice it in small ways.

You go back over something you’ve already decided; you replay part of a conversation without needing to; you find yourself holding onto details that should have been finished.

From the outside, it looks like strong leadership and clear decision-making, you’re decisive, you’re trusted, you move quickly, but internally it can feel more like everything is still running at once.

And after a while, that becomes normal, until you realise it isn’t the number of decisions that’s tiring; it’s the fact that none of them are fully settling.

And whether that still fits.

Everything works. But something doesn’t feel right. You feel hollow. It’s rarely about needing more. It’s about learnin...
13/05/2026

Everything works.
But something doesn’t feel right. You feel hollow.

It’s rarely about needing more.
It’s about learning to accept your achievements.

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