Who this method serves

Built for leaders carrying enterprise-scale responsibility. From the C-suite to the boardroom.

The Auerbach Coaching Method is designed for executives whose decisions carry weight beyond themselves: shareholders, regulators, thousands of employees, complex commercial outcomes. It is methodology-led work for considered buyers who want to understand the substance before they commit.

i.

CEOs & Managing Directors

Carrying boards, shareholders and the weight that doesn't show on the org chart. Often working alone at the top of a complex organisation, where the questions are no longer technical but human, strategic and deeply consequential.

ii.

C-Suite Executives navigating broader scope

Stepping into enterprise-wide remit, leading through transformation, or being readied for the top seat. The work is to grow into the role before the role grows around you, and to do it without losing the edge that got you here.

iii.

Board Members & senior contributors

Non-executive directors, chairs, and senior individual contributors whose influence shapes culture and direction without direct command. The leverage point is judgement, presence, and the quiet authority to ask the harder question.

The Auerbach Method

Three masteries, in sequence. Each one earns the next.

An evidence-based framework refined over twenty-five years, drawing on clinical psychology, executive assessment, adult-learning theory, and twenty-five years inside Australian commerce. Engagements run weekly or fortnightly across a four-to-six month arc, then shift to monthly consolidation. The architecture is consistent; the application is bespoke to each leader.

i

Self-mastery

Clarity about how you operate under load. The patterns you reach for, the ones that quietly cost you, and the inner architecture of your decisions. Drawing on Leadership Circle Profile, Hogan 360, and clinical psychology.

Commanding executive presence, calibrated to the room you're actually in.
Crystal clear messaging, with a steady voice when stakes are highest.
Unwavering integrity in pressure, not just in calm.

The psychology beneath this work is straightforward: under cognitive load, leaders default to early-life patterns that once kept them safe and now quietly limit them. Naming and re-authoring those patterns is the difference between reacting from the past and choosing in the present. Commercially, it is also the difference between an executive whose decisions are predictable and one whose decisions are sound.

ii

Relationship mastery

The conversations you've been avoiding, and the ones you're having badly. Executive presence, hard feedback, board dynamics, and the relational fabric that determines whether your strategy survives contact with your team.

Navigates complex relationships across boards, executives, regulators and clients.
Fosters strong collaboration where competing agendas would otherwise stall the work.
Influences culture and performance without relying on positional authority.

Most strategies die in the relational layer, not the analytical one. Attachment science and group dynamics tell us why: people read leaders for safety before they read them for strategy, and a leader whose nervous system is regulated under pressure is the leader whose team will follow them into difficulty. The commercial yield is faster decision velocity and a culture that compounds rather than corrodes.

iii

Strategic mastery

The few decisions that matter, made well. Where to put your attention, what to refuse, how to set the direction your organisation can actually follow. Coaching that earns its commercial keep.

Demonstrates exceptional reasoning under genuine uncertainty.
Anticipates challenges before they appear in the numbers.
Delivers on innovation, strategy and execution in the same breath.

Strategy is, in practice, a sequence of judgements made under incomplete information. The psychological work is to think clearly when anxious, to refuse premature certainty, and to hold the long view when quarterly pressure crowds the room. The commercial work is to convert that clarity into a coherent sequence of bets the organisation can resource, sequence, and finish.

The practice

An executive coaching method, refined over twenty-five years in Sydney.

The Auerbach Method is an executive coaching and leadership coaching framework built for the leaders whose decisions actually move organisations: CEOs, managing directors, C-suite executives, board members, and the founder CEOs scaling something significant. Evidence-based. Psychology and commerce in the same room.

Evidence-based, not improvised.

This is not a personality framework borrowed from a training manual. The Auerbach Method draws on clinical psychology (where decades of research show how people change in practice rather than in theory), validated executive assessment instruments (Leadership Circle Profile, Hogan 360, Collective Leadership Assessment), and adult-learning theory developed during my years lecturing into the AGSM MBA program at the University of New South Wales. The result is a coaching method with a defensible spine, not a set of platitudes dressed up in business language.

Psychology and commerce, in the same conversation.

Most executive coaching in Sydney leans heavily one way or the other: psychologically literate but commercially naive, or commercially shrewd but blind to the human dynamics that decide whether a strategy actually lands. The Auerbach Method was built deliberately at the intersection. I trained in commerce at Macquarie University and ran businesses for years. I then trained in clinical psychotherapy and now lead a corporate psychology practice supporting more than six hundred member organisations. Both careers stay in the room, and that is what the work is for: the place where they meet is where senior leadership actually happens.

For Sydney's enterprise leaders, online or in person.

Engagements are private, deliberate, and bespoke. A typical arc runs four to six months, weekly or fortnightly at first, shifting to monthly as ground is held. Sessions take place from rooms in Surry Hills or Sydney CBD, or online wherever you are in Australia. The work is also available as part of broader business coaching for founder CEOs, and you can read what former clients have said about this executive coaching practice in their own words.

Coaching process

A clear, considered arc. Five steps, two phases, no surprises.

Transparency reduces risk for both of us. Below is the architecture of a typical engagement under the Auerbach Coaching Method: a discovery phase, then a coaching phase, with a defined close. Adapted to each leader, never improvised.

Step 01 · Discovery

Briefing & chemistry check

A thirty-minute conversation to understand what you're carrying, what success would look like, and whether the chemistry is right. No obligation on either side. I am direct about whether this method is the right fit, and where it isn't, I will point you towards someone who is.

Step 02 · Discovery

Assessment & goal setting

360-degree input from the people who see you under load, validated assessment (Leadership Circle Profile, Hogan 360, or Collective Leadership Assessment as appropriate) and a careful read of the commercial terrain. We then agree the specific outcomes the engagement is accountable for.

Step 03 · Coaching

The core arc, three masteries

Weekly or fortnightly sessions across four to six months. We work through self-mastery first (so decisions are made from clear ground), then relational mastery (so those decisions land in your team), then strategic mastery (so the work earns its commercial keep).

Step 04 · Coaching

Hold the ground

Monthly consolidation sessions to apply gains to the live decisions in front of you, with optional reassessment to evidence the shift to your board, your CEO, or yourself. A defined close, not an indefinite retainer.

Foundations of the method

Three disciplines, one practice.

The Auerbach Coaching Method draws deliberately on three established bodies of work. The integration is the point: no single discipline, on its own, is enough to coach a senior leader well.

i.

Science-backed psychology

Clinical psychotherapy training, registered PACFA membership, and certification in Emotionally Focused Therapy. The evidence base for how people actually change under pressure: attachment science, regulation, and the patterns that quietly drive senior decision-making.

ii.

Learning theory (AGSM)

Years lecturing into the Australian Graduate School of Management MBA program at UNSW. Adult-learning principles built into every engagement so insights become embodied capability rather than interesting reading. Designed to stick under the actual conditions of senior work.

iii.

Commercial knowledge

B.Commerce, years running businesses, and current leadership of a corporate psychology practice supporting more than six hundred Australian organisations. Fluency in the language of boards, P&Ls, and shareholders, so the coaching conversation never has to pause to translate.

In their own words

“

Dan is engaging and highly insightful, bringing valuable perspectives on team dynamics and leadership functioning that have been immediately helpful. The work elevated the team's ability to meet complex challenges in today's fast-changing workplace.

Justin Graham

CEO · M&C Saatchi

“He discerns the point of one's growing edge in leadership and takes you back into scenarios for further development. Direct reports spontaneously commented on positive changes in leadership and demeanor.”

Carmen Rechbauer

CEO · NSW Healthcare

“Dan's coaching was instrumental in supporting my transition to Managing Director, providing invaluable guidance on activating teams for high performance, working effectively at senior levels, and navigating a much larger role.”

Jeremy Robotham

Managing Director · Knight Frank

Read fifteen more →

Dan Auerbach, executive coach in Sydney, editorial portrait

About Dan

Dual qualified. Rare in this work.

Two practices, kept in the same room. The first: a corporate psychology firm I built that today supports more than 600 member organisations across Australia. The second: a private clinical practice. Both still run, day to day. I trained in commerce, lectured into the AGSM MBA program at UNSW, and built both. My clients come for the operator who reads psychology, not the other way round.

i.

B.Commerce, Macquarie University

Commercial fluency built first-hand.

ii.

Clinical Psychotherapist · PACFA #21561

Clinical Member, Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia.

iii.

Former MBA Lecturer · AGSM

Australian Graduate School of Management.

iv.

Licensed Assessor · Leadership Circle Profile & Hogan 360

Certified Facilitator, Collective Leadership Assessment.

v.

Certified EFT Therapist

International Association for Emotionally Focussed Therapy.

Download full bio (PDF) →

A mutual decision

This work isn't for everyone. Here's where it fits, and where it doesn't.

Likely a good fit

You're carrying decisions that genuinely matter: to people, to capital, or to both.
You've done well, and you suspect the next chapter will ask something different of you.
You want a thinking partner who can hold both the commercial and the personal in one conversation.
You're willing to be honest about what isn't working, even if the audience is just one person.
You're prepared to commit to four to six months of considered work.

Probably not the right fit

You want a tactical fix in two sessions. There are good people for that, and it isn't me.
You're looking for cheerleading. The work is generous, not flattering.
You aren't free to act on what you discover. Coaching without authority frustrates everyone.
The brief is to validate a decision already made, rather than examine it.

Executive Coaching Method · Sydney · The Auerbach Coaching Method

The architecture beneath
every engagement.

Built for leaders carrying enterprise-scale responsibility. From the C-suite to the boardroom.

CEOs & Managing Directors

C-Suite Executives navigating broader scope

Board Members & senior contributors

Three masteries, in sequence. Each one earns the next.

An executive coaching method, refined over twenty-five years in Sydney.

Evidence-based, not improvised.

Psychology and commerce, in the same conversation.

For Sydney's enterprise leaders, online or in person.

A clear, considered arc. Five steps, two phases, no surprises.

Briefing & chemistry check

Assessment & goal setting

The core arc, three masteries

Hold the ground

Three disciplines, one practice.

Science-backed psychology

Learning theory (AGSM)

Commercial knowledge

Dual qualified. Rare in this work.

This work isn't for everyone. Here's where it fits, and where it doesn't.

Likely a good fit

Probably not the right fit

A thirty-minute conversation. No obligation, on either side.

Pick a time.