Most leaders rise to the top because of their strengths. And most leaders eventually hit a wall — because of those exact same strengths.
The decisive executive who once cut through complexity can become the person who no longer listens. The strategic visionary who inspired a team can lose the room when execution demands close attention to detail. What got you here is often what holds you back — and rarely in ways you can see clearly from the inside.
Paul Van Geyt works with senior leaders at the moment that tension becomes impossible to ignore.
What he does
Paul specialises in effective leadership — helping executives develop the range to adapt how they lead, not just what they decide. His focus is on a specific and common blind spot: the way a leader's natural strengths, under pressure or at scale, can quietly become their biggest derailers.
His work is grounded in rigorous psychometric assessment and a coaching approach built around honest, evidence-based insight. Sessions are calm and direct. The questions cut to what matters. Clients consistently describe the experience as both challenging and, unexpectedly, reassuring.
"He quickly gets to the essence of things — and does it in a way that feels non-threatening."
"Passionate, phenomenal, and immediately practical."
How it works in practice
From pressure to persuasion A founder-led SME was preparing a funding pitch to the board. The CEO's natural style — forceful, high-energy, solution-first — had built the business. But in the boardroom, it was generating resistance rather than confidence. Working with Paul, the CEO shifted from leading with answers to leading with questions: surfacing investor concerns, addressing risk openly, and letting the case make itself. The funding was secured.
From carrying the team to trusting it A CEO was exhausted — and so was the team beneath him. His default mode was "telling": decisive, clear, fast. But it had compressed the room for others to think, decide, and grow. Through coaching, he developed a genuine listening practice — not as a technique, but as a different relationship with his own authority. The team's engagement increased. His personal load decreased.
Both outcomes came from the same source: not a change of personality, but a widening of range.
Background and approach
Paul brings an unusual combination of depth to this work.
He spent two decades in corporate leadership at ING Belgium — in sales, marketing, and as an HR business partner — before training as a Gestalt psychotherapist and then as an executive coach. That combination is rare: he understands boardroom pressures from the inside, and he understands human behaviour at a level that goes well beyond frameworks.
He is a Master Certified Coach (MCC) with the International Coaching Federation — the highest credential in the field, held by fewer than 4% of ICF members globally. He has served as an ICF assessor and as faculty for the Academy of Executive Coaching. He is currently completing an MSc in Organisational Psychology at the Open Universiteit, with a research focus on leadership versatility.
He is a certified Hogan Assessment practitioner and a proponent of evidence-based management, with recent certification through Carnegie Mellon University. His psychometric work is not a diagnostic exercise — it is the starting point for a practical conversation about what to do differently.
Paul is an Associate Partner at Otolith Consulting and works with senior executives and leadership teams across sectors including financial services, pharma, and professional services. His client portfolio includes Deloitte, Alpro, and Pliva Pharmaceuticals among others.
A note on versatility
Research on senior leadership consistently finds that true versatility — the ability to flex between opposing demands — is rare. Most leaders are strong on one axis and blind on the other: forceful but not enabling, or strategic but not operational. Paul's work focuses on both axes, because sustainable leadership performance requires both.
If that tension sounds familiar, it may be worth a conversation with Paul.