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Authentic, powerful leadership begins with you. The whole of you. Somatically-oriented leadership coaching helps you forge a way of leading truer to your nature. You cultivate a trustworthy and highly effective personal leadership style through embodied awareness, practices and skills. Learn to lead by the power of your presence.
The more of you that comes alive as you lead, the more successful you will be.

Leading collaborative ventures is an art...

... especially where creativity, agility and adaptability are critical to success. Leaders who will meet the formidable challenges ahead need support and wisdom—from themselves and others.

I work with individuals who recognize the need for highly effective leadership that promotes sustained and energized collaboration. They create environments where people contribute to their full potential. These leaders already demonstrate high levels of competence and accomplishment in their areas of expertise. They aspire to being leaders whose actions and ways of being inspire trust, to being leaders not only by virtue of their knowledge and roles but also by the power of their presence. They engage in continuous learning in order to cultivate their capacity to lead and partner with people in complex and ever-changing situations. They seek coaching to gain actionable self-awareness and guidance in shaping themselves as leaders for the sake of building the future they want.

Cultivate Leadership Presence

Especially in times of complexity and change, leaders who by their presence and competency can build trust quickly and inspire others to collaboration are the ones who succeed. Building your presence as a leader is a process of coming into an authentic and powerful sense of self and being able to extend into the world with clear intention, skillful action, and grounded compassion. With somatically-oriented leadership coaching you learn to lead not only by virtue of your knowledge and role but also by the power of your presence. You evoke leadership presence and build trust when your thoughts, word, feelings, and actions are congruent and consistent. You lead from center.

Center is the place from which you perceive the world and move with greatest flexibility, strength and choice. Even under pressure, when you are centered, you are powerfully connected to what you care about. Center is also where you access your greatest sense of self-esteem which is essential for creativity and productivity.

With a unique emphasis on Somatic Coaching, I provide leaders an opportunity to develop their presence by cultivating embodied awareness, practices and skills. "Somatic" comes from the Greek notion of "soma" - the body in its integrated wholeness. The body or soma - in its physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects - is the Self. Somatics as a coaching tool goes beyond attending to the body as a place to manage moods and comprises more than experiential learning. It incorporates the knowledge of historical shaping, the wisdom of recurrent practice and the power of learning new skills and interpretations. Individuals develop their capacity to move from center, staying connected to their own ethic, standards, values and commitments while also connecting and coordinating with others. The somatic emphasis helps individuals to produce strength of character and a greater ability to respond to new situations with grace and power that conversational coaching alone cannot produce.

My commitment is to guide men and women in cultivating their capacity to lead from inherent wisdom, authenticity and wholeness with maximum presence, choice and effective action.

What needs your attention?

Develop a strong and open presence that clearly communicates your leadership value.
Trust yourself to make better decisions and move into action with greater clarity and confidence.
Communicate and listen for genuine, clear understanding of needs and responsive, aligned action.
Negotiate agreements that clarify expectations, satisfy mutual needs and engender authentic trust.
Design and implement decision-making processes that inspire participation, support and follow-through.
Reconcile conflict and restore cohesive, trustworthy engagement in times of uncertainty and change.
Expand your capacity to have courageous conversations with others fo the sake fo building a more positive future together.
Experience greater inspiration, joy, and ease as you lead from a more authentic and integrated sense of Self.

Women...Choices and Opportunities

A challenge for women leaders is to succeed without sacrificing essential aspects of themselves, including their deep feminine. Women in professions - such as medicine, law, science, technology, etc. - where men tend to be leadership role models face a dilemma: "How can I lead powerfully and still be true to myself." What does it mean to be woman leader?" How do feminine wisdom and the female experience inform powerful, authentic leadership? What choices promote greater wholeness, inner strength and balance? Women are among a vital vanguard or visionaries developing healthier, more sustainble and compassionate ways to lead for themselves and others. You make the greatest impact taking this journey beyond ideas and into embodied practice. (See also TLC for Women Leaders™)

Why Choose Coaching?

Coaching supplements other options for feedback and learning. Skills and models learned for high-performance, adaptive cultures must be translated into sustained behaviors, practices, and attitudes that hold up under pressure. The insights people gain from training and performance feedback need reinforcement and direction. Leadership effectiveness is dramatically affected through asking for, responding to, and following up on feedback within the context of individual and organizational goals. Indeed, studies over the last several decades indicate that where there is a failure to provide effective, sustained and personally relevant follow-up, training and feedback make a negligible impact on performance improvement. People fall back into historically engrained patterns and attitudes. Coaching is a healthy, positive, and cost-effective process to support leaders who consciously inspire and strive for excellence in themselves and others for the sake of creative collaboration and life-enhancing futures.

In order to achieve lasting and meaningful results, a coaching engagement requires a commitment to learning over time and openness to feedback or assessments from various sources. Each individual develops his or her individual commitments and conditions of satisfaction for the coaching process. Coaching sessions generally range from 60 - 90 minutes. It is important to establish a relatively regular rhythm for sessions, generally bi-weekly (averaging 2-3 sessions per month), depending on the client's schedule and needs. Sessions may be conducted by phone or in person. In all aspects, sessions are scheduled and designed to meet client needs.

Assessment Tools to Understand Individual Development Needs

An individual's commitments and conditions of satisfaction for the coaching process may be influenced by information gleened from assessment tools, e.g. 1) interviews or standardized 360-style surveys or 2) personality and interpersonal preference data. I choose the following tools for their relevance to developing self-awareness and understanding of interpersonal needs in partnering for productive and creative collaboration.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®
Personality inventory to understand preferences for how we are energized, take in information, make decisions, and choose to relate to the world.
Stimulates awareness and appreciation of strengths, challenges, and individual needs in leadership and interpersonal interaction.


FIRO-Element B™ (from the Human Element and FIRO™—Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation—theory developed by Will Schutz, Ph.D.)
Feedback report provides psychometric data to understand interpersonal dynamics according to three basic dimensions of human behavior: inclusion, control and openness.
Illuminates core issues of how a person’s behavior, feelings, self-concept and coping mechanisms affect performance.
Interfaces with additional resources and inquiry tools published in: The Human Element: Productivity, Self-Esteem and the Bottom Line, by Will Schutz, Ph.D.


Leadership Trust Scale™ (from the Reina Trust and Betrayal Model™ developed by Dennis Reina, Ph.D., and Michelle Reina, Ph.D.)
Feedback report provides quantitative and qualitative 360-review type data from the leader and co-workers about behaviors experienced that relate to building and restoring trust.
Clear direction for focusing attention and building skills for greatest impact.
Interfaces with additional resources and inquiry tools published in: Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace, by Dennis S. Reina, Ph.D., and Michelle L. Reina, Ph.D.


Coaching is an important complement to other Bridging Lives offerings, such as “Meeting the Challenge” or TLC for Women Leaders™.

WHAT CLIENTS ARE SAYING:

"Once upon a time, there was a professional woman, close to the apex of her career, who remained mystified by her suspicion that her major purpose in life, and the time for her lasting impact, was yet to come. The mystery was heightened by the realization that her inner voice was not just one voice, but a veritable committee of voices begging to be heard and expressed from an as-yet ignored female perspective and wisdom.

One day, this accomplished professional met Ms. Beata Lewis, J.D., who, in a New York minute, gave validation, context and articulation to the inner voices that had lived most of their lives silently and patiently waiting to be invited to the table. Through the principles of somatic coaching, the internal strength, courage, intelligence, feeling and intuition were given permission and substance to enable a journey into Transformational Leadership, in which the feminine qualities of connectedness, receptivity and integration drive a new Leadership Paradigm for the future.

Ms. Lewis is unique in her understanding of the next wave of the critical journey into what it means to bring a New Leadership into being, and translating the hidden voices of our genuine inner selves into actionable practices. Her coaching techniques are effective in laying the ground work to shatter the glass ceiling of our professional, personal and spiritual lives."
Elise Brownell, Ph.D., Project Director, Bayer Healthcare, Berkeley, CA

"At a critical time when I felt "stalled" in terms of inspiration and career vision, your coaching offered two important tools that worked well for me: First, the somatic exercises enabled me to become conscious of the doubt/fear/uncertainty that was acting as a block. I used it to help get a grip on that negativity and put it proper perspective. Second, you reminded me that "...there are no mistakes, there is only what I do." Very powerful.

In conclusion, the attitude that I came to adopt was - 'choose a path, commit to it and follow it.' Of course this is very simple, something that most folks know and have heard. But to actualize and live that thought is a very different thing. So, for me it was about becoming very conscious about doubt and pushing through it to allow choice. You gave me the awareness and tools that allowed it to happen. Thank you."
Mr. C.N., Attorney and Financial Advisor, San Francisco, CA

"Beata stepped in and helped our organization at a critical time. Every time we met, I walked away from the session armed with tangible models, exercises and metaphors to put into immediate practice in my business. That it was so easy to implement her recommendations clearly demonstrates her ability to position things in simple and practical ways. I deeply appreciated her creativity and action-oriented approach. She also has a special gift for not only looking after the problem/challenge, but also for looking after the people. Her consultative style is warm, adaptive, innovative and collaborative!"
Debby McIsaac, Global People Development, Hewlett Packard Consulting

"Beata has a meticulous, elegant (and fun!) approach to problem-solving for delicate points of group communication."
Daniel D. Feinsmith, President, Solomon Foundation