Strategic Clarity and Leadership Growth with Tom Goldstein

Leadership development often begins with curiosity. Curiosity about how people think, how teams work, and what helps individuals perform at their best.

For Tom Goldstein, that curiosity started early in his career at Siemens, where training in interpersonal communication sparked a lasting interest in human behaviour and leadership development. After years in the tech industry and senior management roles, Tom made the decision to step away from his corporate career to study psychology, behaviour change, and coaching.

Since then, he has spent more than a decade working with professionals navigating challenges, defining their direction, and building the confidence to show up fully in their roles. In this conversation, Tom shares the experiences that shaped his coaching philosophy, the leadership capabilities he believes are often overlooked, and the principles that guide his work with leaders today.

What first drew you into coaching, and how has your own journey shaped the way you work with clients?

"I first got interested in coaching early on in my career. I was working for Siemens as part of their graduate intake and part of our development path was training around interpersonal communication. I was fascinated to explore the differences between how I and others thought and operated. This kicked off a process for me of learning as much as I could in this field. By the time I moved into senior management, I had started working with a very experienced coach who was also working with Rolls Royce and Kraft Foods. This support was so important for me on my own development path.

In 2015 I decided that my career in tech had reached its natural culmination and I stepped away. I went back to university to study psychology and behaviour change, and I also did my coach training and certification. I felt a strong desire to understand how to practically support people who were either facing challenge, defining their direction, working towards their aspirations, or simply people who could benefit from a thought partner that was able to support and challenge them in equal measure.

Over the past 10 years I have continued to be drawn deeper and deeper into the process of coaching and supporting amazing clients, each on their own professional and life journey."

Can you recall a moment when a client surprised themselves with what they achieved, and how that transformation felt for you as their coach?

"I have had a number of clients who have surprised themselves! One that comes to mind was a guy working in a successful architecture firm. Although he was talented, and had curated a really wonderful life for himself - with a family, job and home he loved - he had a continual fear of getting things wrong. This fear kept him playing small, and meant that he was both anxious in meetings, and held himself back, aiming to not get fired rather than to be seen as excelling in his role. Through the coaching, he opened up more and more, and by the end of our 8 sessions, he had found a confidence in himself that got him noticed in a great way at work. He started to really trust himself in professional conversations, and to enjoy showing up fully at work. Last time we spoke he was doing really well in his job and was much less fearful of losing what he had built up."

In your experience, what is one leadership skill people tend to underestimate, and why does it matter more than they realize?

"I have found that most leaders find it really difficult to develop and maintain a strategic mindset. In my experience, the ability to have clarity at a strategic level and to take the time to step back and reflect on how the day to day fits into the strategic view is massively under developed in a large number of leaders, even senior leaders. It's often much easier to focus on what needs to get done, and on the current issues than to develop this strategic thinking capacity. I also think that strategic thinking is very rarely taught or role modelled in a lot of organisations. This matters because most leaders I've met don't have enough time in their day to do everything they could do in their role. If they are not really clear on what their over arching strategy is, and how that fits into the strategy of their department and the business as a whole, then prioritising and making bold decisions becomes too difficult.

Without strategic prioritisation, decisions start to be made on task preference, immediate fire fighting, who shouts the loudest etc. and the value that the leader ultimately delivers to their people and the business is substantially below their potential."

What personal value or principle guides you the most when working with leaders?

"For me it is really important for leaders to tap into their personal alignment and sovereignty. In a way, this is another way of saying they need to know their own guiding principles really well. I don't just mean at an intellectual level, I mean a deep felt sense of what is true for them, and how they bring that truth into their work as a leader. Without this connection to self, leaders are simply pushing processes, answering questions and passing on mandates from higher up in the hierarchy.

Of course, there always needs to be a counterbalance, which means that leaders need the ability and space to reflect on their beliefs and actions - which is another great use of leadership coaching!"

How has being connected through TopLeader influenced your ability to share your expertise and reach more people?

"Working with TopLeader has helped me support leaders in organisations that I wouldn't normally have a relationship with. I have worked with many organisations, large and small over the years, such as LinkedIn, Porche, the BBC, Microsoft, but I love that TopLeader continues to broaden the reach of coaching, especially in Europe."

If you could give one piece of advice to the next generation of leaders, what would it be?

"Figure out what leadership and strategy mean to you! There is a lot of information and opinions out there, and a lot of different truths. By finding your own synthesis of these, through theory, experience, conversations, mentoring and coaching, you will find your way to stand out and deliver value in whatever role you move into."

Tom’s perspective highlights something many leaders discover only later in their careers: technical skill and hard work alone are rarely enough to unlock real leadership impact.

Strategic thinking, self-awareness, and a clear connection to personal values often determine whether leaders simply manage tasks or truly lead people and organisations forward.

Coaching creates the space for that reflection and growth. As Tom’s work shows, when leaders take the time to step back, examine their assumptions, and reconnect with their own principles, they often unlock potential that was already there.

At TopLeader, we connect organisations with experienced coaches and mentors like Tom who help leaders navigate complexity, build clarity, and grow into the roles they are stepping into. If you’d like to work with Tom, you can connect with him directly through the TopLeader platform and explore coaching sessions tailored to your goals.

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About the expert

Tom Goldstein is a certified leadership and life coach with a background in psychology and behaviour change. Before moving into coaching, he spent more than 15 years in the telecoms and technology industry in technical and leadership roles. In 2015 he stepped away from corporate life to study psychology and train as a professional coach. Today he works with leaders and professionals to help them build clarity, confidence, and stronger leadership capability.