Stanislaw Consulting is excited to start 2026 off by announcing that Karen Sherwood is joining the executive coaching team as a partner to founder David Stanislaw. With a deep history of psychoanalytical training and experience, business ownership, and executive coaching, Karen strives to help you and your business uncover new pathways to growth and professional development.
Understanding Karen’s Coaching Philosophy
Karen’s approach to executive coaching is grounded in her psychoanalytical training. Her goal, both in her psychological work and as a consultant, is to help people understand the less than conscious motivations behind their rationally selected behavior. As a licensed psychotherapist, she believes that business leaders and executives need the insight that the psychodynamic lens can provide, helping them see past their blind spots and understand what is driving their decision-making. She helps clients recognize the patterns they are repeating in their work, identifying the limiting beliefs and behaviors that are standing in the way of personal and professional growth. Karen Sherwood helps business owners to see beneath the surface in order to develop greater self-awareness.
“The best leaders are deeply aware of their own inner theatre and know how it affects the people around them.”
– Manfred Kets de Vries
One of Karen’s subspecialties is working with people with unique intellectual excellence and cognitive strengths who may be challenged with social or emotional connection. These are people who are experts in their field, specialized in something unique. This includes neurodivergent leaders and high-achieving professionals seeking new ways to connect to their coworkers and teams through authentic interpersonal connections. She works with professionals in a wide range of industries from doctors and lawyers to entrepreneurs, and has a deep understanding of the issues facing business leaders today.
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Bringing a Psychoanalytical Lens to Executive Coaching
Karen Sherwood could be called a psychoanalyst for your business. Her training and experience as a social worker and psychoanalyst helps her put companies “on the couch” to develop greater insight and to understand what is holding them back. Through targeted executive coaching and leadership development, one-on-one and in groups, Karen helps business leaders understand the troubles their teams are facing using the tools of psychology and emotional intelligence. Karen says:
“Leadership emerges not just from what we do, but from who we are. In today’s complex world, true leadership transformation requires more than surface-level skills – it demands self-discovery and authentic growth.”
– Karen Sherwood
As a facilitator, she helps executives and other business leaders make connections and find solutions to conflict and challenges they face. She encourages participants to bring greater awareness to the internal and interpersonal dynamics that affect the way work gets done. In one-on-one executive coaching, she uses her deeply held skill of listening to ask thoughtful questions and provide space for leaders to unpack and resolve the complex situations they face.
Fostering Collaboration Through Facilitated Leadership Growth
With a background of her own private practice for 25 years, Karen knows the personal growth mindset that is needed for success. She knows that using psychology to guide business decisions isn’t just smart, it’s financially beneficial for the businesses whose leaders invest in their personal growth. She knows that the goal of an executive coach isn’t just to act as a sounding board. Instead, she asks meaningful questions and makes space for business owners to unpack their challenges and find solutions uniquely targeted to their needs. The best answers for solutions come out of the trusted relationship between an executive coach and client.
As a long-time faculty member at a psychotherapy training institute, Karen has held various positions of leadership both nationally and internationally. She is a recipient of the Emory Goizueta Business School, Executive Coaching Certificate. This program prepared Karen to leverage her background in understanding of human behavior and apply her training to the world of executive coaching. She thrives in situations where leaders are facing complex problems or diverse group dynamics. By facilitating collaboration among leaders, she helps them tune into their own self-reflection and make connections that further growth. She is also adept at working with difficult group dynamics.
Karen lives in Maryland, outside the DC Metropolitan area, with her family, dog, and cats. She enjoys spending time outdoors and traveling. Her experience and expertise will broaden the services offered by Stanislaw Consulting geographically, and by going deeper into David’s existing psychological approach to business leadership.
With a combined 70 years of psychological and coaching experience, David and Karen are ready and able to provide meaningful support to your business through facilitation and one-on-one executive coaching. Contact us to meet with David or Karen today and consider the role of emotional intelligence in the way you and your business gets things done.
This post was written by a human without the use of AI. Stanislaw Consulting does not consent to the use of its online content to train large language models or other forms of artificial intelligence.
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