Michael Sessions, Ph.D.

Senior Consultant

Dr. Michael Sessions is a licensed psychologist that has coached hundreds of senior business leaders and their teams to a greater level of success over his career. In his twenty plus years working with Turknett Leadership Group, he has developed expertise in training teams and individuals, both private sector and nonprofit, in ways of cultivating trust and constructively harnessing the creativity often embedded in conflicts that many organizations seek to avoid. In so doing, he helps them restructure and realign on a solid foundation.

By focusing on sources of motivation inherent to all people, Dr. Sessions enables executives with aligning organizations around mission and strategy. He is also well known for his ability to provide turnaround coaching and talent intervention for individuals, helping prevent the derailment of valued leaders.

Career Highlights

  • For a Public Utility Company: Led board directed CEO succession planning project, including executive level competency modeling as well as executive coaching with the CEO and executive team
  • For Fortune 100 Company: Worked with highly valued executives to help with relationship building across the organization and to increase leadership effectiveness
  • For Private Law Firm: Provided turn-around coaching to key partner and producer to ease organizational tension and optimize the individual contribution
  • For a Technology Company: Assessed senior team members to assist in organizational restructure; resulted in critical job reassignments, recognition of untapped potential and positioning for sale

Areas of Specialization

  • CEO Coaching & Consulting
  • Executive coaching with corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and high potentials
  • Pre-hire selection assessment
  • Executive Onboarding and Assimilation Coaching
  • Turnaround coaching/talent intervention to prevent derailment of valued leaders
  • Succession Planning
  • Team development inclusive of executive and direct reports
  • Cultural and Sensitivity coaching and training
  • Interventions for the constructive use of conflict

Unique Attributes

  • Maintains private practice focusing primarily on interpersonal, relationship-based, behavioral issues
  • Past President and member of the Georgia Psychological Association
  • Former adjunct faculty member, Georgia School of Professional Psychology, Guest lecturer at Georgia State University
  • Speaker on topics such as communication enhancement, change management & executive derailment
  • B.S. in Biology from Georgia State University, M.S and Ph.D. in Psychology from Georgia State University
  • Featured expert on Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, INC, and Wharton Business

  • Hobbies

    Music (in a Garage Band), Mixology, Exercise junkie

  • Favorite Food

    I’m a fan. Particularly Italian and Asian

  • Band

    Green Day, The Beatles, Avett Brothers

  • Movie

    Lord of the Rings Trilogy

  • Super Power:

    Appearing Normal

  • TV Show

    Handmaids Tale

  • Book

    Immunity to Change

  • Quote

    "Dunbar loved shooting skeet because he hated it and it made the time pass so slowly" - Catch 22

Consultant Insights

  • My ideal client is someone [an organization] that:

    Is willing to look inside themselves despite the fact that it can be scary.

  • The highlight of my career so far has been:

    The fact that I’m still in my career at this late date.

  • My superpower as a coach is:

    Intuition.

  • My philosophy on life is:

    one should live it to the fullest.

  • I hope my legacy is one of:

    He was a decent human being and helped others.

Up Next Inge Simons, MBA, MCC