Clarity2Gravity
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ELLEN C SVESTAD - STRATEGIC ADVISOR - TEAM & LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

From clarity to impact
– in business, leadership and teams

Insight only creates value when put into action.

Portrett av Ellen Svestad

About me

I bring 20+ years of international leadership and business experience from CEO, CCO and Global Business Development roles within the oil & gas and maritime industries.

My commercial leadership experience has centred on business growth, commercial strategy and execution across international markets, combined with budget and people responsibilities. A consistent part of these roles has been leading and developing cross-cultural and multidisciplinary teams in complex, technology-driven environments.

As CEO of a US-based oil & gas company, I was responsible for strategic direction, financial and operational performance, organisational change and new investments in high-value onshore oil and gas reserves.

What stands between potential and impact?

  • Clear vision. Strong ambitions. But what happened with the execution?
  • Growth targets are set. But where is the growth actually going to come from?
  • Strategy, structure and expertise are essential. But team performance is shaped by how well people work together. What happens when the team dynamics get in the way?
  • The team works well together. But decisions take too long and progress is slower than it should be. Where is the momentum being lost?
  • How do we close the gap between what we know, what we intend and the impact we actually create?
  • Even experienced leaders can reach a point where they need to reconnect with what drives them and how they create value with and through others.

MY SERVICES

Three ways I can help

01

Strategic Advisory

I work with leaders and businesses where strategic direction, commercial priorities and execution need to be clarified or challenged. My practical business perspectives are shaped by years of responsibility for strategy, growth and results across international markets.

When strategic direction is missing

Targets and budgets are not strategy. A strategy defines the company’s direction, priorities and where growth will come from, organically or inorganically, in existing or new markets, nationally or internationally.

I can help you:

  • Turn vision and ideas into a clear business strategy
  • Explore and assess different paths to growth
  • Translate strategic choices into clear priorities and actions

Strategy that stands up to reality

Markets shift. Competitive conditions change. So do regulatory frameworks and the financial realities of the business. Strategy needs to be challenged and adjusted when the assumptions it was built on no longer hold.

I can help you:

  • Challenge strategic assumptions, direction and priorities
  • Assess what changing market and business conditions mean for the strategy
  • Adjust priorities and plans when circumstances change

Ultimately, the business has to generate revenue

There are only two ways to grow revenue: win more customers or win more business from existing customers. Simple. Until you start asking how!

I can help you:

  • Identify where the strongest commercial opportunities are
  • Define clear market and customer priorities
  • Turn commercial strategy into a focused sales plan
02

Team Development

Strong teams need more than individual expertise. How people work together, how the team is structured and how leadership functions within the team all shape its ability to create direction, make decisions and perform effectively together. When some of these elements fall out of balance, teams can lose rhythm and momentum, even when the individual capabilities are strong.

When team dynamics get in the way

Team dynamics can strengthen performance, but they can also become a significant barrier to it. Conflict, unresolved tensions and unproductive patterns between people can consume energy, weaken collaboration and make it increasingly difficult for the team to move forward. At the same time, too little constructive opposition can leave important issues unchallenged or unexplored.

I can help you:

  • Identify the patterns in the team that are driving conflict, tension or ineffective collaboration
  • Bring difficult or unresolved issues into a structured and constructive dialogue
  • Strengthen the team’s ability to work through differences, challenge each other constructively and move forward together

When the team loses rhythm

Even capable teams can lose momentum when roles, responsibilities and decision-making are unclear. Decisions are revisited, priorities are interpreted differently and tasks can fall between the cracks. Too much energy is spent on coordination and clarification rather than moving the work forward.

I can help you:

  • Clarify roles, responsibilities and decision-making
  • Identify where structures and ways of working are creating friction or slowing the team down
  • Strengthen the team’s ability to make decisions, maintain direction and move work forward

When the team leader lacks sufficient legitimacy

A formal team leadership role is not enough. For leadership to have effect, the leader also needs sufficient legitimacy within the team for decisions and direction to gain traction. When that legitimacy weakens, the team can start to run low on organisational fuel, meaning that decisions lose force, direction is repeatedly renegotiated and momentum slows.

I can help you:

  • Identify what may be weakening the leader’s legitimacy within the team
  • Clarify the leader’s mandate, expectations and relationship with the team
  • Re-establish the conditions for decisions, direction and leadership to gain traction
03

Leadership Development

Professional expertise is only one dimension of leadership!

How a leader creates value is also shaped by identity, values and competencies, and by the patterns that emerge when these dimensions come together.

Clarity2Gravity is a structured 1:1 leadership development programme that takes place over several weeks. Through a combination of assessments, structured exercises and reflection, the programme helps leaders explore the different dimensions that shape how they lead and create value.

The programme is built around a simple premise: insight alone does not create impact. There can be a significant gap between what we know, what we intend and what we actually put into practice. This is the gap we are working to bridge in Clarity2Gravity.

The value of the programme

For the leader
  • A clearer understanding of who they are as a leader, what they stand for and how they create value with and through others
  • Greater awareness of the patterns that strengthen or limit their leadership impact
  • Greater ability to translate insight and intention into conscious leadership practice
For the organisation

For the organisation, the value lies in developing leaders who understand their own impact, use their capabilities more deliberately and are better equipped to create direction and value with and through others.

  • Leaders stepping into a new leadership role, where formal onboarding may cover the organisation, systems and responsibilities, but not how the individual will actually step into and practise the leadership role.
  • Experienced leaders taking on greater responsibility, a broader mandate or a new organisational context.
  • Leaders in transition, who have reached a point where they need to reconnect with what drives them, what they stand for and how they create value with and through others.
  • High-potential or emerging leaders, preparing for greater leadership responsibility.
  • Leaders with strong competence and experience, who want to close the gap between intention and experienced impact.

PERSPECTIVES

Perspectives that shape my work

Strategy

There are only two ways to grow revenue: win more customers or win more business from existing customers. The strategy is establishing how, where and with whom.

Strategy

A clear strategy does not make a company less flexible. It makes it easier to know what to adopt when conditions change, what not to compromise, and why.

Teams

When teams work well, individual capabilities become collective capacity. Much more than the sum of the individuals.

Teams

The most difficult challenges in team dynamics are rarely just about strategy, structure or competence. They are about people, and the patterns between them.

  1. Leadership

    What you know matters. How you use what you know, and how that is experienced by others, is what gives it impact.

  2. Leadership

    You can learn from other leaders, but you cannot copy your way into authentic leadership.

  3. Leadership

    “The highest-risk leader is the one who thinks she works alone.”  by Max De Pree

  4. Strategy

    «Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.»  by Peter Drucker

Tools & Method

Contact

Send a message

Tell me a little about the situation you are in, and I will get back to you.

CLARITY2GRAVITY-EFFECT

When clarity becomes operational - impact follows

  • Clearer strategic direction
  • Stronger leadership
  • More effective teams
  • Stronger execution
ellen@clarity2gravity.com+47 4763 4623LinkedIn

Ellen C Svestad, Gamle Drammensvei 45, 1369 Stabekk, Norge · Org. 934 916 409