I am Michael Leak, a qualified counsellor through the South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP), registered with the ASCHP as a Specialist Wellness Counsellor, and hold a Psychology Honours degree.
I am also an accredited Family Law Mediator, registered with the South African Association of Mediators (SAAM), and a member of the Family Mediators Association of the Cape (FAMAC).
My work today spans counselling, Family Law Mediation and consulting, but the thread running through all three is an interest in people: how we understand ourselves, how we relate to one another, how conflict develops and how conversations can help us find a way forward.
I work with individuals, couples, families, leaders, teams and organisations from my practice in Hout Bay, Cape Town, and online across South Africa.
The Person Behind the Work
I have been married for more than 30 years and am a husband and father of two.
My own relationships and experiences have taught me that understanding people is rarely as simple as deciding who is right and who is wrong. Relationships require patience, accountability, compassion, communication and, at times, a willingness to see something from a perspective very different from our own.
My involvement in community and outreach work has also brought me into contact with people from different backgrounds and circumstances, strengthening my appreciation for the diversity of human experience.
These experiences have influenced the counsellor I have become and the way I approach mediation, facilitation and organisational work.
Why I Do This Work
My interest in this work is not purely academic or professional.
I was given up for adoption as a baby, experienced abuse during childhood and later experienced rejection from my family when I married.
Those experiences have inevitably shaped me.
They have given me a personal understanding of what it is like to carry experiences from earlier in life into adulthood, to question belonging and identity, to experience difficult relationships, and to discover that pain can affect us without having to define the rest of our lives.
They have also strengthened my belief in people’s capacity to understand themselves, heal, grow and make different choices.
I do not believe that difficult experiences automatically make somebody wiser or stronger. Sometimes they simply hurt.
What we do with those experiences, how we come to understand them, and the meaning we eventually make from them is deeply personal.
That process has been important in my own life, and it influences the respect I have for the individual journey of each person I work with.
What Matters to Me
There are several values that are important to me personally and professionally.
Courage, because there are times when growth requires us to face something we would rather avoid.
Compassion, because understanding ourselves and other people becomes much harder when everything is approached through judgement.
Commitment, because insight matters, but what we do with that insight matters too.
Optimism, because even when circumstances cannot simply be changed, I believe people retain the capacity to grow, adapt and respond differently.
And self-improvement, because I do not see growth as something that ends once we reach a certain age, role or stage of life.
These are not values I expect clients to adopt. They are simply part of what shapes the person I try to be and the way I try to show up in the work.
Professional Experience
Before establishing Michael Leak Counselling, Mediation & Consulting, I spent more than two decades in management and leadership roles in corporate environments.
That experience continues to influence the way I work.
I understand the pressure of being responsible for people while also being responsible for performance, customers, revenue, costs and delivery. I have experienced workplace dynamics both from the perspective of an employee and from the perspective of the person expected to lead.
It is one of the reasons my consulting work is grounded in Workplace Wellness, rather than approaching wellbeing as something separate from the realities of running an organisation.
People matter, relationships matter and culture matters. So do accountability, performance and results.
Understanding how these affect one another has become an important part of my work with organisations, leaders and teams.
Counselling, Mediation and Consulting
Michael Leak Counselling, Mediation & Consulting brings together three distinct areas of practice. Although there are similarities in some of the interpersonal skills involved, my professional role is different in each.
In Counselling, I work with individuals, couples and families around emotional, personal and relationship difficulties, as well as with people wanting to understand themselves more deeply and make changes in how they live and relate.
In Family Law Mediation, I work as a neutral mediator, helping people navigate matters relating to separation, divorce, parenting, maintenance and parental responsibilities and rights, and to explore whether practical and workable agreements can be reached.
In Consulting, my work is primarily focused on Workplace Wellness. I combine counselling, mediation and facilitation skills with my management and leadership experience to work with employees, teams, leaders and organisations around relationships, communication, conflict, wellbeing, engagement and culture.
The professional role changes in each setting.
The common thread is the way I approach the work.