Founder
Eric Dulong, ICF MCC
Executive Coach & Founder
Helping leaders navigate complexity with greater clarity, judgment, and intention.
Eric Dulong is the founder of VitalAction Coaching and the creator of the Leadership Under Pressure™ framework. Based in Calgary, Canada, Eric coaches leaders across Canada and internationally in English and French.
ICF Master Certified Coach
More than 5,000 coaching hours
More than 400 leaders coached
25+ years leading major organizational initiatives
Professional perspective
Experience shaped inside organizations
Before becoming an executive coach, I spent more than 25 years leading major organizational initiatives and navigating the realities of complex corporate environments.
Much of that work took place in matrix organizations, where progress depended on building alignment, influencing across functions, and navigating competing priorities and stakeholder expectations.
That experience continues to shape how I coach today. I understand the realities of organizational life not only from supporting leaders as a coach, but from having lived them myself.
The work remains grounded in the real decisions, conversations, relationships, and organizational complexity leaders are carrying now.
Professional foundation
Professional depth built through coaching mastery, organizational leadership experience, and the ability to work effectively in sensitive, high-accountability environments.
ICF Master Certified Coach
Eric holds the highest credential awarded by the International Coaching Federation, reflecting extensive experience, demonstrated coaching competence, and rigorous professional assessment.
More than 5,000 coaching hours
He has coached more than 400 leaders across corporate, regulated, public-sector, and international environments.
25+ years leading major initiatives
Before coaching full time, Eric led major organizational initiatives in complex matrix environments where success depended on cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder alignment, and influence beyond a single reporting structure.
Trusted in sensitive environments
Eric holds Government of Canada Reliability Status and an Enhanced Police Security Clearance issued by the Edmonton Police Service.
Why I developed Leadership Under Pressure™
The framework emerged gradually through years of coaching senior leaders and observing situations that continued to repeat themselves.
Leadership Under Pressure™ did not begin with the goal of creating a framework.
It emerged gradually through years of coaching senior leaders and noticing situations that continued to repeat themselves.
Different leaders. Different organizations. Different industries. Yet similar patterns kept appearing.
Leaders often understood what a situation required. Looking back, they could describe the conversation they wanted to have, the decision they wanted to make, or the approach they believed would have been more effective.
Stop and observe
Create a deliberate pause before reaching a conclusion about what a leadership situation may be revealing.
Document reflections
Capture observations from real coaching situations while protecting the confidentiality of the leaders and organizations involved.
Analyze recurring patterns
Compare situations across leaders, industries, and organizational contexts while challenging initial assumptions.
Refine the understanding
Allow ideas to evolve as new observations reinforce, contradict, or add nuance to what came before.
Rather than accepting my first interpretation, I found myself slowing down, stepping back, and looking more closely at what I was observing across coaching engagements.
I wanted to understand whether I was seeing isolated situations or recurring patterns that extended across organizations, industries, and leadership contexts.
Principles that guide the practice
The work is designed to be useful within the leader’s actual environment, not separate from it.
Real situations first
Coaching stays grounded in the decisions, conversations, tensions, and responsibilities leaders are actively navigating. The work does not depend on hypothetical cases or abstract exercises.
Coaching is not more work
Senior leaders already carry significant demands. Coaching should help them work with what is already present rather than create another set of assignments, obligations, or disconnected activities.
Complexity becomes more manageable
The objective is not to oversimplify difficult situations. It is to help leaders separate what matters, see the situation more clearly, and determine how to move forward.
Trust is built quickly
Valuable coaching requires enough trust for leaders to speak openly about uncertainty, competing perspectives, difficult relationships, and situations where they do not yet have an answer.
Context before models
Frameworks and assessments support the conversation. They never replace attention to the leader, the situation, and the organizational environment in which the issue is occurring.
Confidentiality supports candour
Executive coaching depends on trust. Individual coaching conversations and confidential organizational information are handled with care and professional discretion.
Leadership Under Pressure Lab
Over time, this disciplined practice became what I now refer to as the Leadership Under Pressure Lab.
Observing
Leadership as it unfolds in real situations.
Documenting
Reflections while protecting the confidentiality of the leaders and organizations involved.
Analyzing
Recurring patterns across leaders, industries, and organizational contexts.
Questioning
First interpretations and challenging assumptions.
Refining
Ideas as new observations reinforce, contradict, or add nuance to what came before.
The Lab is not a physical place or an academic research centre. It is the deliberate moment to stop, think, and observe before proceeding.
Some observations proved unique to a particular leader or organization. Others continued to appear across industries, leadership levels, and organizational contexts.
Those recurring observations gradually became the foundation of Leadership Under Pressure™.
The framework emerged from practice and continues to evolve through the same discipline of observation, reflection, analysis, and refinement.
Professional certifications
Eric has built expertise across personality, leadership behaviour, team effectiveness, and executive assessment. Different tools are integrated when they meaningfully support the engagement.
Hogan Assessments
Examines personality strengths, derailment risks, values, and motives that can influence leadership effectiveness.
iEQ9 Enneagram
Explores underlying motivations, behavioural patterns, and protective strategies that influence how leaders approach situations and relationships.
Leadership Navigator 360
Provides confidential multi-rater feedback on how leadership behaviour is experienced by others and where perception may differ from intention.
Everything DiSC
Builds awareness of behavioural and communication preferences that influence collaboration, conflict, and leadership impact.
The Five Behaviors®
Supports leadership teams in strengthening trust, productive conflict, commitment, accountability, and collective results.
No single assessment explains a leader.
Each offers a different perspective.
The tool should always serve the coaching, not the other way around.
Leadership has never stopped teaching me. Every leader, every organization, and every coaching conversation offers another opportunity to observe, question assumptions, and deepen my understanding.