We help individuals, teams and organisations ask the right questions, gain fresh insights and take stock.

Whether it is through a team review process, through organisational benchmarking and/or through personal observation and listening, we are able to bring fresh insights and perspectives to what are the presenting issues for individuals, groups and organisations.

Bringing our broad experience and drawing on a range of diagnostic approaches and tools, we can support you to gain a truer or more rounded sense of your current state and starting point for generating options for change.

In our experience, clients often need to engage with some form of diagnosis or sense checking of their current position or starting point. We are able to bring various perspectives and challenge to this process of discovery, and to being reconciled with different views of ‘reality’.

Examples of supporting clients with realising their starting point include:

  • Reviewing alignment between organisational structures and accountabilities
  • Benchmarking job size and reward data across teams/organisations/sectors
  • Providing 360-degree feedback using a range of diagnostic instruments
  • Undertaking stakeholder interviews and synthesising themes
  • Observing senior management team meetings and offering feedback and challenge to individuals and to the team on their leadership impact
  • Undertaking behavioural assessments for recruitment and development

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them” Galileo Galilei

“The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is acceptance” Nathaniel Branden

  • As an experienced head teacher I found the coaching sessions delivered by Lesley to be 'time well spent' as they resulted in high quality personal and professional development.  Lesley had the coaching experience to rapidly develop a strong connection with me based on confidentiality, trust and mutual respect. Through well-structured dialogue these coaching sessions facilitated self-reflection and generation of new insights. In addition they were productive with clear outcomes action points and time scales. Lesley was supportive and empathetic but also offered open and honest challenge.

    SCEL Fellow
  • The impact of your involvement has been evidenced by a refreshed take on my professional role and a re-vitalisation of purpose and aim in my perceived role as a professional educator. My horizons have been broadened by an increased awareness of the strategic importance of the headteacher role and the opportunity it presents to 'make a difference' to so many people's lives.

    Jim McCrory Headteacher at St Anthony's Primary School Armadale and Fellow of the Scottish College for Educational Leadership
  • “Lesley has proved to be a valuable source of independent advice and expertise across the whole range of issues associated with job sizing and organisational structure. Her rapid appreciation of the emerging roles and their place in our structure is impressive and I have appreciated the level of support and challenge she is able to provide me with in this crucial area. My managers have indicated that in their dealing with her, Lesley is well informed, experienced and able to offer her expertise in a confident and helpful manner”.  

    Elaine Tait Chief Executive, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
  • “Feedback from our participants about their experience of being coached and engaging with Lesley has been consistently positive. She brings a wealth of experience as well as a flexible approach to coaching (offering challenge and support) that allows her to effectively work across the differing needs and contexts of our participants.”

    Lesley Whelan Depute CEO and Director of Programmes at SCEL
  • I wanted to thank you sincerely for the sessions, I got far more out of it than I expected, you've given me much food for thought, some great ideas and brilliant tips for keeping myself strong through this transition.

    Career Transition Senior Manager from Public Sector after Career Transition Coaching
  • Lesley's coaching sessions increased my ability to perform and made me a more effective as a leader; in my school, across the authority and in the wider context of educational leadership.

    SCEL Fellow