Leading with a Coaching Style - for People Professionals

* Please note this session is for HPMA members only**

*This session is for those in HR/OD/ Workforce roles**

Summary:Coaching is no longer a ‘nice to have’ - it’s an essential skill for people professionals who want to enable high performance, build stronger relationships, and create a culture where individuals thrive.

This one-day, interactive workshop is designed to build the mindset, skillset, and confidence to use coaching as a core leadership and management approach. You’ll learn how to have more impactful 1:1 conversation, develop others through powerful questioning and listening, and support colleagues to take ownership of their growth and performance.

Delivered by an experienced leadership coach and former NHS Deputy People Director, this workshop blends real-world insight with practical tools tailored for the NHS context. Whether you’re coaching team members, peers, or senior leaders, you’ll walk away with strategies you can use immediately.

What you will learn:• What it means to lead with a coaching approach - and how it benefits your people and organisation• The core mindset and behaviours that underpin impactful coaching• Practical coaching models and tools that work in everyday leadership conversations• How to ask powerful questions and listen actively to deepen insight and ownership• Strategies to apply coaching in performance, development, and feedback conversations

Outcomes:

1. Adopt a Coaching Mindset: Understand how coaching enhances leadership and performance across NHS teams.
2. Develop Core Coaching Skills: Learn and practise core coaching behaviours - listening, questioning, and reflecting.
3. Use Practical Coaching Tools: Apply simple frameworks and models to support everyday coaching conversations.
4. Drive Development and Ownership: Build confidence to support others to think for themselves, take responsibility, and unlock their potential.
5. Embed Coaching in Your Role: Integrate coaching approaches into your day-to-day leadership, feedback, and development conversations.

Target audience:Ideal for People Professionals who want to grow their confidence and capability in using a coaching style to support, develop, and empower others.

Prework:

1. Reflect on a time when you were coached - what made it impactful for you?
2. Now consider your own leadership style: on a scale of 1–5, how often do you take a coaching approach?
3. What supports you in leading this way - and what tends to get in the way?
   

Emma is an experienced HR and OD professional and executive coach, with over 25 years of experience across both the public and private sectors.

She has held a range of senior leadership roles, including a significant tenure in the NHS, which gave her a deep understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities within the healthcare system.

Emma is known for her authentic, values-led approach and her ability to shape inclusive, high-performing workplace cultures. Her expertise spans from leading large-scale HR and OD transformation projects in the NHS to supporting SMEs in creating environments that balance operational efficiency with team wellbeing and engagement.

As the founder of LeaderX, Emma works with organisations to create the conditions where people can do their best work. She is passionate about developing leaders who lead with purpose, influence positively, and drive meaningful impact. Her people-centred leadership style has consistently delivered improved engagement and measurable results – including significant financial savings.

Emma also brings strategic experience from her role as Vice Chair of a UK College Group, where her leadership and commercial mindset contributed to the college retaining its Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ rating.

Outside of work, Emma enjoys the outdoors, cooking healthy food, and practising yoga.

You can connect with Emma at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamemmaschofield/

Date: Wed 17th Sept 2025

Location: Online

Time: 09:30 start, finish 15:30

By booking on this event, you are indicating that have read and agree to our event booking terms and conditions.

In the event that you’re not able to attend, please let us know within 5 working days of the event or we will charge a £100 cancellation fee regardless of the reason given for cancellation or non-attendance. We know that there are many good reasons why people are not able to attend HPMA London events they have booked on, please ensure you update your attendance in good time.

If an event is overbooked and the maximum attendance has been reached from a particular trust, the events team may need to cancel any further places that are booked. The team will then email individuals who have booked after the maximum number has been reached. See our event booking policy

We may take pictures or record our events to use in publicising our events programme including on our social media platforms. By booking on this event, you are giving consent to this unless you let us know otherwise. Any questions, please email Isabelle.Meakin@nhs.net in advance of the event.