When Lucy Ball found herself throwing golf balls into buckets at Deloitte in the mid-90s, she became caught up in the first sparks of the corporate coaching boom that would sweep through countless industries in the decades that followed.

In our conversation, she describes how the people she met during that time – such as GROW-model creator Sir John Whitmore – offered a new leadership pathway, which involved a departure from dictative models and allowed coachees to lead their own development.

While Lucy was director of the international leadership consultancy, Ideas Unlimited, she began to transition into high-performance coaching. She describes how, by facing fears of going it alone without backup and facilitating teams of “heavy hitting people”, she found a sense of power and influence while shaking off her inner critic and her need to be rescued.

A self-described “magpie" in her twenties, Lucy now focuses her attention on Lucy Ball Consulting, where she applies her skills as an accredited Master Coach and Gestalt practitioner while working with clients such as NatWest, PepsiCo, HSBC, UK Sport, M&C Saatchi Group, BUPA and the NHS.

Lucy is training to be a psychotherapist and finding ways to channel her work more altruistically, with people who might not have access to sizeable training budgets. She is also finding agency and empowerment through her passionate climate activism.

 In this episode, we talk about:

How to get comfortable talking about being a coach

The benefits and pitfalls of coaching accreditation programmes

Knowing when to partner up and the power of taking people with you

What happens when you choose a modality and "go deep"

Going "back to the source" of counselling and psychotherapy

Pairs coaching and the new lens it can offer leaders

We also talk about finding community and the joy that can be unlocked when people work together on big problems.

To learn more about Lucy, visit https://www.lucyballconsulting.com

For information about my wider work, my writing or to buy my books, visit www.robbieswale.com.

Music by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQg

To support the Coach's Journey, visit www.patreon.com/thecoachsjourney and to join the Coach's Journey Community visit www.thecoachsjourney.com/community.

Things and people we mentioned (that you might be interested in):

- The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey https://theinnergame.com/inner-game-books/the-inner-game-of-tennis/

- David Hemery https://www.performanceconsultants.com/david-hemery

- Sir John Whitmore's GROW model https://www.performanceconsultants.com/grow-model

- Myles Downey https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-31-myles-downey

- Tricia Bey https://www.dundee.ac.uk/people/tricia-bey

- Myers Briggs training https://eu.themyersbriggs.com/en/Training/MBTI-training

- The Coaching Academy https://www.the-coaching-academy.com/

- APECS https://www.apecs.org/

- Jean Balfour https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-36-jean-balfour

- Ideas Unlimited http://www.ideasunlimited.com/

- Dick Robertson http://www.ideasunlimited.com/portfolio-item/dick-robertson/

- Clore Leadership https://www.cloreleadership.org/

- Jo Hunter, CEO and co-founder of 64 Million Artists https://64millionartists.com/team/jo-hunter/

- Gestalt Cycle of Experience http://www.clevelandconsultinggroup.com/articles/gestalt-cycle-of-experience.php

- Mike Toller https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/episode-32-mike-toller

- The Gestalt Centre https://gestaltcentre.org.uk/

- WPF Therapy https://wpf.org.uk/

- The Cape Cod Model https://www.gisc.org/introduction-to-the-cape-cod-model

- Michael Jacobs, texts on counselling and psychotherapy https://www.karnacbooks.com/Author.asp?AID=5130

- Executive Pairs https://www.executivepairs.com/

- The Amazing Development of Men – Expanded Second Edition https://www.alisonarmstrong.com/products/amazing2ndedition.html

- Harthill Leadership Development Framework https://www.harthill.co.uk/leadership-development-framework

- Terri O'Fallon https://www.terriofallon.com/