Natural Leadership Coaching
We help leaders recharge, renew, and rediscover their purpose in inspiring others, navigating conflict, and building engaged, effective teams through coaching in and with nature.
Disconnecting from technology and (re)connecting with nature offers a route to managing stress, thinking more clearly and creatively, solving problems, making better decisions and engaging in systemic longer-term thinking.
Coaching with nature is a dynamic process between the coach, you, the coachee, and the natural environment. We use the interdependence of plants, animals, and weather to explore what is happening for everyone in your ecosystem, providing accountability and challenge to help you realise your vision.
Gain self-confidence and emotional agility as you focus on forward-thinking actions, and new and productive patterns of behaviour to benefit you, your team, your friends and your family.
Please book a free Zoom call with me to explore ways coaching might support you in your work. The call is by default, 30 mins, but don’t feel we have to fill this and if we need longer, that’s great too.
Click on the questions below to find out more:
Where does nature-based coaching happen?
Coaching conversations feel relaxed and energising when taken outdoors to a woodland, along a river, or in a local garden or park. Walking together, we access Hippocrates’ ‘best medicine’; our brainwaves slow to a more mindful state. Nature is invited into Zoom calls; Sarah offers virtual coaching so you may be at home, in your garden, in your favourite wild space, or at work.
What happens in a coaching session?
The weather and natural features, like a fork in the path or a distant hill, become part of the coaching conversation and help you understand your questions and how you might answer them. Mindful exploration of the natural world offers challenge and inspiration. Exploring natural landscapes together enables you to access your best thinking. Natural ecosystems will help you think about creating a healthy ecosystem.
Consider adding creative art, practical firelighting skills or building a shelter in an extended session.
Why is nature-based leadership coaching so impactful?
Coaching in nature combines the wisdom of ancient practices with modern neuroscience, providing the ideal setting for cultivating fresh ideas.
Harnessing nature’s immense benefits can significantly enhance self-awareness, mindfulness, stress management, and personal growth. It’s also about making better decisions and unlocking creativity through the therapeutic effects of the natural environment.
Nature confronts us with seasonality and life and death, helping us consider conflict, change, loss, and new beginnings.
Understanding the interconnectedness of the natural world helps us gain new insights into the systems at play in our work and personal lives. It allows us to embody sustainability as part of our identity rather than just something we do.
Being outside, we inhabit a physical space and remember to use our whole body.
Experience the profound impact of spending regular time in nature, especially in woodlands. Ground yourself, reduce stress, and boost your overall well-being. Find tranquillity, quiet your mind, and make space for new, innovative concepts.
Consider adding creative art, practical firelighting skills or building a shelter in an extended session.
How long does coaching take?
Engaging over 3 – 6 months promotes personal and professional development, although some of our existing clients may ask for a single session to help them unlock a specific, knotty problem.
Most people choose an initial session of 1- 2 hours before planning their 6 -12 month programme with us, although a half—or whole-day vision session reaps enormous rewards.
Team coaching requires time for individual and group sessions. Sarah supports you in finding sustainable models, enabling you to work effectively with conflict through collaborative approaches and creating communities of learning.
Coaching is an investment in real change; building trust, discerning your vision and behavioural change take time.
Why choose WTFI coaching?
Sarah has spent a lifetime working with people of all ages and backgrounds, helping them find ‘the treasure within’, developing their strengths and voice, enabling them to gain authorship of their own lives. She helps leaders recognise and draw out the potential in others.
A qualified executive coach, Sarah has training and experience in using a variety of coaching tools and techniques with leaders and their teams. She works with you to choose the most effective one for you at any time. This open approach is excellent when trying to solve complex practical problems.
Over 35 years of working in education – mainstream and special educational needs (SEND) schools, environmental education, mentoring and training adults – have led her to develop a creative approach to executive leadership coaching, often using nature.
She is a Lumina Learning Practitioner, a member of the International Coaching Federation, an alumnus of Henley Business School’s Centre for Coaching, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufacturing and Commerce (FRSA).
Sarah has specialist outdoor adventure first aid and outdoor food hygiene training. She is the current chair of the Forest School Association (FSA), leads various nature-based commissioned projects, and is an FSA-endorsed trainer and affiliate trainer with Outdoors Thinking.
What people say
This has been and continues to be a really challenging time both inside and outside of work. Sarah listens and guides me with genuine care, enabling me to consider things in a way I hadn’t done before.
During 1:1 coaching, Sarah created a safe space, giving me time to explore my thoughts and feelings.
It is rare to think and talk without interruption, and Sarah holds that space respectfully, gently, and skillfully.
Sarah created a safe, relaxed space full of compassion and knowledge. We felt safe to be ourselves.
Coaching brought up many critical conversations within the team. I now feel more confident and empowered to talk about what support I need from my colleagues and better understand what support to give them.
Sarah carefully judged how much she could move me forward with questions, suggestions, and observations.
The sessions with Sarah have been fantastic. She has a unique ability to listen and start a chain reaction of thoughts by asking the right question at the right time.
We stood on a bridge, using the river’s current and tributaries to explore my options. I had never used nature to help me make decisions before. It worked like magic!
To find out more:
- Outdoor Coaching Podcast
- Sarah’s episode on the Outdoor Coaching Podcast
- Some book suggestions are below. Click on the image for a link.
