Executive coaching and leadership growth

Coaching creates a trusted one-to-one space where you can explore a topic for yourself. Through clear contracting, active listening and thoughtful questions, Louise helps you test assumptions, see beyond existing views and decide what you want to do next. It is an equal partnership and a process of reciprocal learning, rather than advice being handed from one person to another.

The style clients describe is calm, astute and empathetic: a listener who creates space to open up, and who then asks the question that shifts how you were framing the issue. It is a non-judgemental, compassionate space aimed at helping you explore your topic from a range of perspectives and find what you need to act or think differently.

Coaching formats

• One-to-one executive and leadership coaching. Regular sessions focused on your own goals: leading through change, handling difficult relationships, stepping up to a bigger role, or finding a sustainable way to carry the work. This may be a short engagement or up to around ten sessions.
• Group coaching. A small group working on shared themes, learning from each other's thinking as well as their own.

What makes executive coaching different

Executive coaching connects the leader's objectives with those of the organisation and creates a safe, time-limited space to explore leadership practice. This matters because seniority can bring greater complexity while also creating distance from the people an organisation serves. Where an organisation sponsors the coaching, the work begins with three-way contracting between the executive, Louise and the organisation, agreeing objectives that support its strategic direction while protecting the confidentiality of the coaching relationship.

Action learning sets

Action learning is separate from coaching. A group of peers meets regularly to help each other tackle difficult, live problems and then test the ideas from those conversations in practice. The content cannot be predetermined, but the process is structured so everyone has time to focus on issues that matter to them and the organisation, with the group holding each member accountable for action. A facilitated set may meet every two to three months over one to two years, or continue independently beyond that.

Benefits of action learning can include:

• Stronger peer networks across an organisation or business
• Learning that adapts as situations and individuals change over time
• Practical leadership skills, including active listening and questioning
• More reflective practice and a responsive rather than reactive culture
• Learning from helping others explore an issue as well as bringing your own

Louise Pramas MA, FCIPD, ILM7 has more than 18 years of senior leadership experience in the NHS in England, and has coached senior leaders and programme leads through organisational and system-wide culture transformation. She knows what it is like to hold a demanding people-centred role inside a complex organisation, which means less time explaining context and more time on what matters.

She is also a Fellow of the CIPD, holds ILM Level 7 and a Master's degree, and works in a values-led, evidence-based way. Above all, she creates a space where people feel able to be honest — including about the things they have not said anywhere else.

Louise adheres to the European Mentoring and Coaching Council Global Code of Ethics as part of her coaching practice, providing a recognised standard for ethical practice, professional boundaries and confidentiality.