From scientist to coach and why meaningful conversations matter
Wise Goose alumnus Martin Bloxham reflects on coaching, leadership, and how tools like the Map of Meaning shape meaningful work in practice.
From science to leadership – and coaching
When Martin Bloxham joined Wise Goose, he was already working globally as a leadership trainer for scientists. With a background in analytical chemistry and years as a UN consultant, his work focused on supporting scientists who find themselves moving quickly into leadership roles.
Yet something wasn’t quite landing.
“I thought I was already coaching people, but I just wasn’t doing it very well. I thought somehow I had to help them by providing answers and solutions – because that’s what scientists do.”
That realisation, that advice‑giving wasn’t always what people needed, became a turning point.
Discovering what coaching really is (and isn’t)
Martin came to Wise Goose with what he describes as “healthy scepticism”, something he still recognises as a core part of scientific culture.
“Scientists are sceptics by nature, inquisitive, critical. So you have to make sure what you offer fits the audience.”
What struck him early on was the warmth, the practical nature of the training, and the importance of leaving with something usable.
“Unless you can leave with something to use, it might be a nice experience, but it’s not very useful. I left with something to use that was really important.”
Over time, coaching began to permeate far beyond one‑to‑one conversations.
Coaching as a way of being in service
Since completing the programme, Martin has built a substantial coaching practice alongside his training work, coaching senior leaders and teams within science organisations worldwide.
“The training has enabled me to have the confidence to promote myself and take on coaching clients. I’m now coaching people at senior levels and doing team coaching as well.”
More than tools or models, what stayed with him was a shift in stance.
“As a professional coach, I am in service to others. As a trainer, I’m in service to others. Coaching is really not about you – it’s about the other person.”
This idea of service now underpins his leadership development work, facilitation, and even how he chairs boards.
Coaching Tools & Frameworks – timing matters
Among the frameworks Martin continues to use is the Map of Meaning, recently explored in the latest Wise Goose weekend.
“I use many of the tools from the training, the GROW model, the development wheel, and the Map of Meaning.”
Yet he’s clear that when and how a tool is introduced matters just as much as the tool itself.
“I did the Map of Meaning with a client recently, I would never have done that six months ago. It wouldn’t have landed then. It did land now.”
For Martin, this speaks to one of coaching’s core disciplines: meeting people where they are.
Beyond individuals: coaching teams and organisations
More recently, Martin has been working with senior science teams in global organisations, work he describes as challenging and deeply rewarding.
“It’s a very different space coaching a team. There was cynicism at first, but at the end there was a real sense of ‘wow, we did something meaningful’. And the fact they said ‘let’s do this again’ – that’s the win.”
That sense of wanting to return, not being told to, is something he holds as a marker of success.
Coaching, facilitation, and meaningful conversations
One of Martin’s reflections is how closely coaching and facilitation intertwine.
“When you’re facilitating, you’re operating in a coaching mode. It’s not about you, it’s about helping the group get the most from the space.”
Today, his organisation also teaches coaching and mentoring conversations to scientists, not to turn them into coaches, but to help them lead more humanely.
“We’re not teaching people to be coaches. We’re teaching them to have meaningful conversations.”
A final reflection
Martin is clear that coaching isn’t about expertise in a particular field, or having all the answers.
This became especially vivid for him after a conversation with a business owner who believed that decades of experience automatically qualified him to coach younger people; that coaching was simply about passing on hard‑won knowledge. Martin appreciated the intention, but also the misunderstanding.
“You don’t need forty years of experience to be a coach. Coaching is about listening, empathising, and working with someone else.”
What struck Martin was the subtle but crucial distinction between advice‑giving and coaching. Coaching, as he has come to practise it, is not about positioning oneself as the expert in the room, but about creating space for others to think, explore, and find their own way forward.
It’s a perspective that continues to ripple outward, into leadership, organisations, and the wider systems his work touches, shaping more thoughtful, humane and meaningful conversations wherever he works.
In the video below, Martin speaks candidly about his journey, the realities of coaching sceptical audiences, and why frameworks like the Map of Meaning continue to support meaningful, grounded practice.
Interested in training that lives on in real practice?
Explore Wise Goose professional coach training and discover approaches and frameworks designed to support meaningful work, wherever your practice takes you.
We’ve just passed the equinox and the first three months of the year have seen new beginnings for me. So far, I’ve stepped out into three very different spheres.
The first is digital. In January, I joined Cosmic Digital’s AI Bootcamp. If I’m honest, AI has never been my natural habitat; tech is not my first love. But AI isn’t going away, and I realised that if I wanted to decide how (or whether) to use it, I needed to understand it. The course was a big commitment, a whole day a week online for nine weeks, plus a capstone project to ‘cap’ it off.
To my surprise, every week brought a sense of enjoyment and, more importantly, a sense of responsibility. The ethical questions, about transparency, accountability, bias, the fragile line between support and contagion, and the importance of keeping the human touch throughout feel deeply relevant to the work we do in coaching and leadership.
An unexpected bonus is a surge of creativity, supported by AI. I really didn’t see that coming. Using AI to take some of the donkey work of research has opened up space and time for me to innovate and play with developing and ‘weaving’ ideas.
The other beginnings are more tactile.
After decades of not lifting a knitting needle, I’ve returned.
In December my son said he’d like a sweater for Christmas, a slouchy Aran ‘Harry Met Sally’ style, and I found myself saying ‘I could knit that’ only to realise that I probably couldn’t. Then he gave me a beautiful book for Christmas, ‘The Wonder of Wool’ and something in me stirred.
A scarf, a shawl (in the picture) a hat knitted on circular needles (my first outing into knitting ‘in the round’), and an almost‑finished gilet later, I’m finding joy in the slowness, the texture, even the mistakes. For the gilet I chose Leicester Longwool one of the UK’s rarest native breeds. I like to thought of supporting the breeder and spinner who supplied the skeins.
I also began an art class. Let’s just say that what appears on the paper bears only a passing resemblance to the idea in my head. In one class I drew a sheep in pastels. In another a bright watercolour parrot with a leg in the wrong place. They are….. interpretive. But it reminds me that curiosity trumps competence when we are learning.
Meanwhile AI is everywhere, increasingly intimate, misunderstood and misused. AI is a tsunami sweeping into every corner of society and organisational life faster than we can assess its impact or make informed choices about how to use, or regulate its use. There’s a leadership drag in organisations and governments, accumulated years of avoiding foundational questions about purpose when it comes to installing the latest ‘solutions’. It’s leaving a deeply troubling empty hole where wise governance and responsibility should be.
AI doesn’t fix that, it exposes it.
A couple of months ago a Linkedin post by Laurence Barrett caught my attention. He pointed out something that should be obvious but clearly isn’t in the current wave of AI enthusiasm: AI is not a person. It does not have empathy, intuition, or a nervous system. It cannot form a relationship. It can only simulate one, and we project the rest.
This simulation is seductive. It mirrors us back to ourselves, fluently, instantly, without need or boundary. It is, as Barrett puts it, like Narcissus at the pool: captivated by his own reflection. With AI we run the risk of falling in love with our own projected brilliance, never noticing that the “other” is empty, indifferent, and incapable of reciprocity. Meanwhile, our genuine relational capacities, empathy, presence, discomfort, could fade like an echo.
Years ago, when I was teaching psychosynthesis therapists in Sweden, one of the topics I designed was ‘Everyday Narcissism’. We used myth as a springboard for exploring the spiritual path as a journey from ‘the narcissism of everyday life’ towards awakening the soul to ‘Being’ and ‘Interbeing’. We would explore the vulnerabilities and patterns we all fall into that feed our narcissism and cut us off from experiencing connection. It was rich and challenging and I loved teaching it.
Echo is often left out of the picture when we think of narcissism, for me she was a central ‘voice’ in the pattern. The point is she has no voice of her own, she has been cursed to only mirror back the last words of others. This is more relevant than ever, AI feeds us endless content echoing the stolen words of others. At the same time, unless we pause, reflect and give space for a human voice, we risk becoming passive and ‘Echo-like’ in return.
For coaching, this isn’t a side issue, it strikes directly at the heart of our work because coaching is relational. Not performatively relational; relational in the sense of meeting in mutual, embodied attention. This isn’t only about human relationships, I’d argue that it includes wider contexts, systems, and ‘more than human’ worlds. For example, as I write this I can look out of the window; there are sheep in the field opposite, very soon there will be lambs. Then there is knitting on the needles in the next room. At teatime I might work a row or two, feel wool passing through my hands, enjoying the way it connects me to sheep and a sense of place. AI cannot do this, no matter how fluent the text or friendly the tone. In a world where AI is becoming a major tool we need to pay attention to these wider connections more than ever, bringing them to the foreground, not allowing them to fade like Echo in her cave.
So what can we do with all this?
For me, the answer loops back to where I began: starting, whether with yarn, watercolours or AI, demands curiosity over certainty. A willingness to experiment and make mistakes. There’s a lot to interrogate about the ways AI is shaping decisions, influencing behaviour, and raising big questions about autonomy, trust, and responsibility. For now I’ve decided the question isn’t whether I use it or not; I will, but how, why, on what terms is to be evaluated and re-chosen as I go. And what if, despite the guardrails I’ve put in place it becomes toxic? I can’t answer that from here, but I am curious and will keep asking difficult questions.
Guess what? This morning, I received an email from Cosmic with my certificate; I got a distinction! A cherry on an AI cake!!
A global sustainability executive reflects on how Wise Goose coaching reshaped her leadership, deepened her impact, and influenced organisational culture.
In this in‑depth conversation, Daniella reflects on her time training with Wise Goose, how coaching transformed her leadership, and the unexpected ripple effects that still shape her work today. This written piece accompanies the audio interview. Listen on Soundcloud
When Daniella Vega joined Wise Goose in 2018, she was already a highly experienced sustainability leader working at executive level. Today, as Senior Vice President for Health & Sustainability at Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch‑Belgian multinational and one of the world’s largest food retail groups headquartered in Zaandam in the Netherlands, she continues to shape how major global businesses integrate environmental and social priorities into strategy, value creation and long‑term resilience.
Before Wise Goose: A Career in Sustainability Leadership
Before joining Wise Goose, Daniella was Group Director of Sustainability at Selfridges Group, overseeing sustainability strategies across four markets: the UK, Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands. Earlier in her career, she contributed to major sustainability and corporate responsibility initiatives at Sky.
She had already completed a Master’s degree in sustainability, but she was searching for something deeper, a leadership development approach that matched the complexity, ethics and systems thinking required for a sustainable future.
“My paradigm had shifted. I knew we needed a different kind of leadership for sustainability – not the kind I saw in traditional executive environments.”
Why Coaching — and Why Wise Goose?
Daniella wasn’t initially looking to become a coach. What she wanted was to bring a coaching mindset into her leadership. Her work was all about change; coaching, she realised, is also about change.
She explored many coach‑training programmes but didn’t connect with any of them.
“Wise Goose was the only course that took sustainability and ethics seriously. It was holistic. It was aligned with what I believed leadership needs to be – in business and beyond.”
The Wise Goose syllabus “jumped off the page”. It spoke directly to her values and offered the systemic, psychologically grounded approach she was searching for.
Training as a Coach: Insights, Practice and Transformation
During the programme, Daniella began supporting the Selfridges HR team with executive coaching. Her first clients were senior leaders inside her own organisation, a surprise opportunity that quickly accelerated her learning.
“It was a real eye‑opener. I could immediately put what we were learning into practice. It helped me as a coach and it helped me shift my own leadership style.”
Key shifts she describes:
From directive leader → coaching leader
She became someone who leads through powerful questions, spacious conversation and the co‑creation of solutions.
Deep listening
Daniella says this is one of the most profound skills she gained, and one she believes leaders everywhere need.
“Leaders rarely listen deeply. We’re trained to listen in order to respond. Coaching taught me a different quality of listening.”
Seeing systems, not just individuals
Wise Goose’s integration of sustainability, ethics and systemic thinking helped her understand the pressures and unseen dynamics at play, especially in boardrooms. She recalls a Wise Goose “Ethics in the Boardroom” simulation that made a lasting impression:
“As the CEO in the role‑play, the pressure to conform to expectations — to maximise profit — was incredible. It showed how easily people fall into roles. That insight has stayed with me, especially now that I spend so much time in boardrooms.”
A Ripple Effect Across Selfridges
Daniella talked about her Wise Goose experience enthusiastically inside the business. Others became curious. Soon, more people from Selfridges Group were enrolling.
“I was quite evangelical about it! I talked to people who I knew would connect with a more holistic approach to leadership.”
This led to one of the projects she is most proud of: the creation of an informal leadership group exploring values and culture, initially known as the “Values Group” and later renamed Culture Club.
They wanted to discuss the things that usually stayed beneath the surface, how values show up, where they fall short, and how leadership behaviour shapes culture.
Using Wise Goose facilitation tool in the C‑suite
Daniella introduced the fishbowl technique, learned on the programme, into a session with the Executive Committee.
Staff sat in the inner circle discussing organisational values while executives listened silently from the outside.
“It flattened the power dynamics. It encouraged deep listening. It brought honesty into the room. It worked incredibly well.”
She continues to use the fishbowl method today.
Eight Years Later: How Coaching Lives in Her Leadership
Now at Ahold Delhaize, leading global sustainability strategy across complex international operations, Daniella still draws daily on what she learned at Wise Goose.
She uses coaching conversations with her team, peers and senior leaders.
She continues to coach women across the business.
She brings systemic awareness and reflective practice into boardrooms.
And she still works with a coach herself, something she calls “an absolute gift.”
“Coaching is embedded in who I am. It fundamentally shifted how I lead.”
Advice for Future Wise Goose Students
Daniella offers warm, practical advice for people thinking of joining a Wise Goose Course:
“Look at the prospectus — it should jump off the page if it’s for you.”
“Speak to alumni. That’s what convinced me.”
“Jump in with both feet. You will make mistakes, but that’s how you learn.”
“If you want to lead or see the world differently, this programme is rare — and much needed.”
A Final Reflection
Daniella describes Wise Goose as “second to none” – a programme that brings together depth, ethics, creativity and community.
“The contributors, the supervision, the quality of the teaching, everyone brought something powerful to my thinking. I would wholeheartedly recommend Wise Goose.”
Her story illustrates exactly what makes the Wise Goose approach distinctive: a coaching education that develops leaders capable of navigating complexity, living their values, and influencing systems with clarity, courage and compassion.
Bullying is not always what we imagine. It isn’t confined to playground scuffles or overt hostility.
More often, it hides in plain sight, in jokes that cut, silence that excludes and cultures that excuse harm as humour.
At Wise Goose, we see its impact in coaching and supervision: leaders and change‑makers grappling with the subtle ways harm is normalised in workplaces, communities and institutions. As conversations about wellbeing at work grow louder, the need for coaches to engage ethically and systemically with bullying is more pressing than ever.
Ten years ago, I wrote a blog about silent bullying. To my surprise, it became one of the most‑read posts on the Wise Goose site. For coaches, supervisors and leaders, this raises difficult questions about responsibility and how hard it can be to find the courage to speak out and intervene.
I’ve been thinking about writing this ever since Nigel Farage’s bullying hit the news. Then as I started to work on it, to my surprise, a moment from my own childhood, forgotten for over sixty years surfaced.
I was about six or seven years old. A crowd of children gathered around a small boy in the playground, I remember his name – Robin. There was no pushing or shoving, but there was a cruel edge to the name calling. I was shy, a bit of a wallflower, but the energy of the group drew me in. Joining the mob felt exciting. For once I was part of things.
Then Robin started crying.
And inside me, something shifted, a recognition ‘this isn’t fun’. A flicker of shame I wasn’t old enough to name. I remember it vividly, Robin’s eyes filling with tears, the sense of wrongness.
If I met him today, I would apologise.
That experience taught me something, bullying is rarely about “bad people.” More often, it is about ordinary people. Sometimes we join in. Sometimes we look away. But all of it leaves a mark.
This post is for coaches, supervisors, and leaders ready to look at how bullying and so‑called “banter” show up in adult life and workplaces, why it matters for ethical coaching, and how we can respond with courage, clarity and care.
Bullying Leaves Long Shadows
Research confirms what many adults know intuitively: bullying’s impact doesn’t end when school does. Studies show long‑term effects including depression, anxiety, sleep problems, stress symptoms and social withdrawal, and these impacts can last years. Government data links bullying with poorer academic outcomes, reduced wellbeing and difficulties forming relationships.
Bullying, even when “only words,” even when dismissed as teasing, is a form of systematic abuse of power. It leaves deep imprints; on individuals, and on the cultures they later go on to work in and lead.
For coaches, this means that what presents in coaching conversations as “confidence issues” or “not fitting in at work” or brittle defensiveness and arrogance may be the long shadow of bullying. Being alert to that possibility can shape how we listen, frame questions and hold the client’s story.
When Harm Is Disguised as Humour: Banter or Bullying at Work?
One of the most common ways bullying persists is through “humour.”
Variations of “It was just banter” show up everywhere; in workplaces, schools, and, as we’ve seen recently, in national political discourse.
But research is clear:
Banter relies on equality, consent and mutual respect.
Bullying is defined by power imbalance, repetition and harm.
Antibullying organisations emphasise that the “banter defence” is often used to brush aside accountability. BulliesOut points out that “banter becomes bullying” the moment the targeted person feels wounded, regardless of intent. And a major UK report found that 51% of respondents believe “banter” is regularly used as an excuse for bullying.
For coaches, this matters. When a client uses humour to downplay harm, we must listen to what’s unspoken: discomfort, evasion, or a desire not to see themselves as someone who causes pain.
Humour is never neutral. It can bond, or it can bruise.
“Playground Banter” in the News
Recent reporting about Nigel Farage’s school years at Dulwich College offers a public example of how powerful the “banter” label can be.
In December 2025, 25 former pupils and one ex‑teacher signed an open letter urging Farage to acknowledge and apologise for racist behaviour they say occurred during his school years. By January 2026, the number had grown to 34. These individuals dispute Farage’s characterisation of his behaviour as “banter”, describing instead repeated taunts, slurs and targeted hostility. Farage may be blind to this, but we need to name it: Bullying.
Farage’s responses lean heavily on:
lack of malicious intent
the cultural norms of the time
childhood misjudgement
reframing behaviour as “playground banter”
This pattern of denial, minimisation and humour is used across society to avoid responsibility, clients who cause harm often project a positive self‑image by adopting similar narratives. Coaches and leaders need to understand these dynamics if they are to avoid colluding with them.
Bullying Is Systemic, Not Just Personal: Why Workplace Bullying Is a System Issue
Bullying doesn’t appear out of nowhere; it is frequently a system problem. Research shows that structural and cultural conditions strongly shape whether harmful behaviour takes root. Bullying is often a symptom of toxic leadership, weak psychological safety, unclear expectations and poor accountability, not simply individual behaviour. A major systematic review similarly links bullying risk to role ambiguity, high job demands, organisational pressure, authoritarian or laissez‑faire leadership.
Bullying is rarely just a “people problem” this is why coaching must be systemic. We don’t just help clients adjust, we help them understand the forces shaping them, and the forces they help reinforce. At Wise Goose, we place this systemic lens at the heart of our coaching training, because without it we risk treating symptoms and leaving harmful structures untouched.
How Common Is Workplace Bullying?
Recent UK data paints a challenging picture. In late 2025, UK Google searches for “work bullying” rose by 114%. A 2024 CIPD study found that while 81% of employers believe they manage bullying effectively, only 36% of employees who reported issues felt their concerns had been resolved. I’ve been there myself; when I attempted to raise concerns, leaders looked the other way. A national Skills and Employment Survey indicated 14% of UK workers experience workplace abuse annually, with women and LGBTQ+ workers facing significantly higher risks.
This reminds us that bullying is not distributed evenly. People who are marginalised or stereotyped for their gender, race, sexuality, age or disability are often more exposed to risk. Any honest conversation about workplace bullying must include questions of power, diversity and inclusion.
This is the landscape coaches work within.
Clients may come into sessions confused, ashamed, unsure if what they’re experiencing “counts”, or fearful of repercussions if they speak out. Others may not initially recognise their own behaviours as harmful.
When a Client Is Being Bullied
When clients bring experiences of bullying, the coach’s role is to provide:
Validation: naming what is happening without minimisation.
Clarity: helping clients understand systemic factors, so they don’t internalise blame.
Support for boundaries: exploring what safety, dignity and agency look like.
Ethical awareness: navigating organisational processes without retraumatising the client.
Bullying erodes confidence and identity. Coaching provides a place to rebuild both.
These are the kinds of conversations we routinely hold in Wise Goose training rooms and supervision circles: how to stay human, grounded and ethical in our work.
When the Client Is the Bully
This is perhaps the most challenging scenario coaches face. Clients who bully rarely see themselves as bullies. They tend to:
minimise: “It was just a joke”
deflect: “They’re oversensitive”
justify: “That’s just how leadership works here”
normalise: “Everyone talks like this”
Many people who bully are driven by insecurity, past hurt or learned behaviour. If they are open to coaching it can help them develop insight, empathy and new ways of relating. But in workplaces where aggressive high‑performers are tolerated, harm continues if there is no accountability.
This is where collusion can quietly slip in. I’ve seen it in supervision: coaches hold back from challenging a client because they don’t want to damage rapport.
The Wise Goose approach – echoing insights from the Silent Bullying post – is clear: Coaches cannot sit on the fence when someone’s wellbeing is at stake. Our duty of care stretches beyond me‑and‑my‑client.
Support without accountability isn’t coaching. It’s collusion.
What Coaches Need to Do: Practical Ways Forward
Bring Courage to Reflection: Help clients examine the impact of their behaviour, not just their intentions.
Maintain a Systemic Perspective: Situate individual behaviour within organisational culture, power dynamics and structural pressures.
Resist Minimisation: Challenge “banter” with gentle but firm curiosity.
Use Supervision Wisely: Explore discomfort, biases and blind spots to avoid collusion.
Anchor Change in Action: Insight must lead to new behaviours. Accountability is one of coaching’s superpowers.
A Final Reflection: Tiny Acts of Integrity
Bullying persists because noticing, naming, and intervening it is a risk; silence feels safer. The story of Robin surfaced after decades because it encapsulates that early moment: knowing something is wrong, wanting to belong, and choosing, or in my case, failing to act with care.
Coaching is not about perfection. It is about presence, courage, and a willingness to look honestly at harm, even when it comes wrapped in humour.
We cannot change what we refuse to name, and we cannot transform what we refuse to see. And sometimes, the first tiny step toward integrity is simply this: slow down, pause, notice the harm and choose not to join in.
If this post has stirred something in you, a memory, a question, or a sense that you’d like to respond more courageously when harm shows up, you’re not alone. At Wise Goose we create reflective, supportive spaces where coaches and leaders can explore the ethics, systems and human stories that sit beneath bullying and “banter”. If you’d like to deepen your practice, you’re very welcome to join us on one of our training programmes, in coaching or supervision, and keep this kind of honest, values‑led conversation alive in your work.
Some influences stay with you for a lifetime – psychosynthesis is one of mine
There are threads in our lives that weave themselves so deeply into our work, identity, and sense of purpose that they become part of who we are.
For me, psychosynthesis is one of those threads, a formative influence that has shaped my thinking and practice for decades.
Recently, I had the pleasure and honour of being invited by the Trustees of the Psychosynthesis & Education Trust to revisit that journey in conversation with Kim Shiller. The invitation offered a rare opportunity to reflect publicly on my long‑standing relationship with the Trust: my early involvement of training there, later as a Trustee, and the enduring impact both experiences continue to have on my work.
Returning to the Roots
My connection with psychosynthesis began in 1983 a period when I was at a career crossroads, searching for an approach that could meet me in my concerns about the world (this was still the days of the Cold War, and environmental issues) and honoured the whole human being. one that acknowledged depth, purpose, creativity, and ‘height’ what some might call the “more‑than‑personal or trans-personal.” Psychosynthesis offered exactly that, a psychology that does not reduce us to our defences or pathologies but instead recognises our capacity for meaning, agency, emergence and joy.
Those early experiences were formative. They offered not only a framework, and community but also a way of being, an attitude of curiosity, spaciousness, and presence that has quietly accompanied me through every chapter of my life ever since.
The Lasting Impact on My Work
Although my professional path has taken many twists and turns, psychosynthesis continues to inform my practice as a coach, educator, and leader. Its principles are woven through Wise Goose’s approach to purpose‑led leadership, systemic awareness, and values‑based development.
What I learned at the Trust continues to show up in how I listen, how I cultivate space for insight, and how I support individuals and organisations in navigating complexity with integrity.
In the interview, Kim and I explore these themes and more, from the early days of my involvement at the Trust to the evolving role of psychosynthesis today. For anyone interested in the roots of my work or the wider evolution of psychosynthesis‑informed coaching and leadership, I hope you’ll find something of value in the conversation.
If my experience resonates, feel free to share reflections or experiences of your own. Psychosynthesis has always been, at its heart, a conversation a meeting of inner and outer worlds. I’m always delighted to continue that conversation in new ways.
Thinking about training with Wise Goose? We offer practical, professional coach training for people committed to making a positive difference.
Below you’ll find a clear overview of how our programmes work, the values that guide us, and what to expect when joining. For more detailed information, you’ll find plenty of resources throughout our website and in our brochure.
If you have a question that isn’t answered here, we’d love to hear from you.
1. How is the training structured?
At Wise Goose we offer a tiered learning pathway that helps you develop as a reflective, confident, purpose‑led coach.
The Foundations in Core Coaching & Mentoring is a practical introduction to coaching. You’ll develop core skills, build confidence, and gain experience through live practice. You can complete Foundations as a standalone CPD programme or as the first step towards professional accreditation.
The Advanced Diploma is our flagship qualification. This programme deepens your coaching stance, expands your toolkit, and supports you to develop a reflexive, coaching presence. It includes supervision, observed practice and portfolio-building for individual accreditation.
Supervision & Continuing Development for trained coaches wanting to grow their depth, confidence and ethical grounding we offer group supervision, 1:1 supervision and CPD workshops.
2. What is your approach to learning?
We believe coaching can be much more than a skill, techniques or single model, it is an art and a craft: learned through doing, thinking, and being. All our programmes combine in-person and online learning you can expect:
Experiential practice – a strong emphasis on real coaching conversations
Reflection – learning through inquiry, journaling, peer dialogue
Theory that’s useful – not overwhelming
Community – learning alongside like‑minded people
Resources, reading lists and reflective tools
Feedback and supervision on your coaching – clear, structured, kind and developmental
3. How long is the programme?
Foundations: 3 months
Advanced: 12 months (with up to 24 months to complete all requirements) Everyone starts with Foundations, which is the first module of the Advanced programme. After Advanced, you’ll have an extra 12 months to complete your portfolio and coaching hours.
4. Do I need previous coaching experience?
No. Our Foundations programme is designed for beginners and for those who want to refresh their skills.
The programme is for anyone who wants to bring coaching into their professional life – whether you’re an aspiring coach, a leader, someone committed to making a positive difference in your organisation or community.
At Wise Goose you are never “just a student”. We welcome people from a wide range of sectors and backgrounds, a wonderful diversity that creates a rich, dynamic and inspirational learning experience. But whatever their backgrounds participants have one thing in common: they have been drawn to coaching because they want to do worthwhile work that makes a difference.
5. Who are the tutors?
Our tutors are experienced coaches and facilitators, bringing wide and deep expertise to support your development. You can find out more about the team here.
6. Will I be able to gain accreditation?
Our training programmes are externally accredited by the Association for Coaching at Foundations ‘Accredited Award in Coach Training’ and ‘Accredited Advanced Diploma in Coach Training’ Levels and are also recognised by the Institute of Leadership. Both are internationally recognised.
On completion of the course students submit a portfolio, this is practice based rather than an academic piece of work and is designed to consolidate learning and demonstrate:
the ability to understand and integrate coaching principles.
a commitment to self-inquiry and professional, ethical practise
practical skills and coaching application, this includes the ability to reflect upon, communicate and account for actions and strategies.
Our Advanced programme carries Association for Coaching “Accelerated Coach Training Accreditation” (ACTA). This ‘Fast Track’ accreditation provides a streamlined pathway for graduates seeking Individual Coach Accreditation, supporting a straightforward, stress free accreditation journey. We will guide you through the process and help you prepare your portfolio.
7. What guides your approach?
Purpose-led learning: Coaching is most powerful when grounded in clarity of purpose. We help people work in ways that contribute to healthier organisations, communities and systems.
A systemic view: We teach coaching in context, exploring how individual experience is shaped by wider relationships, culture and environment.
Reflective, ethical practice: Honesty, presence and curiosity run through everything we do. We support learners to develop a robust ethical foundation and a grounded sense of professional identity.
Human-scale learning: Our groups are intentionally small, supportive and relational – a maximum of 16 participants. You are not a number, your experience, and unique path matter. You’ll work with the same cohort throughout the programme, building relationships and professional networks that often last for years.
Sustainability: We care about ecological, personal and organisational sustainability. This is woven throughout our programmes, not bolted on. We believe coaching can be a force for good. Our approach is purpose-led, ethical, and inclusive, with a commitment to systemic change. Find out more about how we live our values as a B Corp here.
8. Attendance and flexibility
We ask students to commit to all dates. However, we understand that life happens, and we’ll do our best to help you make up missed sessions with a future group. To graduate, you need to attend at least 80% of the programme.
9. Support beyond training
Graduating isn’t the end of the journey. We offer ongoing support through our alumni network, events, and resources, helping you continue to grow and connect long after the course finishes.
10. How to apply
Ready to take the next step? If you’re looking for coaching training that combines professional rigour with purpose and values, we’d love to welcome you into our learning community.
We aim to keep the process straightforward and personal.
Discover how coaching can enrich your current role, open new coaching career paths, and help you create meaningful impact.
Thinking about coaching as a career or wondering how to integrate coaching into your work and life? Curious if it’s the right fit for you?
In our ‘First Steps into Coaching’ free online sessions we help you understand what coaching is and what it can do. We’ve listened to your follow up questions and are launching ‘Next Step’ sessions where you can consider how coaching could work for you.
This free 3-hour online session has been designed to help you explore whether coaching could be part of creating a fulfilling and sustainable future. It’s an opportunity to discover how building on your unique knowledge, talents, and strengths can make coaching work for you, and to learn more about Wise Goose and our values-driven approach.
In it we’ll tackle some questions that matter when considering training to be a coach:
Is coaching a real, viable career?
What niche should I choose? Do niches matter?
How can coaching enhance my current role as a leader, manager, educator, consultant, or even in community or social impact work?
What do I need to succeed?
How do I attract clients and build a business?
You’ll gain clarity on how coaching could fit into your life, what conditions support success, whether coaching aligns with your values, lifestyle, and aspirations, and assess if coach training is right for you.
What to expect:
An interactive group with trainer-led discussion on coaching as a career and the power of integrating coaching into leadership, education, and everyday roles.
Practical exercises where you can experience coaching and being coached, and clarify your goals, motivations, and next steps.
Honest conversations about opportunities and challenges in the coaching world.
Who We Are:
Your hosts for this session are Dr Sybille Schiffmann and Helen Sieroda.
Sybille is a coach and consultant with over 20 years’ experience working with entrepreneurs and start-ups. She has extensive experience facilitating coaching programmes and holds a doctorate in relational leadership.
Helen is Wise Goose Founder and an accredited Master Executive Coach. Coaching and mentoring at senior levels has been a core element of her work for over 25 years, alongside decades of experience as a trainer and facilitator.
If you’re curious about turning coaching into a career, or using a coaching approach to enrich your current work, this session will help you make an informed decision.
Join us and discover what it takes to make coaching work for you.
Navigating the limits, possibilities and paradoxes age brings: At Findhorn Ecovillage August 3-5 2026 – £350 non-residential
(August 3 & 4 – 10.30 – 5.30; 5th – 10.00-13.00)
“Age helps one to acquire some of the perspectives necessary to create harmony among apparent contradictions.” Roberto Assagioli
Are you over 55 and sensing that life is asking new questions of you?
More Than a Number is for those ready to move beyond the cliché “age is just a number” and explore the deeper questions growing older invites. Whether you’re navigating retirement, an empty nest, redefining your role in the world, or seeking deeper meaning, this is an opportunity to celebrate how far you’ve come, and explore the challenges and gifts the future might hold.
This stage of life brings a landscape of paradox: the pull of activity and the need for rest, the desire to hold on and the call to let go, the push for self-expression and the call of self-transcendence. Age amplifies these inner tensions, surfacing competing needs, values, and identities.
Getting older calls for adjustments, but that doesn’t mean settling for a grey existence. These tensions are not problems to solve; they are invitations to integrate. When we listen deeply to both sides, new possibilities emerge: a creative “third way” that honours the wisdom of each, opening space for wonder, joy, and purposeful living in the years ahead.
Carl Jung urged us to “enjoy the afternoon of life,” a liminal period past mid-life but not yet in extreme old age. He saw this stage as “just as full of meaning as the morning; only, its meaning and purpose are different.” Findhorn Ecovillage is the perfect place to slow down, open up, and notice how age can bring its own form of meaning, beauty, growth, and wisdom.
This non-residential workshop will be facilitated by Wise goose faculty Diana Whitmore and Helen Sieroda. Together they bring decades of experience in facilitating personal and spiritual evolution. They will weave together practices drawn from psychosynthesis, coaching, and action research. You’ll have time to connect with your inner compass, consider how living with purpose and satisfaction matters as much as lifespan, and identify practical next steps to sustain you through life’s ‘afternoon’ and beyond. This is a personal development workshop, open to all, offering reflection, retreat and renewal rather than professional CPD.
We are delighted to be returning to Findhorn Ecovillage for this course; part workshop part retreat, it is non-residential; there are accommodation options to suit a range of budgets. The dates are 2026 August 3 & 4 – 10.30 – 5.30; 5th – 10.00-13.00
Travel Insurance: We cannot reimburse travel costs or other losses incurred by you in the event of cancellation by us or you. You are strongly advised to cover potential loss arising from cancellation or other eventuality affecting your booking, including course fees and travel costs. You should check that any policy you take meets your needs.
Spaces are limited, to reserve your place today contact Helen
This year marks a major milestone for Wise Goose: successful B Corp recertification with an outstanding score of 131.5 a significant leap from our previous 112.3 and well above the certification threshold of 80. This achievement reflects our commitment to continual learning, improvement, and creating positive impact through coaching.
Inside the report:
Impact & Successes – What we’ve achieved and what we’re celebrating
Challenges & Lessons – Where things didn’t go as planned and what we learned
Sustainability Initiatives – Our ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impact
Conscious Leadership – Stories of how we’re nurturing leaders to navigate complexity
Vision for the Future – What’s next and where we aim to improve
Our B Corp journey holds us accountable and inspires us to keep raising the bar for social and environmental responsibility.
From school leadership to coaching supervision, Catherine Rees shares how Wise Goose training transformed her approach to supporting education professionals. Discover her journey from burnout prevention to empowering leaders and why coaching is vital for well-being and meaningful change in today’s demanding education landscape
What drew you to coaching? I was at a time of great strain and stress in my work, with dwindling resources, cuts to spending, cuts to funding and being expected to do more and more with less and less. That’s the case for many people, especially in public service. People are burning out; in education they’re losing teachers and head teachers at an alarming rate and unless we recognise that we have to invest in people, and make sure people are well and healthy, we cannot expect them to give to others. I needed help, so I went for 1-1 coaching with Helen who runs Wise Goose. In my field of education, coaching and supervision isn’t widely available; I believe strongly it should be, because in any demanding job you need to be able to talk through issues, concerns and problems. I was finding the pressures of the job enormous, and Helen helped me plan a way forward that was manageable. By seeking help, I avoided burnout. I met with her six times – it was so beneficial; it kept me in the job and kept me going. Then I decided I wanted to do the Wise Goose training.
How do you use your training now in your work? I’m a school improvement leader working with school leaders across a Trust with 17 schools. Although I’d used a coaching style in my work before, I’d never had any formal training. The training definitely improved the way I run meetings and the kind of conversations I have with heads and other school leaders. The focus is on realising the potential of people, helping them really feel valued in what they do, but also taking ownership for their decisions. Coaching is about support and challenge, so my work is about holding people to account for what they say they are going to do and supporting them on that journey. I use coaching right across my work and since graduation from Wise Goose have added to coach supervision to my qualifications. I also work with individuals from other organisations and plan to develop this further; that’s been a real joy, seeing how skills learned through Wise Goose apply to other organisations, groups or individuals.
Can you tell me more about your journey with Wise Goose? It’s been an incredible journey. It helped me through a time of transition, a time of re-evaluating my work and what matters most to me. My children were leaving home, and I wanted to achieve a better balance in my life. There’s a huge amount of support on the course, and I made quite a courageous decision in my life which I wouldn’t have been able to do without the training. The way it is set up and structured it’s about your own personal development as well as skilling you up to become a professional coach. You go through a journey of self-reflection and change, to be able to help others do the same.
It’s also challenging; you’re out of your comfort zone, often having to really dig deep. What the course does is enable you to think about what matters most and ask how you are living your life true to the values that you hold. For me it was life changing. The balance in all aspects of my life is much improved. I’ve created time to do the things that really matter to me, give me meaning, and enable me to look after myself and my own well-being, which enables me to do a good job in my work and share what I’ve learnt with colleagues.
Could you sum up what’s so unique about what Wise Goose offers? Wise Goose has an approach that brings together a focus on developing highly skilled professional coaches, whilst recognising the complexity of the world we live in, and also bringing in the ethical dimension. Time was given to thinking about tricky areas – dealing with ambiguity, the complexities of the fast-changing world we live in and the importance of our role as coaches in wider society, helping individuals and organisations become aware of their part in the bigger picture. I found that incredibly rewarding and I learnt a great deal about myself and about how to bring about meaningful change.
The other thing that really jumped out for me when I compared it with other courses I’d attended over the years, is the perfect balance between the reflective, personal development work that needs to be done in order to be able to work with other people, and learning about the theory and the skills that are required to become a professional coach. Something else that really shone out for me was being with people from a wide range of disciplines. I learnt so much from colleagues from different fields coming together; each person brought something unique and special and will be developing a style of coaching that is right for them, drawing on the wealth of expertise and skills that they’ve already developed in their professional lives.
The course is carefully constructed so there’s peer assessment, self-assessment, as well as assessment from outside. It is planned in a very thoughtful way; the values of the organisation come through in the way the training has been designed. It’s an incredibly robust and well thought through programme – that’s why it was so successful for me.
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