The approach is simple but not easy.
Work on yourself in order to better lead others.

About Lucy Ball

I set up Lucy Ball Consulting to provide expert coaching to senior leaders and leadership teams. I believe executives deserve support to do the inner work that results in better leadership. I thrive on cases that require advanced skills.

My career history includes experience in Deloitte, PepsiCo, Unilever, RBS and the NHS. I have been coaching and facilitating for over 20 years. It is a privilege to be alongside my clients as they make sense of their work.

My business is based on trust and referral. Assignments are outcome-focused and my approaches are informed by research into how people and organisations change, and how those of us who intervene can do so most effectively.

I see my work as a craft and am constantly learning. I have learned from experts in the field of leadership development for over 20 years.

I have had the pleasure of engaging Lucy Ball to work at Executive Team level. She has insight into the business and ensures that the coaching contract is purposeful and performance-focused. Her long experience in change and leadership development means she is able to work on a range of leadership issues, and at some depth, with her clients. Her style is skillful, authentic, challenging and supportive and receives excellent feedback.

Services

Leadership Coaching

The results of coaching are tangible shifts in behaviour and performance. Coaching clients include CEOs, MDs, senior managers and high potential talent. The context is often complex change and organisational politics that require resilience and pace. Trust and a respect for existing strengths are fundamental principles of my approach, as is self-leadership which incorporates clarity, courage and self-awareness.  I have been coaching since 1998 and draw on approaches ranging from Performance Coaching to Emotional Intelligence to Gestalt. My practice is supported by regular professional development, supervision and psychotherapy.

 

Typical coaching content includes:

  • Transitions and stepping up
  • Power, politics and influence
  • Leading transformation
  • Leading high performing teams
  • Women in leadership
  • Complex collaboration

Lucy's coaching has helped me quickly ease into a new leadership role. She helped me with my presence, impact and breadth of thinking. After each session I felt I had crammed a weeks thinking into an hour and a half. I like the way Lucy applies aspects of psychology to the sessions which was different to any other coaching I had received. Lucy focuses on what you do well and builds on these as well as asking the challenging questions.

David Lowe National Quality and Development Manager, Royal Bank of Scotland

Leadership Pairs Coaching

Pairs coaching is a powerful leadership development intervention. Leaders seek pairs coaching when their relationship is the cornerstone of organisational success. Typical pairings include CEO and Chair, CEO and COO or two peers working closely together on organisational transformation. Pairs coaching can be standalone, an add-on to individual coaching or can form part of a team development programme. 

I partner with a colleague to deliver pairs coaching using the Gestalt Cape Cod Model as a framework. Two coaches work with a pair of clients. Common content includes:

  • Developing shared vision
  • Difficult decision-making
  • Navigating uncertainty
  • Managing complex stakeholders
  • Overcoming difficulties in collaborating with each other.

My Chief Operating Officer and I worked with Baz Hartnell and Lucy Ball on how we strengthen our relationship in order to better lead change in our organisation. The presence of two coaches was extremely powerful. Baz and Lucy are masterful facilitators with complementary strengths.

Tracey Cox Accountable Officer, NHS Bath and North East Somerset CCG

Leadership Teams

I have coached many senior leadership teams in my career. I begin by building a trusting partnership with the leader and deeply understanding the context the team must lead within. The context is usually complex, uncertain and fast-paced. Leadership teams accidentally get in the way of their organisation’s progress in several ways. With me, an executive team builds awareness of how their own behaviour hinders or helps. I help the top team build strong purpose and trust with each other, their people and their stakeholders.

Challenges teams are facing include:

  • Cultural change and resilience
  • Collaboration and synergy
  • Leading in uncertainty
  • Difficult decision-making
  • Navigating complex stakeholders
  • Building partnerships across borders

I’ve worked with Lucy for 20 years with many leadership teams. She has always been an excellent facilitator and has developed into what I can only describe as world class. Her clarity and perceptiveness on issues of process and relationships is second to none and her observations are extremely incisive. This is all delivered with typical Lucy-like composure – which makes her feedback very easy to accept.

Dick Robertson Director Dick Robertson Associates

Design and Supervision

I support and supervise fellow coaches and consultants in their work with their own clients. Our profession can be demanding on our courage, self-awareness and skill. Coaches and consultants need support in order to be at their best for their clients. I offer two types of supervision:

Coach Supervision: I supervise and develop internal or external coaches who are working with senior leaders. I draw on a range of approaches to support my supervision including Bath Consultancy Group’s Seven Eye Model, Harthill’s Leadership Development Framework and my Gestalt experience and training.

Design Supervision: Drawing on my many years of designing leadership development programmes, I support internal or external consultants as they design bespoke leadership development interventions. This co-design process builds capability whilst getting real design work done.

Lucy has worked with me to supervise the design of leadership development programmes. She has also helped me to develop my clients’ internal coaching capability. Lucy has a huge depth of knowledge, sharp insight, and a real clarity of thought. She is the strongest design partner with whom I have worked. The feedback from the client was exceptional.

Journal

Hierarchy and Humility

To work with teams is to work with hierarchy. What do I mean by hierarchy? I mean the explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious, ranking…

How my clients grow me

The phrase ‘my clients grow me’ came out of my mouth in supervision this week. My supervisor said, “You should write about that. It’s an…

Boundaries: flex or hold?

Your line manager moves a date for an important strategy meeting and it clashes with your son’s driving test, which you promised to take him…

The art of storming well

What is storming? Storming is when differences, disagreements and disappointments surface in a team, often with strong feelings. During a storming phase we might experience ‘car-crash’…

View all journal articles