D2.1
Tracks
Stream D
| Thursday, October 29, 2026 |
| 3:15 PM - 3:45 PM |
Overview
A New Framework for Thriving in Complexity. Leaders-who-coach within the UK’s NHS | 30 mins
Presenter
Dr Jennifer Robinson
Leadership On The Go
A New Framework for Thriving in Complexity. Leaders-who-coach within the UK’s NHS
3:15 PM - 3:45 PMAbstract
The Australian Psychological Society notes that work‑related stress arises when demands exceed available resources, and that leadership behaviour and leader-employee relationships are central determinants of wellbeing and organisational climate. Traditional, individualised, “heroic” models of leadership have proven insufficient in contemporary complexity, where effective responses depend on “the wisdom of the many, not the hubris of the few.” The author argues that leaders-who-coach (leaders who integrate coaching practices into everyday interactions) offer a more relational, contextually grounded, and psychologically healthy approach to leadership in complex systems.
Although coaching is associated with enhanced performance, learning, and engagement, organisational research typically conceptualises coaching as delivered by external professionals. This creates two limitations: coaching becomes separated from leadership practice, and coaching skills are assumed to transfer directly to leaders despite their distinct relational and temporal constraints. These assumptions have encouraged an imitation of coaching techniques rather than embedding leadership practice.
Leadership‑as‑Practice (LAP) provides an appropriate theoretical foundation where leadership is emergent, relational, and collective: “made and unmade and remade perpetually” through interaction. From this perspective, coaching becomes a relational practice that supports shared sensemaking, distributed agency, psychological safety, reflective capacity, and adaptive problem‑solving: capabilities essential for navigating complexity.
This paper introduces a practice‑based framework for “leaders‑who‑coach,” defined as individuals who intentionally help colleagues resolve professional dilemmas through everyday interaction, grounded in relational and emergent understandings of leadership. The framework is derived from a four‑year phenomenological study of 600+ participants. Using an inductive method avoided theoretical imposition, and surfaced lived experience, aligned with LAP’s processual ontology. Template analysis produced fifteen dimensions of leaders‑who‑coach—entangled social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural practices enacted in context rather than discrete competencies.
A case study from a UK NHS Trust illustrates the applied value of this framework. The HR Operations and Business Partner department, a hybrid team experiencing entrenched siloes and habitual deferral of decision‑making, engaged in a structured programme of workshops, practice‑based interventions, and ongoing nudges. Outcomes demonstrated significant behavioural and cultural change: 100% NPS, 97% learned new skills, and 94% adapted their behaviour. Participants reported reduced siloes, improved communication, fewer relational conflicts, and sustained engagement ten months later.
The findings demonstrate that leadership infused with coaching strengthens resilience, enhances relationships, and improves organisational effectiveness. The fifteen‑dimension framework offers a scalable, relational, and evidence‑based pathway for developing leadership capacity aligned with APS priorities and the realities of modern work.
Although coaching is associated with enhanced performance, learning, and engagement, organisational research typically conceptualises coaching as delivered by external professionals. This creates two limitations: coaching becomes separated from leadership practice, and coaching skills are assumed to transfer directly to leaders despite their distinct relational and temporal constraints. These assumptions have encouraged an imitation of coaching techniques rather than embedding leadership practice.
Leadership‑as‑Practice (LAP) provides an appropriate theoretical foundation where leadership is emergent, relational, and collective: “made and unmade and remade perpetually” through interaction. From this perspective, coaching becomes a relational practice that supports shared sensemaking, distributed agency, psychological safety, reflective capacity, and adaptive problem‑solving: capabilities essential for navigating complexity.
This paper introduces a practice‑based framework for “leaders‑who‑coach,” defined as individuals who intentionally help colleagues resolve professional dilemmas through everyday interaction, grounded in relational and emergent understandings of leadership. The framework is derived from a four‑year phenomenological study of 600+ participants. Using an inductive method avoided theoretical imposition, and surfaced lived experience, aligned with LAP’s processual ontology. Template analysis produced fifteen dimensions of leaders‑who‑coach—entangled social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural practices enacted in context rather than discrete competencies.
A case study from a UK NHS Trust illustrates the applied value of this framework. The HR Operations and Business Partner department, a hybrid team experiencing entrenched siloes and habitual deferral of decision‑making, engaged in a structured programme of workshops, practice‑based interventions, and ongoing nudges. Outcomes demonstrated significant behavioural and cultural change: 100% NPS, 97% learned new skills, and 94% adapted their behaviour. Participants reported reduced siloes, improved communication, fewer relational conflicts, and sustained engagement ten months later.
The findings demonstrate that leadership infused with coaching strengthens resilience, enhances relationships, and improves organisational effectiveness. The fifteen‑dimension framework offers a scalable, relational, and evidence‑based pathway for developing leadership capacity aligned with APS priorities and the realities of modern work.
.....
A Kiwi entrepreneur based in the UK, Dr. Jennifer Robinson has spent more than thirty years building five successful businesses, beginning with a commercial radio station she founded at eighteen that still thrives in New Zealand. She is now Co CEO of a global tech start up and, in a pleasing twist, also runs an alpaca farm.
Her career spans media, entertainment, and social enterprise, alongside a senior consulting role at Towers Perrin (now WillisTowersWatson). Jennifer has worked across Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa—experiences that have included everything from jungle commutes in Borneo to a not very serious kidnapping.
She is co author of Coaching On the Go (FT/Pearson, 2019) and holds a PhD in Collaborative Leadership, an MSc in Organizational Behaviour, and an MSc in Organizational Psychology. She is driven by the belief that leaders rise by lifting others and has dedicated her work to making that real.
