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When Coaching Becomes
Part of the Team
Case Study with Tracey Bird: Group & Individual Coaching
The Overview
Place-based partnerships are complex.
They bring together organisations with different priorities, pressures and ways of working, all trying to create meaningful change in their communities.
For Tracey Bird, Strategic Lead for Ashfield & Mansfield at Active Derbyshire and Active Notts, coaching through The Activation Project became far more than a leadership development exercise. It became an integral part of how the partnership worked, thought and moved forward.
The Challenge
The Ashfield and Mansfield Place Partnership was operating within a complex and rapidly changing system, bringing together leaders from health, local government and community organisations with different priorities, responsibilities and ways of working.
While partners shared a common ambition for improving outcomes in their communities, they faced the challenge of navigating organisational change, balancing strategic and operational perspectives, and creating the trust needed for open and honest dialogue.
The partnership needed a way to strengthen relationships, surface difficult conversations and build a more cohesive leadership team that could work effectively across organisational boundaries while responding to the evolving needs of Place.
Tracey's Key Benefits from LeaderLine Coaching
Space to think differently
Making the invisible visible
Building confidence
Support that lasts beyond the programme
A stronger way forward
One of the things that stood out most for Tracey was The Activation Project’s willingness to shape the coaching around the team’s specific needs, rather than applying a rigid off the shelf programme.
Working alongside our Executive coach Amanda Hickey, the leadership team helped shape the content, format and delivery to reflect the realities of their Place, their people and the challenges they were facing.
"If Amanda had come with a package and said, ‘This is what we’re going to offer,’ people would not necessarily have bought into the whole thing."
Amanda adapted sessions from mixed formats to face-to-face workshops, understanding the group's need for in-person connection. Tools were also shifted away from digital platforms to pen and paper for more effective contributions. This tailored approach ensured the coaching met the needs of the participants.
Tracey describes Amanda and the wider LeaderLine team as "critical friends", trusted external voices able to challenge thinking, facilitate difficult conversations and help the partnership see what those inside the system sometimes cannot.
"Sometimes when you're in it, you're a bit blind to what you need to do differently. Amanda's impact clearly went beyond coaching."
For a leadership group navigating significant organisational change across NHS, local government and community sectors, having that kind of trusted support made a real difference.
Coaching created a psychologically safe environment for leaders to step back from daily pressures and engage differently. It encouraged difficult conversations and honest dialogue, balancing voices from strategic and operational teams and ensuring diverse perspectives were valued.
"The coaching has allowed some of those difficult conversations to be surfaced."
Alongside team coaching, individual coaching provided valuable space for leaders to think, process and reset.
For Tracey, working at pace in a demanding public sector environment, those sessions became a way to offload pressure, make sense of complexity and develop practical tools to support others too.
"It’s really helped me to take stock when you're in it and working at pace."
The impact extended beyond the individual, with coaching tools being shared across the wider leadership team.
Unlike short term consultancy support that arrives, delivers and disappears, Tracey valued The Activation Project’s ongoing investment in the leadership team’s success.
That commitment has led Nottinghamshire to continue working with TAP, with further coaching already planned.
For Tracey, the recommendation is clear.
"They genuinely care about getting it right and helping develop what’s needed at Place."
If your Place Partnership is navigating complexity, change or difficult stakeholder dynamics, LeaderLine’s flexible coaching approach can help create the space, challenge and support needed to build stronger collaboration and more confident leadership.
Testimonial
"I would absolutely recommend LeaderLine Place Collaboration Coaching. The Activation Project coaching team genuinely care about getting it right and developing coaching sessions to fit the
needs of the place. To anyone considering coaching for their Place, I would say go for it. Don’t be
frightened to add to your toolkit – there is always something new to learn.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
~ Tracey Bird | Strategic Lead for Ashfield & Mansfield at
Active Derbyshire and Active Notts