Leading From Within
What Is Leading From Within?
You Do Not Need To Want Out
To Need Support
Bespoke coaching for professional women who want to lead with greater confidence, clarity and authority — without losing themselves in the process.
For women who want to remain ambitious, make a meaningful contribution and feel more effective in the roles they already hold, while developing a way of leading that feels grounded, sustainable and genuinely their own.
You may have worked hard to reach your current position and still feel ambitious about what you want to contribute. You are not necessarily questioning your career or looking for an exit. You may simply want to feel more confident and effective in the role you already have, or more prepared for the next level of leadership.
From the outside, you may appear highly capable. Internally, however, you might be second-guessing decisions, overpreparing for meetings or holding back when you have something important to say. You may wonder whether you are experienced enough, strategic enough or naturally authoritative enough, even when the evidence suggests otherwise.
You may also be navigating greater visibility, complex relationships, organisational politics or the pressure of being one of relatively few women at your level. You want to succeed, but you do not want that success to depend on continually proving yourself, performing confidence or adopting a version of leadership that does not feel like you.
This Coaching May Be Right For You If:
You are in a management, senior leadership or established professional role and want to become more effective within it.
You know you are capable, but do not always feel as confident as others perceive you to be.
You are taking on greater responsibility, visibility or influence.
You are tired of overthinking, overpreparing or feeling that you must continually prove your value.
You want to communicate and make decisions with greater authority.
You want to remain ambitious without allowing work to consume you.
You want to lead effectively without abandoning your values, personality or way of relating to others.
This Coaching May Be Right For You If:
The focus is shaped around you. Depending on your goals and current leadership context, our work may include:
Building confidence in your judgement, expertise and leadership ability
Understanding and responding differently to imposter feelings
Speaking with greater clarity and authority in senior spaces
Becoming more visible without feeling performative
Navigating difficult conversations, conflict and organisational politics
Setting boundaries and managing competing demands
Letting go of perfectionism, overpreparation and over-responsibility
Developing an authentic leadership style that draws on your existing strengths
Preparing for promotion, an expanded remit or a significant transition
Leading through uncertainty, complexity or organisational change
Sustaining your energy and ambition over the longer term
A Contextual Approach To Confidence
Confidence does not develop in a vacuum.
Women’s experiences of leadership can be shaped by workplace culture, gendered expectations, power, class, race, disability, care responsibilities and the often contradictory standards applied to women in positions of authority.
For that reason, our work will not begin from the assumption that you simply need to fix yourself or think more positively. We will look honestly at both the internal patterns and the external environment influencing your experience.
This helps us distinguish between the confidence you want to build, the skills you may want to strengthen and the organisational dynamics you should not have to carry as a personal failing.
The aim is not to turn you into someone else’s idea of a confident leader. It is to help you trust your own judgement, use your voice more fully and lead in a way that is effective, sustainable and recognisably yours.
A Contextual Approach To Confidence
Every woman, role and organisation is different, so Leading From Within is not a fixed programme.
We begin with an initial conversation about what you are navigating, what you would like to change
and what meaningful progress would look like. I will then recommend a coaching structure and
provide a tailored proposal.
YOUR COACHING MAY INCLUDE:
An initial leadership and professional development consultation
Clear, agreed goals and a tailored coaching plan
One-to-one coaching sessions over an agreed period
Reflective exercises and practical tools between sessions
A Contextual Approach To Confidence
Coaching can be privately funded or commissioned by your employer. Fees are provided in the tailored proposal once we have agreed the most useful scope and format.
While the outcomes will reflect your individual goals, the wider intention is that you leave with greater trust in your own judgement, a clearer sense of how you want to lead and practical ways to communicate, decide and act with more confidence.
You will also have a stronger understanding of the patterns and workplace dynamics affecting you, so you can use your energy more deliberately and remain ambitious without continually overriding yourself.
Three-Month Engagement
A three-month engagement can provide focused support around a defined goal, leadership challenge
or transition.
Preparation for specific conversations, decisions or leadership situations
Progress reviews and adjustments as your needs develop
A final review to consolidate your learning and identify your next steps
Six-Month Engagement
A six-month engagement allows more time to embed new ways of leading, respond to situations as they arise and support deeper, sustained development.
About Sara
Frequency Sessions
The frequency of sessions and level of between-session support are agreed with you.
Sara Slattery is a career coach, facilitator and trainer who works with professional women and organisations to create more confident, sustainable and human ways of working and leading.
She brings more than 500 hours of coaching experience, extensive experience designing and delivering development programmes, and a background spanning community development, employment support and family services.
Sara holds an Advanced Diploma in Executive and Life Coaching and an MA in Community Development. She is an EMCC member operating at Senior Practitioner level and has completed specialist training in women’s leadership, reflective practice and the Include Performance Framework.
Her approach is relational, values-led and attentive to both the individual and the wider systems in which she works.