Dr Julia Carden

Julia has been coaching for 14 years and is an accredited Master Practitioner Coach, as well as an accredited supervisor, with the EMCC and Professional Certified Coach with the ICF. She has worked with senior leaders, middle-managers and future leaders in both the Public and Private Sectors. Current clients include Ayden, Ordnance Survey, and some private clients. Alongside her coaching practice Julia is an accredited Coaching Supervisor.

Julia’s clients appreciate her skilful challenge yet caring approach to coaching, which they say leads to deeper insight and learning. Julia believes this is achieved through the process of client connection, so she ensures before taking on an assignment both parties are content, comfortable and clear with the relationship. The question which Julia keeps at the forefront of her mind is “how much more is possible through self-acceptance?”

Her particular area of interest is self-awareness, and Julia has recently completed PhD research exploring self-awareness in coaching. Therefore, her work focuses on helping clients gain greater self-awareness and wider perspectives, encouraging them to explore hidden potential and aspects of their character to enhance authentic leadership. Her core values of authenticity and competence underpin all her work. Julia draws on a wide range of psychological dimensions in her coaching work; in particular Time to Think and psychodynamic approaches. It is important to Julia that she delivers value to the client and so operates with awareness of the whole system within which the client operates.

Alongside her coaching work she is a visiting tutor at Henley Business School. She is passionate about her continuing professional development and regularly takes part in coaching supervision.

Julia has a MSc in Executive Coaching and Behavioural Change from Henley Business School (2014), she is a Time to Think Accredited Coach and Facilitator, NLP Master Practitioner (2011), NLP Practitioner (2009), BPS Level A and Level B (2005) (OPQ, 16PF, Lumina Spark, MBTI), BSc (Hons) University of Bath (1989) and is a Fellow of CIPD (2005).

In her spare time, Julia values spending time with her family, in particular riding with her son, Freddie.

Testimonials

“With Julia’s support I was reminded/encouraged to be who I am, my values and what is important to me. Julia’s style is challenging but supportive. Providing straightforward exercises and material for me to work through between sessions. Her style was trusting. With Julia’s help I have regained confidence and looking forward to life with renewed energy” Financial Director, FE College

“With her wider knowledge base and clients of such different backgrounds I found it really rewarding to be part of this coaching as it is interesting to find out the theory behind my own behaviors and reassuring to know that whatever arises Julia can expand on. Julia’s communication skills are also very good so that technical explanations are quickly understood/grasped.” Senior Leader, Jardine Motors Group

“My two best group learning and reflection experiences were in supervision groups with Julia. She creates an open, non-judgemental environment where you can lose the inhibitions that meddle with shared reflection. The balance of contracting, structure, and establishing our way of working alongside an experimental, fluid and in the moment approach was perfect for me. Striking this balance was part of why the group was able to keep the integrity of the space which Julia managed skilfully.”

“Julia doesn’t rush her sessions- this is a deep dive and full of “mysteries to be solved”. Supervision with Julia stands out as a session that feels different to everything else you are doing (even with other coach and peer learning). I appreciated her care with ensuring opinions and advice stayed out of the space unless asked for. Everything was about helping the coach examine themselves and identifying what they need, with support from the group through reflective inquiry, visualisations, noticing self and somatic reactions, constellations, drawing and open questions. The experience of supporting other coaches in this context was also centring for me. I learnt a lot about myself through my responses to other coach enquiries. In some ways, I got more from this part than my own enquiries. It is clear Julia isn’t standing still as a supervisor; she brings in emerging thinking, systemic context and new supervision tools to create alternate reflective lenses which adds an element of play.”

“Julia has set the bar for me with supervision style, supervisor selection, the value of supervision and the necessary conditions for generating self-awareness. I would recommend Julia to coaches of any capability if supervision is much more than a tick box compliance activity; you need to be willing to work on your self.” Heather Frost

“Working with Julia has brought a step change to my coaching game. Julia is more than just a skilled supervisor - she’s also a highly experienced coach & someone with credible leadership experience. This enables her to listen in a richer way than your standard supervisor & challenge from different perspectives. Her style is open & warm. Her impact is transforming.” Adie Shariff