Executive Coaching, Professional Coaching & Mentoring | Headacity

Coaching services

Coaching and mentoring for people carrying real responsibility.

Three distinct services: for professionals, senior leaders, and those mentoring the next generation. Each begins with a confidential consultation, at no cost.

Every engagement is built on established coaching practice and evidence-based creative-health methods: structured, considered, and designed around the demands of a senior professional life.

Complimentary 30-minute consultation · online · in confidence

The Headacity brain-tree mark, a mind rendered as a growing tree

The work

Considered support for the people others depend on.

I work with capable, accomplished professionals, many of them quietly depleted by the demands they carry. The work brings clarity to complex situations, structure to the change you intend to make, and a genuine accountability partnership, so the commitments you set are met and sustained rather than abandoned under pressure.

Barry Taylor, founder of Headacity

Who you'd be working with

Barry Taylor

Founder of Headacity. Executive and Leadership Coach, Professional Mentor, and Certified Creative Health and Wellbeing Practitioner.

Experience spanning education, leadership and creative health, including work with NHS trusts, senior leaders and national organisations. That depth of practice sits behind every individual engagement.

PCI-accredited · NHS-aligned ILM Level 7 (in progress) Cambridge PGCE · First-Class BA
Read the full background ›

Professional Coaching

For professionals whose performance and wellbeing have become difficult to separate.

For accomplished professionals contending with stress, early burnout, or the strain of sustaining high performance over time. Frequently, this is the point at which highly capable people find their usual resources no longer sufficient. I combine established wellbeing-coaching practice with evidence-based creative-health methods to rebuild sustainable capacity: the kind that holds under genuine demand. Well suited to individuals investing in themselves, and to professionals whose development is sponsored by their organisation.

Who this is for

  • Senior professionals and high achievers managing sustained pressure or early burnout
  • People whose wellbeing has begun to affect their focus, judgement or output
  • Those sustaining a demanding role alongside a health condition or significant change
  • Professionals whose development is sponsored by their employer
  • Anyone seeking a considered, evidence-based alternative to generic wellbeing support

What we work on

  • Recovery from burnout, and the conditions that produce it
  • Sustainable performance and the management of energy over time
  • Focus, judgement and composure under pressure
  • Health behaviour change: sleep, recovery, durable habits
  • Resilience that withstands real professional demand

My approach. The work is structured, confidential and person-centred, drawing on established coaching practice and evidence-based creative-health methods grounded in neuroscience and positive psychology. Trauma-aware throughout.

PCI-accredited · NHS-aligned UKIHCA member Organisational sponsorship welcomed

Executive & Senior Leadership Coaching

For those leading through complexity, scrutiny and change.

For leaders at every level and in any sector, from those stepping into their first significant role to senior executives steering complex change. The focus is sustainable high performance, sound judgement under pressure, and the authentic presence that shapes resilient, healthy cultures.

Who this is for

  • Senior executives and directors navigating complex, high-stakes change
  • Established leaders accountable for culture, performance and difficult decisions
  • Managers taking on materially greater responsibility
  • Emerging leaders stepping into their first significant role
  • Accomplished leaders privately managing self-doubt or the weight of expectation
  • Organisations investing in the development and retention of key people

What we work on

  • Leadership transitions: promotion, a new mandate, a change of sector
  • Sustainable high performance without erosion of wellbeing
  • Judgement and decision-making under pressure and uncertainty
  • Authentic presence, influence and executive confidence
  • Team dynamics, delegation and demanding conversations
  • Leading culture and change with credibility

My approach. Grounded in the ILM Level 7 framework for executive and senior-leadership coaching, the work centres on self-awareness, systems thinking and sustainable leadership practice. Sessions are reflective and considered, as supportive as they are challenging, and held in the strictest confidence.

Professional Mentoring

For those advancing in education and leadership who value experience over theory.

Mentoring draws on lived experience rather than framework alone. Built on more than thirty years spanning youth mentoring, teacher training, education consultancy and business leadership, it offers direction, perspective and candid discussion for those building a career in education and beyond.

Who this is for

  • Educators (teachers, middle and senior leaders) pursuing progression
  • Emerging leaders in education taking on a first leadership role
  • Experienced professionals transitioning into education from other sectors
  • Those entering the coaching or education profession
  • People who value guidance from someone with direct experience of rapid advancement, and of its costs

What we work on

  • Career progression and professional development in education
  • Institutional culture, politics and leadership dynamics
  • Confidence and presence in a senior or public-facing role
  • Workload, boundaries and wellbeing in demanding settings
  • Transitions into, or within, the education sector
  • Applying hard-won experience to the decisions in front of you

My approach. Mentoring is deliberately less structured than coaching. It draws on experience, judgement and practical discussion, applied to the decisions you face. Expect candour, discretion, and guidance you can act on.

Capable people rarely need fixing. They need the conditions to think clearly, decide well, and sustain it under pressure.

How engagements work

The practical detail.

A clear picture of format, structure and commitment before we begin.

Sessions

60-minute sessions. Single, 5 or 10-session programmes.

Format

Online via Google Meet, or in person in Leicestershire.

Frequency

Weekly or fortnightly, arranged around your schedule.

Booking

Private link provided following your initial consultation.

Fees vary by service and programme. Payment options are available. Healthcare referrals considered. Organisational invoicing welcome.

A note on fit

Coaching and mentoring are partnerships. They serve people ready to look honestly at their situation and to act on it, rather than those seeking directive advice, therapy, or clinical treatment, which sit outside my remit as a coach and mentor.

Where a different form of support would serve you better, I will say so plainly and, where I can, point you towards it. And if you are in acute distress, please contact your GP or the NHS crisis services first; that support should always come before coaching.

The process

How it works.

1

Begin with a consultation

A confidential, no-cost conversation to understand your situation, clarify what you intend to achieve, and establish whether we are well matched. You leave with a clearer view, either way.

2

Agree the right programme

We explore the service and structure that fits. Favourable payment options available. Zero pressure to proceed.

3

Begin the work

Confirm your times, book securely, and we start.

Book a free consultation

Clear and upfront

Payment & policies.

No ambiguity. How payment, cancellation and confidentiality are handled.

Payment

  • Due before the first session of a programme, or before each single session.
  • Bank transfer, PayPal, or card via Stripe; organisational invoicing available.
  • Payment plans to spread the cost, with discounts on programme bookings.

Cancellation

  • Reschedule with 24 hours' notice at no charge.
  • Cancellations within 24 hours forfeit the session.
  • Five-session programmes expire after six months; ten-session after twelve (extensions by agreement).

Confidentiality

  • A coaching or mentoring agreement is completed before the first session.
  • Sessions are confidential, save where there is a risk of harm or a legal requirement.
  • Notes are held securely and never shared without your consent.

Full detail is in the Terms & Conditions. Further questions are answered in the FAQs.

Free diagnostic

Begin with a clear read.

If you would value an objective starting point, the SCORE diagnostic maps where pressure is concentrated across your professional and personal life, and returns a detailed, personalised report.

Five to ten minutes to complete, for genuinely deep insight, and a strong foundation for the coaching that follows, should we go on to work together.

No sign-up wall. Thorough, personalised, and yours to act on.

Low High Your SCORE

A conversation worth having.

The initial consultation is complimentary and carries no obligation. For many, it is where a long-standing question finally comes into focus.