Brooks Leney - Coping with Stress and Building Resilience Workshop
What they asked for: To equip the whole business with practical tools to understand and manage stress and build personal and collective resilience.
What we delivered: A bespoke online workshop designed around the realities of their work and tailored to the specific pressures they face.
Result: Improved awareness of stress and resilience and practical takeaways for managing pressure.
Client: Brooks Leney
Project: Coping with Stress & Building Resilience Workshop
What they needed: A practical and engaging session for the whole business, across roles and office locations, to better understand how stress affects individuals and performance, and to equip the team with tools to build personal and collective resilience.
What we delivered: A bespoke 90-minute virtual workshop for the full team, designed around the realities of their work and tailored to the specific pressures they face.
Result: Greater awareness of stress and resilience, with positive feedback and practical takeaways for managing pressure.
“We were extremely pleased with the outcome. It benefited me personally and helped the whole team.”
The Context
Brooks Leney is a planning and development consultancy with a team spread across three office locations. Their work is complex and often emotionally demanding, involving detailed advisory work, delivering challenging messages to clients, and staying on top of evolving legislation and external pressures.
The partner team recognised that this day-to-day pressure can accumulate and impact wellbeing, morale, and performance. They wanted to give the whole team (not just leaders) space to reflect, reset, and build confidence in how they manage stress.
What we delivered:
We worked directly with one of the Partners to shape the session, exploring not just the general pressures of professional services work, but the specific external factors and internal challenges relevant to Brooks Leney. The 90-minute online session was bespoke, combining short bursts of input with plenty of interaction chat and and built around three goals:
Raise awareness of how stress affects individuals and business performance
Equip staff with practical, evidence-based strategies to manage pressure
Encourage healthy habits and open conversations across teams
We explored:
What stress looks like in their roles
How to respond more constructively to pressure
Small, achievable habits that can support better wellbeing day to day
Workshop elements included:
An interactive poll to surface real-time experiences of stress
A stress-mapping exercise to explore individual and team pressure points
The Circles of Control model to support mindset and focus
Practical resilience strategies (e.g., prioritisation, reframing, resetting)
Space for personal reflection and commitments to wellbeing
Results and Reflections
Participants appreciated the balance of psychological insight with down-to-earth, usable tools.
Each person left with a clearer understanding of how stress shows up for them and at least one practical action they could take to improve resilience or protect their energy.
For the team: The session helped normalise conversations about stress and reinforced the message that wellbeing is a shared priority across roles and offices.
For the business: Leadership saw strong engagement, positive feedback, and signs that the session supported both personal development and a healthier workplace culture.
Testimonials
“We were extremely pleased with the outcome of the Stress and Resilience workshop with Growth Space. It not only benefited me personally but also helped the whole team understand more about the implications of stress on themselves and our business, as well as ways in which to build resilience.
Polly worked with me to understand how our business could potentially be affected by stress and the external factors that influence this, and built the workshop around our needs, making it bespoke to us, rather than an ‘off the shelf’ package.
I would happily recommend Growth Space to any business looking to help their staff and business develop beyond the day job.”
Would you like to support your team’s wellbeing
Baker Hospitality - Leadership Development Programme
What they needed: To build confidence and consistency for their management team (front-of-house and chefs) and improve practical management skills.
What we delivered: A Leadership Development programme delivered in person and online.
Result: Improved confidence, practical tools to lead effectively and consistently in a hospitality setting.
Client: Baker Hospitality
Project: Management Development Programme
What they needed: To build confidence and consistency for their management team (front-of-house and chefs) and improve practical management skills.
What we delivered: A three-part programme delivered in person and online, and supported by learning journals for personal reflection and creating a personal development plan.
Result: Managers left with greater confidence, practical tools to lead effectively and consistently in a high pressure hospitality setting.
“It’s forced us to sit down together, come up with solutions and, as a consequence, improve our relationships and communication. It gave us the motivation and inspiration we needed.”
Baker Hospitality Leadership Programme.
The Context
Baker Hospitality operates a small group of thriving inns and taverns known for their warmth, quality and culture.
Some team managers had stepped into leadership roles for the first time and had stepped up to manage their former peers and friends. Others were experienced managers but lacked confidence, had difficulty delegating and giving feedback and found themselves in constant firefighting.
The Directors recognised a need to build confidence and consistency across their management group in three venues. They were aware that a culture of caution and fear of mistakes, rather than trust and psychological safety, had developed.
They were looking for a programme to reset, re-energise, and equip people with the skills and mindset to lead well.
What we delivered:
We began with a detailed brief and background notes on each manager’s development needs to understand their different strengths and challenges.
We designed a three-part programme delivered in-person and online. Workshops included a mix of group reflection (including personality profiling and emotional intelligence questionnaires), small breakouts, live coaching demos, and personal action planning. The programme was supported by a Learning Journal to record reflections, new ideas, and build a personal development plan. The tone was practical and human - no jargon, no rigid theory, just real tools for real people.
Leading You - a full-day in-person workshop focused on stepping into leadership, setting boundaries, and building accountability. We explored the importance of stepping back from daily firefighting to look at the big picture and solve the root cause of recurring problems. We created real-life scenarios familiar in a hospitality setting, teams discussed different approaches and developed new ideas for setting best practices around daily tasks like team briefings, customer complaints and staff absence.
Leadership Confidence - explored personality types and emotional intelligence, with reflective breakout discussions and real-world scenarios to help managers build empathy and self-awareness.
Leading Others - focused on managing your team, using coaching conversations, giving feedback and handling difficult conversations.
What they learned
The difference between leadership and management
Their leadership style and how to lead with confidence
Strategic thinking and problem-solving
Emotional intelligence and empathy.
Real skills including how to:
Communicate more clearly and assertively
Adapt their communication style based on personality types
Delegate and manage time more effectively
Set expectations and boundaries
Listen actively and use coaching conversations
Give better feedback and have difficult conversations
Leading team meetings and shift briefings
Coaching conversations.
Testimonials
“Polly worked with me from the very beginning to understand how our business works and built the workshop around our needs — making it bespoke to us, rather than an ‘off the shelf’ package. I would happily recommend Polly to any business.”
“It’s helped us to realise all the good bits we’re already doing and where we can share the load. It gave us the motivation and inspiration we needed.”
Want to develop confident and capable managers and leaders?
tes - Leadership Coaching
Brief: Provide a safe space for reflection and growth for experienced and new managers in a high-pressure global organisation.
Solution: Coaching Programmes for leaders.
Key Result: More confidence, clearer priorities, better relationships with peers and team and improved wellbeing
Client: tes
Project: Leadership Coaching for mid-level and senior managers
What they needed: Provide dedicated space for reflection, confidence-building and people leadership support, tailored to the real challenges of managing in a global organisation.
What we delivered: A Coaching programme that help managers lead with more clarity, confidence and connection.
Key result: Managers report stronger confidence, clearer priorities, better working relationships, and more effective conversations with their teams and peers.
“Working with Polly has been genuinely transformative.
She helped me find my voice, be more confident, composed, and assertive. I no longer stay silent or get pushed aside; I speak with intention and presence.
Through our sessions, I’ve sharpened my leadership skills in ways I didn’t expect. I now give timely, objective feedback, delegate with confidence, and empower others to step up. That shift alone has been a game-changer for my team.
Polly also helped me clarify my core values which now guide how I lead.
Most of all, I feel equipped. I have a leadership toolkit I can reach for anytime I need it, and that sense of preparedness is incredibly empowering.
I’m deeply grateful for Polly’s insight, patience, and the practical support she’s given me. I hope our paths cross again.””
The Context
tes is a global EdTech company supporting educators worldwide through a suite of digital tools and platforms. It provides schools and teachers with everything from recruitment and safeguarding systems to timetabling software, CPD support, and a widely used resource-sharing platform.
Within tes, managers are balancing a wide range of responsibilities - leading teams, supporting delivery, and navigating day-to-day operational pressures. Some have been with the organisation for many years, and others are newer to their roles or stepping into leadership for the first time.
In a fast-paced environment like this, there’s often limited time for reflection or development.
What We Deliver:
Growth Space provides leadership coaching to managers and senior managers across the business creating a safe space to think, reflect and lead more intentionally.
The Coaching Experience:
Each coaching journey is tailored to the individual’s role, goals and context. Sessions take place over 6–9 months and respond to what’s most relevant for the manager in that moment. While every coaching relationship is unique, some consistent themes include:
Confidence and Imposter Feelings - Many managers arrive with quiet doubts about whether they’re doing it “right.” Coaching helps them make sense of those feelings, reflect on what’s working, and show up with more self-belief.
Managing Pressure and Prioritising - It’s not unusual for people to feel overstretched or unsure where to focus. Coaching offers time to step back, re-centre, and make clearer decisions about what matters most.
Leading Others - From having better one-to-ones, to supporting underperformance, to building team motivation — coaching gives managers space to work through their leadership questions and challenges.
Feedback and Difficult Conversations - We often explore how to have more honest, constructive conversations — with teams, peers and more senior colleagues — and how to prepare for the conversations people often avoid.
Strengthening Relationships - Managers reflect on how they communicate, how trust is built, and how they can be more intentional in the way they relate to others across the organisation.
Impact
Managers describe coaching as a valuable space to reflect, reset and grow. The impact includes:
More confidence and clarity in their leadership
Better communication and feedback conversations
Stronger, more trusting relationships with teams and peers
More purposeful prioritisation and time management
A clearer sense of ownership for how they lead — not just what they deliver.
Testimonials
“This has helped me find my own way of being a manager - not trying to copy someone else, or do it perfectly, but lead in a way that works for me and my team.”
“It’s the first time I’ve had space to properly think about how I lead. Every session helped me step back and make better choices.”
Could Coaching Support your Managers & Leaders?
We support managers in fast-moving, people-focused organisations like TES to lead with more confidence, connection and clarity.
If your managers are stretched, growing into new responsibilities, or want support with the people side of their role, we’d love to help.