Emma Donaldson-Feilder
Emma Donaldson-Feilder is a Relational Mindfulness (RM) and Insight Dialogue (ID) teacher, chartered coaching psychologist, coaching supervisor and chartered occupational psychologist, who aims to support the development of kinder, wiser workplaces. In 2019 she completed a Professional Doctorate, in which she conducted research exploring the use of mindfulness and RM in leadership development. Building on this work, she developed a range of RM programmes to support leadership development and coach development.
As she started to offer RM programmes, to her delight, Emma found that there were coaches who not only wanted to understand RM, but were also keen to engage in RM practice as a journey of development and growth. As you will see from ‘Attend an RM session’, the result has been a series of programmes in which participants engage in experiential RM sessions and report shifts in their professional and personal relationships. She loves to provide this kind of support to others. Meanwhile, her own ID and RM journey has led to ever greater depth of learning and growth for herself, which has naturally come to underpin her coaching, coaching supervision and teaching and has had a profound impact on all her relationships.
Throughout her career, Emma has regularly been invited to speak at conferences and to write articles, book chapters and research reports. For many years, her work incorporated both research and practice in occupational psychology, particularly around the role of leadership and management in employee wellbeing. As a result, as well as a growing portfolio of writing about RM, her publications also encompass numerous articles and book chapters on management and leadership, workplace stress prevention and wellbeing, and include co-authorship of an award-winning book, Preventing stress in organisations: How to develop positive managers (2011). She also contributed to public policy on workplace health through being a member of the UK Health and Safety Executive Workplace Health Expert Committee.
As well as her various academic qualifications, and her coaching, coaching supervision, and occupational psychology charterships and accreditations, Emma is trained as a mindfulness teacher through Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (UK) and as an ID teacher and Interpersonal Mindfulness Programme teacher through the Insight Dialogue Community (USA).
Emma divides her time between Herne Hill in London (UK) and Shoreham-by-Sea on the South Coast of the UK. Since starting to spend regular time in Shoreham, she has discovered a deep love of the ocean to add to her pre-existing love of being in natural environments such as forests, grasslands, and rolling hills. She finds walking and immersing herself in any of these worlds deeply healing and uplifting.
Liz Hall
Liz Hall is the founding editor of Coaching at Work magazine (in 2005), award-winning journalist specialising in HR, business, coaching, and health and wellbeing, a leadership coach, and a mindfulness teacher, with clients including the NHS. She trained as a mindfulness teacher with Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (UK) and Solterreno (Spain) and has been practising mindfulness since 2004.
Liz has for many years been a key player in shaping the coaching profession, co-founding a multi-stakeholder coaching think tank (the Future of Coaching Collaboration), Climate Coaching Action Day (an annual initiative each March, celebrating and inspiring climate and social justice coaching), and the Roundtable for Race Equity in Coaching, thought to be the first of its kind.
In her work, Liz works with organisations and individuals including leaders and climate/social rights activists. She seeks to help people and systems heal and awaken to their true potential and purpose, harnessing learning opportunities, and joy, even in challenging times.
Liz’s coaching practice is informed by Otto Sharmer’s Theory U, adult development theory (she is certified to debrief Harthill Consulting’s Leadership Development Profile), somatic coaching, relational mindfulness, psychological safety (she is certified to debrief the Fearless Organisation Scan), and partnering with Mother Earth as a key stakeholder, amongst others. A pioneer in applying mindfulness and compassion in coaching, she’s presented widely on mindfulness, compassion and coaching including at events hosted by the European Mentoring & Coaching Council (including presenting at its research conference in 2012), the Association for Coaching, British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy, and Henley Business School. She has run many trainings and programmes in mindfulness, including the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme for the general public and mindfulness workshops in a host of organisations including News UK, the NHS, and local government.
Other publications (all of which draw on mindfulness and compassion) include Coach your Team (Penguin, 2019), Mindful Coaching (Kogan Page, 2013), and Coaching in Times of Crisis and Transformation (with others, Kogan Page, 2015). Book chapters include ‘Compassion Focused Coaching’ (with Irons & Palmer, Handbook of Coaching Psychology, Routledge, 2019). She is a contributor to Ecological & Climate-Conscious Coaching. She next plans to write and edit a book on compassionate coaching with Professor Stephen Palmer.
Liz lives in southern Spain with her family, which includes a menagerie of rescued animals. She loves walking by the seaside or in the mountains, hanging out with friends, dancing, painting, meditating, tree-hugging, and travelling, including exploring the local countryside in the family’s campervan.