Employer funding for leadership community membership
Practical leadership development grounded in real work
The Sprout Coaching leadership community gives leaders a confidential, facilitated space to work through current leadership challenges, learn from peers outside their organisation and turn fresh perspectives into practical action.
It is intentionally designed to bring together leaders with different identities, lived experiences, professional backgrounds and perspectives. That diversity is central to the value of the community: it broadens the thinking available to every member and helps prevent leadership conversations from being shaped by only one kind of experience.
Rather than learning through generic scenarios, members bring the situations they are navigating now. These might include developing greater ownership within their team, leading through change, managing upwards and across an organisation, handling difficult relationships or moving into broader and more strategic leadership responsibilities.
This page is designed to be shared with a manager, HR team or learning and development decision-maker when requesting employer funding.
The three-month founding experience will run from December 2026 to February 2027.
Each month includes:
one 90-minute Leadership Boardroom;
one optional 60-minute Practical Leadership Lab;
reflection and practical application between sessions.
The Leadership Boardroom is the core session. Members bring real leadership situations to explore through facilitated discussion, thoughtful challenge and perspectives from other leaders.
The optional Practical Leadership Lab provides additional opportunities to practise leadership skills, discuss emerging situations and explore relevant tools and approaches.
Sessions are live and interactive rather than recorded. This protects confidentiality and allows members to have open, useful conversations.
The founding experience
Who it is for
The community is open to anyone with meaningful leadership responsibilities who wants to become more intentional and effective in how they lead. Leadership responsibility - not a particular job title, level, sector, organisation, career path or personal background - is the essential professional requirement.
Members may:
directly manage individuals or other managers;
lead a function, department or area of a business;
be part of a senior leadership team;
lead and influence people without formal line-management responsibility;
exercise leadership through projects, programmes, communities, specialist expertise or significant organisational influence;
be navigating a new role, organisational change or a broader level of responsibility;
want to help their team develop greater confidence, ownership and autonomy.
Members will bring different identities, lived experiences, professional backgrounds and approaches to leadership. Everyone joining the community must be open to listening to, respecting and learning from perspectives that may differ from their own.
Founding members should have a current leadership challenge, development goal, role transition or period of change that gives them a meaningful reason to participate.
Inclusion and representation
The community is intended to be a place where leaders from all backgrounds feel welcomed, respected and able to participate fully.
Sprout Coaching actively welcomes applications from people whose perspectives and experiences have not always been well represented in traditional leadership spaces. This includes - but is not limited to - diversity of race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, neurodivergence, age, socioeconomic background, faith, caring responsibilities, career path, sector and organisational context.
No individual will be expected to represent an entire identity, community or group. Every member will be valued for their individual experience, perspective and contribution.
Applications will be considered together with the aim of creating a group with varied perspectives, experiences and leadership contexts. Members will be expected to approach difference with curiosity, respect and a willingness to listen, challenge their own assumptions and learn from one another.
If you require adjustments or would like to discuss anything that would help you participate fully, please contact Bianca in confidence.
Benefits for the member
Membership is designed to help leaders:
think more clearly about complex leadership situations;
make more considered and confident decisions;
gain perspectives beyond those available within their organisation;
develop practical approaches they can apply immediately;
become more intentional about how they lead;
strengthen their ability to support, challenge and develop others;
build trusted relationships with leaders who bring different experiences to shared leadership challenges;
feel less isolated when navigating difficult or sensitive situations.
At the beginning of the founding period, each member will identify what they most want the community to help them develop, navigate or achieve. This gives them a clear personal focus for their participation.
Benefits for the organisation
Supporting a leader’s membership can contribute to:
stronger leadership judgement and decision-making;
greater ownership and capability within teams;
reduced dependency on individual leaders for answers and escalation;
more confident delegation and development of others;
improved collaboration across roles and functions;
better handling of change, relationships and difficult conversations;
retention and development of valued leaders;
ideas and perspectives drawn from other organisations and sectors;
practical learning that is applied to live workplace priorities.
The community complements internal learning and development by giving leaders access to external perspectives and a confidential place to think through situations that may be difficult to explore fully with colleagues.
Practical application
Members will be encouraged to connect each session to their everyday leadership responsibilities.
Rather than leaving with abstract theory, they will identify relevant actions, experiments or conversations to take back into their role. Later sessions provide opportunities to reflect on what happened, learn from the outcome and refine their approach.
The founding experience is intended to support real development through a repeated cycle of reflection, action and shared learning.
Time commitment
The core commitment is one 90-minute Leadership Boardroom each month for three months.
Members may also attend one optional 60-minute Practical Leadership Lab each month.
The expected live-session commitment is therefore:
required core sessions: 4.5 hours across three months;
optional Lab sessions: up to 3 additional hours across three months.
Members will also be encouraged to spend a short amount of time reflecting and applying relevant learning between sessions.
Founding dates
The final Leadership Boardroom schedule will be selected after applications have been reviewed, based on members’ availability and the aim of creating a group with a valuable mix of perspectives, experiences and leadership contexts.
The proposed Boardroom schedules are:
Schedule A
Wednesday 9 December 2026, 12:00–1:30pm
Wednesday 13 January 2027, 12:00–1:30pm
Wednesday 10 February 2027, 12:00–1:30pm
Schedule B
Friday 11 December 2026, 12:00–1:30pm
Friday 8 January 2027, 12:00–1:30pm
Friday 12 February 2027, 12:00–1:30pm
The proposed optional Practical Leadership Lab schedules are:
Schedule A
Wednesday 16 December 2026, 12:00-1pm
Wednesday 27 January 2027, 12:00-1pm
Wednesday 24 February 2027, 12:00-1pm
Schedule B
Thursday 17 December 2026, 12:00-1pm
Friday 22 January 2027, 12:00-1pm
Friday 26 February 2027, 12:00-1pm
The December session in Schedule B is on a Thursday to avoid the Christmas break.
Applicants will identify the schedules that could work for them and disclose any dates on which they already have a known clash.
Founding membership cost
The founding membership costs:
£90 per month for three months
Total investment: £270
Prices are inclusive of VAT where applicable.
Payment can be made by the individual or invoiced to their employer. The full £270 can be invoiced in advance if required for the organisation’s purchasing or approval process.
If an applicant is offered a place while employer approval is still pending, Sprout Coaching will confirm how long the place can be held.
What founding membership involves
Founding members will not simply join an experience that has already been fully decided. They will experience the community for themselves, support and learn from other members, and help shape how it develops.
Members will be expected to:
identify what they most want the community to help them develop, navigate or achieve;
make a genuine effort to attend all three Leadership Boardrooms;
contribute to a confidential, constructive and reciprocal environment;
bring relevant leadership situations and participate in discussion;
complete a short feedback survey after each live session they attend;
complete a more detailed evaluation near the end of the founding period;
potentially take part in a short follow-up conversation where this would help Sprout Coaching understand their feedback more fully.
Measuring value
At the start of the founding period, each member will identify their principal leadership focus and what meaningful progress would look like for them.
At the end of the experience, they will be invited to reflect on:
the progress they have made;
how their thinking or leadership practice has changed;
actions they have taken as a result of the community;
how the experience has affected their role, team or organisation;
what further development or support would be valuable.
This approach recognises that leadership outcomes are not always captured by a single numerical measure while still creating a clear connection between participation, application and progress.
Where appropriate, the member can agree with their manager how learning will be discussed internally. Details of other members’ situations and contributions must remain confidential.
Confidentiality
Psychological safety and confidentiality are essential to useful peer learning.
Members will be expected not to share identifiable information about other participants, their organisations or the situations discussed in sessions.
Sprout Coaching will not routinely report an individual member’s contributions or the details of their discussions to their employer. An employer funding a place does not gain access to confidential session content.
Members remain responsible for following their own organisation’s confidentiality, data-protection and information-security requirements. Situations should be anonymised where necessary, and commercially sensitive, legally privileged or personally identifiable information should not be disclosed.
The normal limits of confidentiality will apply if information indicates a serious risk of harm, unlawful conduct or another situation in which disclosure may be legally or ethically required.
About the facilitator
Bianca Spruit is the founder of Sprout Coaching and has more than 20 years’ experience working in technology and leadership.
Her work helps leaders move from providing all the answers towards building greater confidence, capability and ownership within their teams. She combines practical leadership development, coaching and facilitated peer learning to help leaders apply new approaches to the situations they are facing now.
Through her leadership programme, Bianca has seen the wider effect created when leaders become more intentional about how they lead: leaders recognise their own value, teams take greater ownership and fulfil more of their potential, organisations become stronger, and people feel proud of what they are achieving together.
Suggested email to request employer funding
Subject: Request for leadership-development funding
Hi [MANAGER’S NAME],
I’d like to request funding to take part in the three-month founding experience of the Sprout Coaching leadership community, running from December 2026 to February 2027.
The community provides a facilitated, confidential space for leaders to work through current workplace challenges, gain perspectives from peers outside their organisation and apply practical learning directly within their role.
My main focus would be [BRIEFLY DESCRIBE THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE, TRANSITION OR DEVELOPMENT GOAL]. By the end of the three months, I would like to have [DESCRIBE THE PROGRESS OR OUTCOME YOU WANT].
I believe this would benefit the organisation by helping me [EXPLAIN THE RELEVANT BENEFIT—for example, develop greater ownership within my team, delegate more effectively, navigate change, strengthen cross-functional relationships or make more confident leadership decisions].
The core time commitment is one 90-minute Leadership Boardroom each month for three months. There is also an optional one-hour Practical Leadership Lab each month. I would apply the learning to current workplace situations between sessions.
The founding price is £90 per month for three months, making the total investment £270. The organisation can be invoiced for the full amount if preferred.
Further information is available on this page. I’d be happy to discuss how I would apply the experience in my role and share relevant learning afterwards while respecting the confidentiality of other members.
Would the organisation be willing to fund my place and support me to attend the three core sessions during working time?
All the best,
[NAME]
Apply for a founding place
Applications are open until Wednesday 28th October 2026.
Applications are not first come, first served. They will be considered together to create an inclusive group with varied perspectives, experiences and leadership contexts, whose members are ready to contribute to and learn meaningfully from one another.
Submitting an application does not guarantee a place. Applicants will receive the outcome and proposed schedule during the week commencing 2nd November.
Questions from employers
If you would like to discuss whether the community is suitable for a member of your team, request an invoice or ask about the funding process, please contact:
Bianca Spruit
Founder, Sprout Coaching
bianca@sproutcoaching.co.uk