Nicola Sedgwick

Conflict Coaching

Conflict doesn't have to cost you the relationship or the role.

1:1 coaching for people who need to get better at hard conversations, with a manager, a team, or an organisation that isn't listening. Bringing twenty years navigating high-stakes conflict in start-ups, scale-ups and transformations to enable you to navigate yours.

What brings people here

Most people don't need to learn conflict theory. They need to stop rehearsing the same conversation in the shower for three weeks and actually have it.

  • You've got a conversation with your manager you keep postponing, because you've run it in your head a number of ways and none of them end well.

  • You're caught between your team and the organisation. You're expected to hold a line you don't fully believe in, or defend a decision you weren't part of.

  • Conflict on your team gets managed by avoiding it or applying a band-aid, until it comes out sideways via passive resistance, quiet resignations, or a blow-up nobody saw coming.

  • You're good in a crisis when action is needed but bad in the run-up to one; you can handle the incident but not the difficult one-to-one before it.

  • You've been told you're "too direct" or "too soft" by different people in the same month, and you're not sure which one to believe.

None of that means you're bad at your job. It usually means nobody ever taught you how to do this part of it.

Who this is for

You've just been handed the bigger job. Now what?

I work with people in demanding, high-accountability roles who need conflict to stop being the thing that drains them. Twenty years in Tech enabling product and technology leaders, operators, founders and people managers at every level.That includes:

  • Managers avoiding the conversation. You know exactly what needs to be said to a direct report, a peer, or your own manager. You just haven't said it yet, or can't find the words or right time to do so.

  • People stuck in the middle. Chiefs of staff, Leads, and Heads of who carry decisions they didn't make into rooms where they'll take the heat for them.

  • Teams where conflict leaks sideways. You're trying to build psychological safety on a team that's currently doing the opposite of that.

  • Anyone who over-prepares and under-delivers in the moment. You write the perfect message and then don't send it, or you send it and it lands nothing like you meant.

How I Work

I have spent many of the last twenty years being the person working out what leadership believed was happening versus what the reality in the teams they led. I would then be trusted to have the conversations and provide the feedback that closed the gap. The technical problem was normally the easy part. The hard part was always the conversation and the human interactions.That's what I bring to coaching: a calm yet direct approach with no hesitation to highlight the elephant in the room.I won't hand you a script. I'll help you get clear on what you actually want from the conversation, where you're avoiding it out of habit rather than genuine risk, and how to resolve the conflict and progress the situation without torching the relationship.What's said in the room, stays in the room. Sessions are confidential and held to ICF standards of ethics and professionalism.

HOW WE WORK TOGETHER

Ways to work with me: one-off or multi-month

Single Session - £195
60 minutes. For the one conversation you're dreading right now. Walk out with clarity on what you're actually trying to say, and how to say it.Pattern Break - £1,950
(15% discount)
Three months of weekly sessions. For when it's not just one conversation about one situation, but a pattern that keeps occurring. Perhaps you keep landing in the same conflict with different people, or maybe you're navigating a specific transition (new team, new manager, new level of seniority) where conflict keeps surfacing and trust needs rebuilding.Ongoing partnership - £3,000
(35% discount)
Twelve months, bi-weekly sessions, plus message support between sessions. For sustained work on how you handle conflict as part of who you are as a leader. We're not just fixing the next hard conversation, but changing your relationship to having them and modelling behaviour that you want to see in your direct reports.Ask about expensing this through your employer's L&D budget. Self-funding discounts available. Prices exclude VATNot sure which option is right for you? Start with a free 30-minute discovery call.

About Nicola

Twenty years in product and technology organisations, as an agile coach, product leader, quality engineer, or in capacity of chief of staff for multiple orgs. Always with the same focus on people, product and process just always under different titles. I can't help getting under the skin of what's actually going on, and having the conversation nobody else wanted to have first.I've led investor due diligence where accuracy under pressure mattered more than optimism. I've redesigned incident response for teams where conflict between engineering and the business was costing real money. I've mediated contentious performance conversations, been in multiple rooms where the reorgs were designed, and winessed the "this isn't working" conversations that get postponed until they can't be anymore.Credentials: ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), IC Agile - Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC) certified, International Keynote Speaker.Location: Based in Reading/London (UK) and working with clients everywhere around the globe.

Signs coaching has worked for you

  • A conversation that's been avoided for months, finally had, and it goes better than the version you'd built up in your head.

  • A repeating conflict with the same person, understood well enough that you stop being surprised by it.

  • A team that starts naming tension instead of absorbing it.

  • The ability to walk into a hard 1:1 without a script, because you trust what you'll say when you get there.

Testimonials

"Nicola's approach is about small moments of epiphany, the aha moments that stay with you well beyond the sessions themselves and help you get past your own biases. Observing yourself is hard, and even when you manage it you miss things, That is where Nicola comes in. She acts as an astute reflection, sharing observations and asking probing questions that guide you to your own realisations.

She has helped me unlock my confidence and has equipped me with tools to keep growning on my own. I would recommend her to any leader."

Oleg Desantis, Head of Engineering (Quality)

Start with a conversation

A free 30-minute call - no pitch and no commitment, just an honest and open conversation on whether this is the right fit for what you're dealing with.

Nicola Sedgwick · Reading / London · [email protected]
© 2026 Nicola Sedgwick