Ready to lead differently?

I’m Babs Kelly, a leadership coach and facilitator working with executives, managers, and organizations who are ready to lead with more courage, clarity, and care, in their work and in themselves.

How We Can Work Together

Just for You Coaching

Project Coaching

Cohort Coaching

Leadership Team Retreats
Governance Workshops
Courageous Leadership Talks

About Babs

I’ve spent years inside the kinds of organizations many of my clients lead, as a public sector senior manager and as a not-for-profit executive director. I know what it looks like when good people get stuck in difficult systems, when leadership becomes more exhausting than it should be, and when someone finally finds their footing again.

My coaching is aligned with the ICF Core Competencies. My facilitation is endorsed by the International Association of Facilitators. My approach is whole-person, because what happens in your professional life connects to everything else, in ways that don’t separate as neatly as we’d sometimes like.

Learn more about me >

What Clients Say

“Babs is extraordinarily skilled. My coaching sessions with her are the best investment in my career and in my self-care.”

— N., Tech Industry Executive

“Our weekend retreat with Babs was magical. We had been through a tough time and were struggling with trust and safety. Babs held space and guided us through the conversations and healing in a way that was more than we could have imagined and exactly what we needed.”

— G., Executive Director, and D., Board Chair, Non-profit Organization

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Insights

From Good to Great Revisited

Babs’ starter list on what is holding public and nonprofit sector organizations back from being great. In 2001, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, by Jim Collins hit the bookstores and most likely the hands of an executive director,...

Reflections on Fear, Compliance, and the Importance of Non-Fragility

Leadership lessons from Widow’s Bay and the Bay of Pigs. Of course a scene from a comedy-horror show got me thinking about leadership; specifically on how faking it leads to fear, and fear leads to self-protection, and self-protection leads to a culture of...

June 2026 List

Neil Diamond interpreter, prophecies, AI (yes, again), dating, Hirayasumi, and reading Viktor Frankl with my grandmother. 1 Song Sung Blue That’s right, a movie about a Neil Diamond interpreter (different from impersonator) is top of the list. You all know how much I...