Staff Profile

Profile

Joanne James is Reader in Leadership Development and Organisation Futures and Director of Executive Education.

DBA Northumbria University.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Developing and leading part time blended post experience programmes including apprenticeships.
• Developing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Programmes
• HASS Faculty Engagement and Place Forum
• NUBS Global Engagement and Place Committee

Qualifications and Certificates

• Post Graduate Certificate Coaching - Northumbria University, UK
• MA Leadership and Management - Northumbria University, UK

Previous Positions

• Head of Corporate and Executive Development at Northumbria University. 2014-2018
• Programme Director Executive Education Programmes, Northumbria University - 2009-2014
• Senior Leadership within IBM and Procter and Gamble 1987-2005

Memberships

• Academic Associate CIPD
• Fellow Higher Education Academy

Current Work

My research centres on coaching and leadership. I am particularly interested in the professional development journey that we all participate in as we navigate our professional lives. In my doctoral research I adopted autoethnography to immerse myself deeply into my own practice of team coaching and revealed themes of thinking, seeing, relating and being with teams. My current work with Dr Amy Stabler explores creating a working alliance between team members and the coach within team coaching contexts. Current paper with Prof. Sharon Mavin, Dr Nicola Patterson and Dr Amy Stabler is titled  Flipping the Normative: Developing and Delivering a Critical Pedagogy in Executive Education in a UK Business School.

Main Expertise

I am a qualitative researcher interested in narrative, imagery and metaphor to gather data about and make sense of organisational phenomena and lived experiences in our professional lives and in complex organisational systems. I am interested in autoethnographies to make sense of the micro-processes of practices particularly within leadership and coaching practice.

Other Expertise

I am interested in action inquiry methods and have utilised photo-elicitation to help groups explore and articulate their learning.

Funding Received

£1000 from The Collaboration Action Fund 2019

Postgraduate Supervision

I supervise masters students in practice based challenge research project on the Executive MBA and the MSc Strategic leadership and MSC Coaching and Mentoring Programme

Esteem Factors

Co Chair of Coaching and Mentoring Track University Forum of Human Resources Development Conference 2017- current

Joanne is Director of Executive Education and responsible for the development and delivery of a suite of part time work based learning programmes:

The Executive MBA

MSc Strategic Leadership

MSc Coaching and Mentoring

Post graduate modules

Joanne teaches across the three programmes in the following modules

• NBS 8964 Critical Reflexivity and Mastering Practice
• NBS 8974 Strategic Relational Leadership
• NBS 8966 Coaching and Mentoring in Complex Systems
• NBS 8967 Groups and Teams in Complex Systems
• NBS 8991 Challenge Research Project
• NBS 8973 Challenging Practice Through Research

I am module leader for NBS 8964, NBS8966 and NBS8967.

The programmes adopts a critical management pedagogy and emphasises social learning, experiential and work based learning in a blended model supported with guided learning on the digital platform

I am currently involved in Joanne is involved in developing non accredited short course programmes for coaching and leadership development.

• Articles

  • Stabler A, James J. Reflexivity and reciprocity to maintain trusting relationships in organisational coaching: a practice framework. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2023, 21(2), 88-101.
  • Mavin S, James J, Patterson N, Stabler A, Corlett S. Flipping the normative: Developing and delivering a critical pedagogy for executive education in a UK business school. Management Learning 2024, 55(4), 528-552.
  • James J, Mavin S, Corlett S. A Framework of Modes of Awareness for Team Coaching Practice. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2020, 18(2), 4-18.
  • Leggett R, James J. Exploring the benefits of a coach development programme...on the coach. International Journal of Human Resource Development Practice, Policy and Research 2016, 1(2), 55-65.
  • James J. Autoethnography: A methodology to elucidate our own coaching practice. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring 2015, (S9), 102-111.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Mavin S, James J, Patterson N, Stabler A, Davidson J, Hatt L. Articulating a Critical Pedagogy for Business School Education which delivers the UK Government Strategic Leadership Apprenticeship. In: University Forum for Human Resource Development (UFHRD 2022). 2022, Virtual.
  • James J, Stabler A. A practice framework for facilitated action inquiry to support collaboration in a community system. In: UFHRD Symposium Making a Contribution in a Practice Field: Action Learning in a Changing World. 2021, Liverpool Business School.
  • James J, Mavin S, Corlett S. Its all very well in theory but does it work in practice? Help Im a team coach. In: 20th International UFHRD Conference. 2019, Nottingham Trent Business School, Nottingham. In Preparation.
  • James J, Mavin S, Corlett S. Party Host or Trapeze Artist? Weaving relational narrative in organisational teams. In: UFHRD Annual Conference 2018. 2018, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University.
  • James J, Mavin S, Corlett S. Taking a Metaphorical View: A Framework for Team Coaching. In: 18th International Conference on Human Resource Development Research and Practice across Europe. 2017, Lisbon, Portugal.

• Report

  • James J. Collaboration Action Fund Evaluation Report. Business School, Newcastle University, 2019.