Audrey Pantelis on DEI, resilient leadership, and coaching communities in schools

Olayinka Sanni: Welcome back to the We Lead Well Podcast. I’m your host, Olayinka Sanni, and today I have a guest who I have been wanting to speak to for a very long time. Audrey Pantelis is a coach, consultant, and the founder of Elevation Coaching and Consulting. Audrey, welcome to the show.

Audrey Pantelis: Thank you so much, Olayinka. I’m really glad to be here. This is such an important space and I’m really glad you’re creating it.

Olayinka: Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about your journey into this work — DEI, leadership coaching, working with schools. How did you get here?

Audrey: So it’s a story that I think a lot of people in this space will recognise. I spent many years working in leadership roles — in schools, in organisations — and I kept noticing this gap between what leaders said they valued and what actually happened day to day. Inclusion was always on the agenda in theory, but in practice it was the last thing that got prioritised when things got hard.

And I kept thinking: this isn’t a values problem, it’s a skills problem. Leaders want to get it right — they just don’t know how to embed it practically. So I moved into coaching and consulting because I wanted to bridge that gap. Not from a compliance angle, but from a real, human, practical angle.

Olayinka: That resonates so much. I think there’s this assumption that wanting to be inclusive is enough. But the gap between intention and practice is where so much goes wrong. Can you talk about what resilient leadership actually looks like in that context?

Audrey: Yes — and I’m glad you used the word resilient, because I think it’s misunderstood. A lot of people hear resilience and think it means bouncing back, being tough, not letting things affect you. But the version of resilience I work with is very different. It’s about staying grounded when the system pushes back. Because when you start doing this work — when you start naming things that have been unnamed, or changing cultures that have been comfortable for some people — there will be pushback.

Resilient leadership, for me, is having the tools to navigate that. Knowing when to hold firm, when to adapt, how to bring people with you even when they’re resistant. It’s not about being superhuman. It’s about being clear on your values and having strategies to keep moving when it gets difficult.

Olayinka: And that’s especially true in schools, I imagine. The school context brings its own particular challenges.

Audrey: Completely. Schools are communities in a very specific way — they hold children, families, staff, governors, the wider neighbourhood. So when you’re trying to shift the culture of a school around inclusion, you’re not just working with one group of people. You’re working with all of them simultaneously. And they all have different starting points, different fears, different needs.

What I’ve learned is that you have to meet people where they are. You can’t shame people into inclusion. You can’t lecture them into it either. The most effective approach is curious, practical, and grounded in real examples from their own context. That’s what actually moves people.

Olayinka: I love that framing. Before we wrap up — what would you say to a leader who is at the beginning of this journey? Who wants to do better but doesn’t quite know where to start?

Audrey: I’d say: start with honesty. Not a grand statement of intent — just an honest look at what’s actually happening in your organisation or your school right now. Who’s thriving? Who isn’t? Whose voice is being heard? Whose isn’t? And then get curious about why.

You don’t need to have all the answers. But you do need to be willing to look at the real picture. That’s where the work begins.

Olayinka: Audrey, this has been such a rich conversation. Thank you so much for your time and your honesty and your insight. Where can people find you and learn more about Elevation Coaching and Consulting?

Audrey: You can find me at elevationcc.co.uk — and I’m also on LinkedIn. I’d love to connect with anyone who’s doing this work or thinking about starting it.

Olayinka: Perfect. We’ll put all of those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Audrey.

Audrey: Thank you. Really, thank you for the space.