How every member of an organisation can belong, stay true to themselves – and be a leader

Jon Stokes

Faculty member

Founder of Tavistock Clinic consultancy, Senior Fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and practising clinical psychologist.


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Jon Stokes

Jon is a Business and Clinical Psychologist who brings depth and breadth to his coaching assignments, working both with a psychodynamic approach to individuals and a systems approach to groups and organisations. He has worked as a leadership coach with senior leaders at CEO/Main Board level in the UK and abroad for many years. He is a Director of the leadership advisory firm Stokes & Jolly, a former Senior Fellow in Management Practice at Saïd Business School and a Senior Member of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford

He trained originally as a clinical psychologist, and worked for twenty years as a psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic in London where he became Chair of the Adult Psychotherapy Department, before founding the organisational consulting service Tavistock Consulting, which he led as Director for five years. In 2000, Jon left the NHS to create the leadership advisory firm Stokes & Jolly with Professor Richard Jolly of London Business School. Jon has provided leadership development to many different types of organisations in both commercial and public sectors, and in recent years particularly professional service firms in the law, accountancy, financial services and advertising.

Jon takes the view that the purpose of leadership, and leadership coaching, is to enable an organisation to adapt effectively to its environment and can be exercised by anyone, at whatever level in an organisation. Hence, for him, the importance of leader as teacher and coach. He brings a deep understanding of individual psychology, group and organisational dynamics to the challenges faced by leaders.

He is an acknowledged expert in the field of systems psychodynamics and a former President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations. He recently completed a research project “Ego to Eco” on leadership capabilities for the Fourth Industrial Revolution at Saïd Business School.

Jon has a particular interest in working with people at points of transition in their careers and together with Jan Hall is the author of “Changing Gear – Creating the Life you want after a Full-on Career” (2021) on the transition away from full-time work to what they describe as the Third Life.

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