Hi, I’m Brooke Hofsess — a coach, scholar, and artist with a passion for women’s leadership and wellbeing.

My approach is grounded in the recognition that women are out of breath, not courage.

I work with thoughtful, creative, visionary women who feel called to reimagine the world, while simultaneously navigating fractures created by overstretched systems and status quo leaders.

The body of work I’ve created is rooted in the pursuit of leadership as self-expression, and exists to support women whose way of being in the world is leading (whether or not the overculture recognizes them as leaders). My clients don’t work with me to fill gaps in their skillset, they work with me because they want their leadership to reflect more of themselves.

My own self-expressed leadership journey involves embracing a late-in-life neurodivergent identity, and becoming a tenured professor, mother, department chair, and coach.

As a leading scholar of mentoring, I’ve published a range of works that reimagine professional learning through creative and relational approaches. I’m the author of Unfolding Afterglow: Letters and Conversations on Teacher Renewal and co-first author of Reconceptualizing Early Career Teacher Mentoring.

I’m a certified coach, Dare to Lead trained, and a ‘Playing Big’ facilitator with a PhD in Art Education (University of Georgia) and an MA in Art & Art Education (Columbia University’s Teachers College).

I currently work within academia, as a coach for women, and as a consultant to organizations invested in elevating women’s leadership and wellbeing.

MY LINEAGE

My coaching and leadership come from a range of trainings, teachers, and mentors for whom I hold incredible gratitude.

 

Thank you, Tara Mohr, for your groundbreaking writing and for the way you infuse the spiritual and the practical. I continue to learn from my engagement with you around the Playing Big model and The Coaching Way approach, and look forward to continuing my studies with you in the years to come. I’m honored to be a credentialed Playing Big facilitator because of the impact this work brings to my clients.

Thank you, Dr. Brené Brown, for your courage and storytelling. I use the learnings from my Dare to Lead certification daily. Your contributions to this world have radically changed my life.

Thank you, Joanna Lindenbaum, for journeying with coaches toward the sacred depths of their craft. I’m so grateful to have become a certified coach from the Applied Depths Practitioner Institute, which is infused with your integrity, artful craft, and wisdom. Through our advanced-level trainings, I moved beyond the technique of coaching to find the seasoned mentor within me.

Thank you to my coaches—present and past. Thank you, Lianne Raymond, for your open-hearted wisdom. I’m so grateful for the learnings and insights I’ve gleaned from you and through your course, Cherish: A Field Guide to the Human Heart. Michelle Thompson, Sarah Olin, and Sheila Storrer—you have created openings, release, buoyancy, and momentum in my life, thank you.

Thank you, Kelly Diels, for your culture-making work and feminist mentorship. Thank you for supporting my process as I surfaced my coaching methodology. Your teachings have offered me a way forward in sharing my work that is generative and reflexive. I have found so much inspiration and support in your community, thank you. 

Thank you, Natalie Koussa, for journeying with me into the realms of visibility and podcasting with a felt sense of safety and connection. Your leadership is a beacon for self-expression, integrity, and generosity.

Thank you, Rachel Maddox, for teaching me to work powerfully and safely with trauma through your ReBloom Foundations curriculum.

Thank you, Parker Palmer, for teaching me about courage work through your books, and for bringing those works to life through your The Heart of Higher Education retreats. My work with leadership paradoxes is directly inspired by your approach to bringing our gifts and limitations into leadership.

Thank you, Annette Madden, for the generational space you have created through the BRIDGES Academic Leadership Program for Women in Higher Education at UNC Chapel Hill. It is an honor to be an alum of this dedicated community of leaders.

And thank you to… 

… Mark Vagle, for teaching me that the work we do on ourselves is a gift to those we teach.

… Maxine Greene, for infusing my life with inquiry and social imagination.

… Penland School of Craft for teaching me the potency of play and retreat, and especially for my teachers Meg Peterson, Ila Sahai Prouty, Andrea Peterson, Katrina Plato, Joy Seidler, and Amy Jacobs.

… Paulus Berensohn for teaching me to bind and fill journals, Natalie Goldberg for free writing, Julia Cameron for morning pages.

…. the many thought leaders and writers who have profoundly shaped my way in the world, including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Mia Birdsong, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, adrienne maree brown, Mary Oliver, and Rebecca Solnit.

… my life’s partner, Dustin, for holding space for my evolution and for inspiring me with his musicianship.

… And to my daughter, for what she invites me to heal, learn, and grow in myself and this world.

I live and work on unceded Cherokee, Yuchi, and Moneton traditional lands, currently known as Boone, North Carolina.

My gratitude to photographer Nicole McConville for making the portraits that connect me with you on this site.

Self-Expressed Leadership leverages your creativity, wisdom, and power so you can fully express your body of work.

For you, fully expressing your body of work through coaching may look like ~

  • Attuning to your north star so you can finally release what others think of (and expect) from you. 

  • Using your belief in your unique offering to fuel your next step (and the one after that).

  • Weaving congruence between your inner experience and outer reality for less striving.

  • Being driven by enchantment, permission, and trust so the anxiety and busyness falls away. 

  • Becoming more skillful at reconciliation, networking, and negotiation to strengthen your relationships. 

  • Learning new tools for navigating self-doubt, ought to’s, perfectionism, and comparison.