One-on-One Coaching for Leaders
When it comes to leadership development, traditional classroom training has limited effectiveness. In fact, within a few days, we forget the large majority of anything we’ve learned. Without motivation, feedback and intentional practice we have limited ability to truly change our leadership approach. Organizations hire me as a way to bolster leadership ability and increase engagement.
Coaching is a partnership. I work with clients to understand purpose, passion, values, and vision and then compare that to where they are now. Is their current self in alignment with their ideals? How can strengths close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be? What are you interested to learn more about? How can you build experimentation into your everyday life as learning opportunities?
Outcomes
After just a few sessions, clients report feeling that they see possibilities and options. They feel hopeful about what they can create. As people build awareness about what’s most important to them, their values and ideals, they create a space to pause and make intentional they make intentional choices that align with the type of leader they want to be.
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is the extent to which you believe you can perform well at work. I help clients improve confidence by reframing challenging situations and seeing new possibilities.
Work Engagment
Work engagement can be enhanced in coaching by job crafting to align with personal strengths, using strengths to overcome challenges, and increasing opportunities for a state of flow.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction can be improved in coaching by expanding opportunities for job aspects that bring joy, meaning, and enthusiasm.
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Job Stress
Job stress and burnout can be reduced in coaching by increasing psychological capital with new strategies and possibilities to better manage overload.
How Coaching Helps
We all have partners, families, and friends to complain to – but does that really help? Best case? They listen and give advice. Worse case? You are told to do something you’re already doing or get advice that might work for them but not for you (why don’t you just quit?!)
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Coaching is a space where:
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There is someone who deeply and actively listens.
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You can think out loud and clarify your values, purpose, and passions.
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You can make sense of your thoughts and ideas.
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There is time for reflection and learning instead of being caught up in the day-to-day to-do list.
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A working alliance based on trust trust and empathy creates new insights and actions.
Case Study
Tim (not his real name) is a high-level healthcare executive and with incredible passion and commitment to his work. As we started working together, we found that while he is committed to improving the world, he wanted to leave a legacy of kindness and compassion, not just results. Is it possible to do both? To make a difference but do so with gentleness? He wanted to try.
Tim identified his values, his purpose, and the vision for this life. Then he asked for feedback from colleagues, direct reports, and superiors. Much of the feedback reinforced his strengths – his commitment to excellence, his passion for improvement, and it also revealed opportunities where he was seeming overly demanding, judgmental and not listening. Tim identified this as an area of focus and worked on creating distance and pause between an emotional activator and his response.
A colleague was preparing to give a presentation and sent it to Tim for review with a few hours’ notice. Tim did not like the presentation or the approach - He was not happy. His first reaction was to pick up the phone and start dialing. Instead, he became aware of his thoughts, his rising heartbeat, and heat around his heart. He stopped. Took some breaths, made some notes about what was happening and asked himself, ‘who do I want to BE in this situation?’
This lasted for 10 minutes after which time he replied to the email with some questions. What was the presentation hoping to accomplish? As his analytical executive brain caught up, he was so happy to not have responded with strong emotion. He celebrated with a literal pat on the back.
In our next session, we looked at each part of his reaction to understand what he had done and how it had helped him “unhook” from the immediacy of the emotion and instead take intentional action in accordance with his purpose and values. Tim left our eight sessions feeling empowered to keep practicing and build a legacy of kindness and compassion.