LEADERSHIP COACHING
Are you a “leader?”
Do you hold, or aspire to hold, a position of influence regarding the purposeful behavior and activities of others in an organized setting? If so – regardless of your title or where you are located in the hierarchy – you are a leader by Susan’s definition.
What is “leadership coaching?”
Leadership coaching is a series of structured conversations designed to help professionals achieve more of the results they seek. Coaching helps a leader make more powerful, informed choices and take more decisive action. Coaching topics are determined by the client and might include: strengthening management and decision-making skills; enhancing self-awareness, confidence and authenticity; expanding communication skills; improving time management; deepening leadership “presence;” clarifying action plans; and increasing job satisfaction by enjoying a healthier work/life balance.
How does it work?
The goal of leadership coaching is to achieve the client’s agenda. Susan believes that her clients are resourceful people who already have the answers to their own questions within them, and that the process of coaching helps draw those answers out. Coaching conversations are driven entirely by what the client wishes to accomplish, and are designed to build on the client’s strengths.
Coaching is not: mentoring, consulting, counseling, health care of any kind, nor a therapeutic relationship concerned with exploring or healing issues from the past. (The therapeutic process is very important – and can go hand-in-hand with coaching simultaneously – but it is a very different process from coaching.) Coaching starts with who you are and where you are today, and taps into your inherent ability to see new possibilities and create more options for yourself as you move forward.
View a Sample Session
Are you wondering how the coaching process actually works to strengthen leadership skills? Would you like to get a general sense of what a leadership coaching conversation with Susan might be like?
In this recent community television interview of Susan, hosted by Lauren-Glenn Davitian of Common Good Vermont, the discussion becomes a real-life leadership coaching session for a few minutes. While the situation is obviously affected by the circumstances of being filmed for TV, this excerpt nonetheless provides a genuine glimpse into exactly why coaching can be such a powerful leadership development tool.
When we join Susan and Lauren-Glenn in the midst of the interview, they have been talking about how difficult it is for professionals to get perspective on their jobs and their leadership effectiveness when they operate in isolation at the top of their organizations. Susan is about to spontaneously help her host discover some answers to her own leadership questions.
“Susan’s clarity of thought, expansive knowledge, and unfailing sense of humor have assisted me in refining my performance, priorities, and vision as a leader. I did not have expectations in any real sense before we began meeting regularly over a year ago. I certainly believed that we would trouble-shoot management issues, which we do. What I did not expect was the process and discussion and revelation that comes through working with Susan. I gain very important and valuable insight into myself and my abilities, my strengths and my challenges. The experience has been fantastic and extraordinarily beneficial.”
Caroline Earle, Esq.,
Former Commissioner of Human Resources for the State of Vermont