Coaching helps leaders and teams at all levels become more effective and achieve better results. Successful leaders choose coaching to hone their skills just as professional athletes, actors, and others use coaches to help raise the level of their performance. Team coaching helps team members clarify roles, improve team cohesion, manage conflict, and create the synergy necessary to achieve outstanding results. In addition to engagements that are specifically for coaching only, DTA coaching is often provided as a natural part of a larger change initiative.
Coaching Individual Leaders
Working with an executive coach is a partnership between the coach and the client. Most executive coaching engagements last from three months to a year. The process follows a cycle that is repeated as we learn together what works and what doesn’t. A key part of the coaching process is the creation of a Personal Development Plan that focuses on the client’s interests and goals. The issues that executives choose to work on vary, and they generally fall into three categories:
- Personal or Self-Leadership: Increase self-awareness and self-confidence; understand and utilize emotional intelligence; gain clarity about authentic personal leadership style.
- Interpersonal and Team Leadership: Build strong teams; manage tasks to achieve results; engage and motivate people; resolve conflict; lead when not in charge.
- Organizational or System Leadership: Formulate and guide strategy; build a strong leadership team; develop ability to both lead and manage change.
Coaching Teams
In order to succeed, every organization must have high-performing teams at every level. We provide coaching to help you charter and launch new teams and to help existing teams resolve conflicts, improve processes, clarify roles and responsibilities, and improve morale. These may be high level leadership teams, operational work teams, or temporary tasks teams formed for a short time.
Our approach uses the Membership-Control-Goals model that describes the questions teams need to answer in the affirmative in order to thrive.
- Membership: Do members feel they belong?
- Control: How are decisions made? Is it fair?
- Goals: Is the team achieving its goals?
Teams make progress as they learn to work together and experience the “wow” moments when they are excited about their success. Our coaching focuses on helping team members experience success and develp a desire for continued growth.
One Client’s Leadership Coaching Story
The Client: Amanda (not her real name) was a regional manager of a national nonprofit organization recently promoted to her position after ten years in other roles. The new role involved leading 90 staff members and managing a network of 140 strategic partners. Amanda’s supervisor requested that a DTA coach work with her to assist her in making the transition.
The Challenge: Amanda came to the role at a time when her organization was making a number of changes that were causing disruption both internally and with the network partners. Pressure to achieve long-term goals had increased, creating a lot of stress. Amanda saw that there would be problems communicating the new organizational vision as well as implementing the new organizational changes. She saw system leadership as her main challenge. She wanted to work on improving her ability to engage, align, and motivate people. She also wanted to develop her new leadership team.
The Process: Over a 12-week period, Amanda met via Zoom with her coach on a weekly basis. Her goals included managing increasingly difficult relations with the network partners and helping her staff navigate the internal changes being mandated by her organization. Amanda and her coach worked on one new principle or strategy each week. These included designing a strategic planning session with representatives of the network coalition, a collaborative process for developing a preferred future, strategies for resolving conflict and building trust, and a strategy for overcoming resistance to change. Amanda and her coach also worked on her personal leadership style with emphasis on knowing when to involve others in decisions and when to delegate. This included an exploration of Emotional Intelligence strategies. Amanda also used DTA principles of team development to diagnose and address the needs of her new leadership team.
Results: Both Amanda and her supervisor reported that the coaching experience had been very positive. Among the outcomes Amanda pointed out were:
- “The meeting with the network partners went well. We were able to unload a lot of preconceived notions, barriers, and tensions. Now we can move forward”
- “We instituted a better format/agenda for monthly network steering committee meetings.”
- “I feel good about all of this. I love the challenge of problem solving. Most of my team feels good.”
- “I am not naturally charismatic; but now I am getting support from my superiors.”
- “I am using the DTA change model to build commitment and engage with my staff.”
