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Coaching approaches

I thought you might find it useful to know a bit about the approaches I use. My coaching is integrative, drawing on a range of coaching approaches and models: 

Co-Active Coaching

The client as natural, resourceful, creative and whole

Gestalt

  • Awareness leads to change

  • Working with all the senses

  • Working with the ‘whole’

  • Working in the here and now

  • Using self as barometer

Inner Game

  • Coaching focuses on the gap between potential and performance

  • Interference’ is what gets in the way 

  • ‘Self 1’ is the place of the inner critic and of self-doubt

  • ‘Self 2’ is the place of natural ability, relaxed concentration, trusting the body, and of ‘flow’

Grow

  • Goal/Topic: what do you want to talk to me about?

  • Reality: what’s actually happening?

  • Options: what could you do about it?

  • Wrap up: what are you definitely going to do about it

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Solutions Focused

  • Encouraging responsibility for behaviour

  • Accessing resources

  • Next steps, rather than past steps

  • Future inspiration from others

  • Future inspiration from self

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Coaching stories

Here are some coaching stories, inspired by actual clients and client issues:

Coaching individuals

I coached A, MD of a not-for-profit organisation at a point when she had taken on new responsibilities in the job. Over four coaching sessions, we explored how she might:

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Increase her profile with the Chair and Trustees:

  • Building their confidence in her skills 

  • Highlighting the unique contribution she makes

  • Improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and profitability of the organisation

 

Develop her relationships with members of the senior management team, through: 

  • Spending time with them individually

  • Gaining a clearer understanding of their delivery-focused work 

 

Strengthen her connection to the operational staff team she has started managing:

  • Finding ways to engage them with her vision

  • Help them understand their role in the organisation’s development

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Look after herself:

  • As a senior leader working part-time

  • In family life, as a mother of two young children and a partner who travels for work

I coached B, the Chief Executive of a small arts and health charity going through a period of change and uncertainty. Over six months, I coached her to find ways to:

  • Build her confidence in herself, her skills, and capabilities 

  • Create the space to identify priorities for the charity

  • Clarify her role in making change happen

  • Take the steps needed to engage with Trustees and the staff team on developing and operationalising the new strategy 

I coached C, the Chief Executive of a Community Foundation who wanted to succession plan for the organisation. Coaching provided her with space to explore:

  • What the organisation needed in its next phase of development

  • What she wanted next, in her own life

  • How to start talking to her Trustees about her plans  

  • How to manage the process of recruitment, induction, and handover with her replacement as Chief Executive, in a managed and positive way

Coaching teams

I coached D, over a number of months, on building his confidence as a leader, and exploring ways of developing his young team of NUS workers. After some sessions of one-to-one coaching, I supported D in the design and facilitation of a residential development session where we worked on:

  • Identifying team strengths and assets

  • Team culture and ways of working, including 

    • Prioritisation

    • Time management 

    • Work/life boundary management 

  • Co-creating organisational strategy

I coached E, the Chief Executive of a charity with a senior management team experiencing challenges in moving the organisation forward. My approach was to speak to each of the individual team members to gain their perspective on what was working and not working. From this, I designed an Away Day for the team as a whole where we explored:

  • Team function and dysfunction

  • Strengths and assets

  • Team culture

  • Strategic priorities

For F, I designed and facilitated a 'reconnect and renew' development day for a faith-based charity team and their Trustees. This took place a few years after the pandemic, to introduce new members, agree new priorities and celebrate achievements and resilience over a difficult period.

Working with G, I designed and facilitated a one-off mediation session for a charity drug and alcohol crisis team who had been through a challenging experience over a busy weekend. This session brought together the Local Authority commissioning team with the provider charity to explore together what had happened, including:

  • Sharing different perspectives 

  • Talking about the emotional impact of the experience 

  • Expressing fears and concerns

  • Identifying potential learning for both parties

  • Identifying potential practical changes and improvements 

  • Agreeing next steps 

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