I am a coach and business consultant with three decades of leadership,
mentoring and coaching experience in the business world.
What, exactly, is coaching?
Coaching is a business relationship with someone who is wholeheartedly “on your team” and who, through the work we do together, guides and supports you as you navigate professional and personal change and challenges. As your coach, I can help you be more successful in your job or life, or navigate the process of finding one you like better.
I like to use the health and wellness analogy to explain further. When you are unwell or sick, you visit a doctor; when you want to get physically fit or improve your athletic performance, you work with a personal trainer.
Think of a coach as a personal trainer for your career and life.
As your coach, you will be guided and supported as you navigate both desired and/or unwelcomed changes and challenges in your work and life. We identify, reframe or adjust your goals, develop your skills, and help enhance your self-awareness and resilience. As you manage a crisis, respond to or choose change, I will support you. Together we will map out a “big picture” path while keeping our eye on “dealing with and dispatching” the urgent, ankle-biting distractions that often throw us off track. I will provide you with accountability (and homework) as well as permission, since sometimes permission to pursue a path is all we really need.
Is coaching right for you? (click to find out)
My approach to coaching
My coaching style is a blend of coaching, mentoring, advising, and consulting (here’s how they are different). All of these approaches provide help and are singularly focused on you and your success.
As we work together, you are always in the driver’s seat, choosing what to focus on, using your discernment to consider your options, and you are always in charge of choosing your actions. Your confidentiality is maintained throughout the process.
Fundamentally, coaching is about personal change and transformation. I will meet you where you are now. You will be guided and supported as we identify and you take incremental steps or big leaps into the unknown. I excel at helping people improve and survive ‘now’, while we plan for and make adjustments for a better future you are excited about creating.
I specialize in:
Executive and Professional Coaching
I work with leaders and executives wanting to “up their game” and make effective changes to their leadership, their jobs or careers.
You have a big job, leading a team of people in a complex organization (and all organizations are complex!). You are competent and skilled – or you wouldn’t have the job — and yet…
- You have a new role and a new team or a new responsibility, and you want to get off on the right foot
- You are good at your job, and you want to be great
- You sometimes (or frequently) doubt yourself
- You want to improve any less than effective working relationships
- You half-jokingly say you have a “soul sucking” job
- You “put on your armor” as you head to the office, and want to bring more of your authentic self to work
Together, we will identify the most effective strategies and skills for you to develop and deploy. I will support you as you execute on the highest value efforts you can make as a leader in the context of your organization and your personal/professional goals and aspirations.
Personal Coaching
I work with people who “know it’s time for change” in one or more areas of their lives, or to whom “unwelcome” change has occurred, and who want to take purposeful strides forward.
You are dissatisfied or unhappy with aspects of your life at work or home, or considering what your “next chapter” might be. We will sort through the dissatisfaction, and focus on what you will want and need to do to improve how you feel about your career or your life. If a “next chapter” -sized change is afoot, we’ll explore that too. Often this work starts as an environmental assessment of things that are contributing to your dissatisfaction and exploration of what does – or used to – light you up.
Our focus will be on navigating these stresses, while unearthing the things that bring you joy and purpose. We will revisit your assumptions, expectations, and the ways you might be getting in your own way. You will get to choose your desired outcomes. Then we will focus on the details so you can do that in a way that serves you best.
Consulting
The main difference between my coaching and my consulting services is a broadening of scope and focus. We will keep the focus on your success, and engage in some review and coaching around your leadership and role. But, we will also focus on your business or responsibilities, and your aspirations for them. The focus will be shared between you and your business, team, and/or operations.
My role is to help you take a broad view of where your business or function is, and where you want to take it, and then to support you as you build plans around that vision. This can range from a review of your strategy and plans, your operations, and any other potential opportunities or stuck places you bring forward or that we identify.
Also, I am at heart a systems person: there’s little I love more than helping business owners and leaders see or develop the big picture on a process or strategy that supports the goals of the business. Among other things, I’ve helped develop models for hiring practices, streamlined production processes, assisted with strategic planning, designed and facilitated retreats, and supported team building and employee engagement efforts.
As I consult with you, I will use a combination of coaching, mentoring and advising, along with a healthy dose of perspective gained through my leadership and life experience. We will identify a set of priorities and actions for you, and I will provide accountability and support as you execute your plan.