THE ENCOURAGEMENT HABIT

Our LWC Coaching model has four core skills: Listening Actively, Coaching Questions, Encouragement and Creating Ownership. Perhaps the most elusive for leaders is encouragement. Why is encouragement a core skill when leaders coach? What makes it challenging for leaders and how can they mindfully integrate it into their coaching and their leadership style? The essence…

How Coaching Differs from Mentoring and Training

There’s no doubt that being an effective leader entails wearing different hats and employing various strategies. Recently in one of our advanced LWC Mentor Coach Circles, a software engineer leader shared that he was struggling to distinguish between when to mentor, train, or coach. He faced rapidly changing priorities and expectations in the organization, and…

Why Leaders Don’t Coach

If you’re in a leadership role of any kind, you’ve undoubtedly found yourself in challenging situations. You’ve dealt with difficulties–some of which have likely arisen in the past several years of remote work, employee turnover, and organizational change.  30 years’ experience working with leaders and teams has taught me that when the going gets tough,…

Prioritizing Presence

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who says all the ‘right things’ and looks interested, but somehow, you just know they aren’t? We’ve all experienced this at times, and it can make us feel disconnected from the person we are speaking with. We’ve probably been this person from time to time – we…