Coaching is a powerful vehicle for discovery, growth, and change. A coaching mindset, embodied by a skilled coach or leader, is the context that encourages this journey of growth and change to take place.

A coaching mindset can enhance personal growth through self-coaching and inspire growth in others by maximizing coachable moments.

Every day we experience many possible coaching opportunities in our workplaces, homes, and schools. Taking a coach approach in any given situation is an intentional choice to apply active listening and thoughtful question-asking to strategically support someone’s growth and development. In this post, I share tips to recognize, respond to, and maximize a coachable moment.

The start of the year represents a meaningful opportunity to work towards new goals or a freshly inspired plan. If you’re feeling discouraged in the growth journey, or just looking for fresh motivation, find some strategies here to help you persevere.

Points of transition provide us the powerful opportunity to pause and reflect, to consider what’s working and what’s not. Grab some fresh inspiration and tools to help make your reflection times more meaningful and strategic.

Find a thoughtful gift for the leader in your life … or add these items to your own wish list!

Unhealthy stress is a major challenge for workplaces, schools, and homes across the world. As leaders, we need proven stress relief strategies to effectively self-manage and to provide support for those around us.

Read on to learn the top research-based strategies to support healthy stress management.

A growth mindset inspires us to stretch and expand beyond our current capabilities. Learn how our results from self-assessments such as CliftonStrengths, MBTI, and the Enneagram, can be applied to inspire a growth mindset.

In my conversations with leaders in various contexts, it is clear that coaching is used as a ‘buzz’ word to describe many behaviors: continuous ‘checking in’ on a person’s progress; giving recommendations and advice; and sharing wisdom from experience.

Perhaps you also view coaching as a fuzzy and hard-to-define concept. How do you differentiate coaching from other similar functions such as consulting or mentoring?

Asking questions is a seemingly simple part of our everyday conversations. However, the types of questions we ask can make a big impact in shaping our perceptions, experiences, and relationships. The topic, type, tone, and timing of our questions definitely matter.

So, what makes some questions better than others?

Self-assessments play an important role in helping us understand and articulate our uniqueness, gain empathy for our colleagues, family, and friends, and speak a common vocabulary with teammates. The variety of options can be energizing, but it can also be confusing to understand the distinctions, and to know which assessment will help meet your specific needs.

If you are pursuing personal or professional development — for yourself or your team — consult this quick guide to maximize your return on investment.

According to recent research conducted by Google, employees desire managers who can skillfully coach them— and this desire ranks as a top rated (no. 1) manager behavior.

What is your capacity for coaching others to greater growth and discovery?

Despite how valuable it is, we can be easily deceived into thinking our self-awareness is higher than it is. Without pausing for honest, thoughtful self-reflection, we may hold onto a fuzzy, idealistic self-assessment that is either unclear, inaccurate, or both.

How would you rate your self-awareness?

Being forced to innovate can be arduous and stressful in the moment. With the realization that former approaches to our work are no longer sustainable, panic and chaos can ensue.

As leaders, how can we establish consistent practices that support ongoing inspiration for creativity and innovation?