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Thanks for visiting my blog! I am a leadership professor and a professional coach. I provide coaching to leaders and individuals pursuing intentional growth. And I empower leaders to take a coach approach in their roles.

I write about leadership, coaching, and personal development. You will find interesting research in my posts with lots of practical application.

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Dr. Bethany Peters, ACC

 

Six Strategies to Cultivate a Coaching Mindset

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.

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How to Recognize & Maximize a Coachable Moment

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.

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Seven Steps to Less Stress

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.

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How to Support a Growth Mindset through Self-Assessment

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.

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How to Explain What Coaching is (and what it isn’t)

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?

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How to Ask Better Questions

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?

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How to Choose the Best Self-Assessment

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.

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Tips to Take a Coach Approach

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?

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Three Steps to Strengthen Your Self-Awareness

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?

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How to Build Your Creative Capacity

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?

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Rate your Readiness for Change

As you kick off a New Year, what resolutions have you resolved to pursue? What new intentions are you trying to implement? How committed are you to kicking old habits and forming new ones?

In this blog, I will explore five stages of change to give you a roadmap to support you in your change-making journey.

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Identify Winning Strategies [Step 6]

What if experimentation — to find the right combination of strategies — is an essential part of growth and change in our personal and professional lives? What if one reason we often get derailed is because we are stuck on a strategy that isn’t working?

Which combination of strategies will empower you to successfully achieve your growth goals?

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Discover New Perspective [Step 5]

If you are eager for progress, it may seem natural to launch into a specific action plan directly after you have identified your growth gaps and goals. However, realize that there may be multiple strategies that would lead to the fulfillment of your vision.

What new perspective could empower your plan for growth?

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Clarify Your Growth Goals

I usually know when I need to grow or change in a specific area. The signs are typically clear: I’m continually stressed out, or causing someone else to be stressed out. Or, I am deeply dissatisfied, frustrated, or not seeing progress. For me, recognizing the need for change is the easy part. The harder part is to get really clear about exactly what my specific growth gaps are.

How do you get clarity about the gaps between where you are now and where you want to be?

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Build Your Community [Step 3]

In your community of friends, family, and colleagues, who inspires you to develop into the best version of yourself?  Who is willing to give you honest feedback, support your growth, and keep you motivated? 

When I think back on the most profound growth I have experienced, I simultaneously recall the community that surrounded me in those critical moments – friends, family, classmates, or colleagues who invested in my development.

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