Coach me on having a coach!
March 2, 2015 6:58 PM Subscribe
I have several sessions of leadership coaching for free. Great! Now what do I use them for?
A leadership/management development course I took comes with 5 sessions of free (to me) time with a leadership coach. Great!
My coach has tasked me with "bringing issues I'd like to discuss to our sessions" which are 40 minute phone calls (the first one, where we met for the first time, was in person). I used the first session to work on some goal-setting challenges and the second on positioning myself for a raise following my performance review... but now I'm not sure how I should I use my remaining sessions, because frankly, life is pretty good!
I'm very lucky: my work is interesting and I have good relationships with my coworkers and manager. I'm feeling a little overworked but am having solid conversations with my manager on getting some support/ clearer priorities. I'm not aggressively ambitious and am not particularly interested in being a "manager" or "leader". I do manage a small group of interns which is something I enjoy and, based on feedback from other people at work, is something I'm good at.
Other potentially relevant details: I work in the nonprofit sector, very high EQ/ self-awareness, introvert who has learned to act like an extrovert when necessary. I already do a lot of reading on how to work/ manage life, people etc better because I simply find these sorts of things interesting.
Seriously, my "life goals" are like, to do work I find engaging and be fairly compensated, have solid and loving relationships with people in my life, and be kind to others (and love all the puppies) so the idea of "leadership coaching" is personally very foreign!
I know professional coaching costs $$ so I'd love some ideas for how I can take advantage/ not waste this opportunity.
Why was I even in a leadership course? My company pays for this opportunity for all staff and we were strongly encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to learn to be better at managing ourselves, work, and people
A leadership/management development course I took comes with 5 sessions of free (to me) time with a leadership coach. Great!
My coach has tasked me with "bringing issues I'd like to discuss to our sessions" which are 40 minute phone calls (the first one, where we met for the first time, was in person). I used the first session to work on some goal-setting challenges and the second on positioning myself for a raise following my performance review... but now I'm not sure how I should I use my remaining sessions, because frankly, life is pretty good!
I'm very lucky: my work is interesting and I have good relationships with my coworkers and manager. I'm feeling a little overworked but am having solid conversations with my manager on getting some support/ clearer priorities. I'm not aggressively ambitious and am not particularly interested in being a "manager" or "leader". I do manage a small group of interns which is something I enjoy and, based on feedback from other people at work, is something I'm good at.
Other potentially relevant details: I work in the nonprofit sector, very high EQ/ self-awareness, introvert who has learned to act like an extrovert when necessary. I already do a lot of reading on how to work/ manage life, people etc better because I simply find these sorts of things interesting.
Seriously, my "life goals" are like, to do work I find engaging and be fairly compensated, have solid and loving relationships with people in my life, and be kind to others (and love all the puppies) so the idea of "leadership coaching" is personally very foreign!
I know professional coaching costs $$ so I'd love some ideas for how I can take advantage/ not waste this opportunity.
Why was I even in a leadership course? My company pays for this opportunity for all staff and we were strongly encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to learn to be better at managing ourselves, work, and people
Do you have a time limit for taking advantage of these sessions? I tend to need a tune-up of my professional goals every once in a while, but not more than 2-3 times a year. If you could spread out your sessions, you could check in on your progress toward goals, and see if new opportunities or challenges come up.
posted by nadise at 9:07 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nadise at 9:07 PM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
As a Coach, I know that it's the job of the Coach to ask you questions that will lead you to both more questions and answers.
While you may not want to focus on the professional side of yourself, I think that you will find that your life is pretty intertwined and your personal will gently mix with your business and that's a good thing when everything is going well.
I love for my clients to come to each call with something prepared to talk about, but sometimes we just have to relax, hang out a bit and do some gentle digging to uncover something worth working on.
I wouldn't stress too hard about it.
If all else fails, move even deeper on those things discussed and agreed upon on prior calls.
Good on ya for taking advantage of this opportunity!
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 4:38 AM on March 3, 2015
While you may not want to focus on the professional side of yourself, I think that you will find that your life is pretty intertwined and your personal will gently mix with your business and that's a good thing when everything is going well.
I love for my clients to come to each call with something prepared to talk about, but sometimes we just have to relax, hang out a bit and do some gentle digging to uncover something worth working on.
I wouldn't stress too hard about it.
If all else fails, move even deeper on those things discussed and agreed upon on prior calls.
Good on ya for taking advantage of this opportunity!
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 4:38 AM on March 3, 2015
« Older I don't undertand the WWII Enigma code | Viewing natural Australia around Sydney (without... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
I'm not aggressively ambitious and am not particularly interested in being a "manager" or "leader".
I do manage a small group of interns which is something I enjoy and, based on feedback from other people at work, is something I'm good at.
Any one of these would be a great launching point. On #1, think about how to handle overwork it if clearer priorities don't solve it, because usually overwork is not a problem of setting priorities but one of capacity and strategy focus. On #2, explore possible alternate career paths if you don't want to move toward greater managerial authority, which is where most successful careers lead unless you want to take them in hand and steer them elsewhere. On #3, you like mentoring, so ask about how you can be a better mentor and manager of emerging professionals and how you might grow this program or this capacity in yourself.
posted by Miko at 7:17 PM on March 2, 2015