Category: Newsletter
Coaching exercises to help you (and your team) reclaim your sense of agency
Sending out that last edition of this newsletter was really scary. It’s a lot easier for me to talk about coaching skills than it is to talk about myself like that. I don’t even have words for how much I…
How setting intentions can help you practice your coaching approach
Happy New Year! January always feels like a new beginning for me. When I was an academic librarian, this time of year meant starting a fresh new semester. And it meant starting to think about the annual self-evaluation I had…
Using the Year Compass to chart your path forward
As the year draws to a close, I’m looking forward to some rest and rejuvenation. Whatever your plans are, I hope you have gentle holidays and space for reflection. In the last issue, I talked about reflecting on your accomplishments…
How coaching can help your team reflect on accomplishments and set meaningful goals
For many people, December is a time for wrapping up projects and reflecting on accomplishments. That reflection can help you identify what matters most to you. And you can use that clarity to shape your goals for the upcoming year.…

How can coaching skills help you navigate holiday gatherings?
My regular every-two-weeks schedule says that I should be sending out a newsletter today, but this Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US. When I worked as a librarian in the US, I was either out-of-office or just mentally checked out…
How do you “manage up” to get the support you need?
The main topic for this week is managing up, but first, I want to acknowledge a huge elephant in the room. It has been a pretty somber week here in Lisbon, Portugal. Every person I’ve talked with has asked how…

How can you use coaching to help your team avoid burnout?
Burnout is on my mind this week. I tuned into the latest episode of the Surviving the Stacks podcast, and a lot of the conversation connected with the reasons I’m so invested in helping library leaders develop coaching skills. They…
How do you show up with a coaching mindset even when you’re frustrated?
Maintaining a coaching mindset – being open, curious, and flexible – is the foundation for using a coaching approach to leadership. To be able to effectively help your team members find the useful lessons they can take away from a…
Exploring the problem
I talk a lot about the benefits of using a coaching approach, but I also hear a lot about employees who are resistant to the idea of coaching because of how that label has been used in the past. Coaching…
How do you handle really difficult conversations with members of your team?
I have two news items to share before jumping into the newsletter for this week: Registration is still open for my free workshop on Using a Coaching Approach to Leadership on June 25. And registration is officially now open for…


