What does confident leadership mean to you?My “tag line” as a coach is that I help library leaders confidently manage change and conflict, so that you can feel better about going to work. I know what I mean by that, but a few conversations recently have left me wondering: What does that mean to you? I had a conversation recently with Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, who raised the question of how we respond when someone is confidently leading in a way that does harm. I didn't have a good answer at the time, because I attribute so much of the…Read more
"Why does a library leader need coaching skills as professional development?"I had a whole draft ready to go for you today about common ways to improve your coaching questions, but then someone sent in a question that preempted that! So you can look forward to a discussion of coaching questions next time! Today, though, we’re just about 3 weeks away from the deadline to register for Lead With Curiosity: Coaching skills for library leaders, so it feels pretty urgent to respond to this question: How do you advocate for the value of coaching in a way that will convince…Read more
How can you start to put some of these coaching ideas into practice?This week, I’d like to share my experience of getting started actually coaching someone else for the very first time. I’ve shared this story before here, but a lot of folks have joined since then! And it bears repeating, because a lot of library leaders share some of the same fears that I had. So I hope that this reassures you that you don’t have to wait until you feel like a fully competent coach to start practicing at least a little bit of this! I’ll drop a quick reminder here that if you…Read more
Understanding how trauma affects your team's willingness to be coachedBefore I jump into today’s newsletter, I’m super excited to share that I recently appeared on a podcast! I joined Lorene Kennard on the Librarian Linkover to talk about coaching and leading with curiosity, as well as some potentially controversial opinions about what skills I’d like to see more librarians develop these days. Here’s the direct link, or you can find it on all of the major podcast platforms. Last time, I talked about the reality that you’re most likely going to stumble several…Read more
Strategies for using a coaching approach as a leader when you feel like you don't have time for coaching.Read more
My “tag line” as a coach is that I help library leaders confidently manage change and conflict, so that you can feel better about going to work. I know what I mean by that, but a few conversations recently have left me wondering: What does that mean to you? I had a conversation recently with Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, who raised the question of how we respond when someone is confidently leading in a way that does harm. I didn't have a good answer at the time, because I attribute so much of the…Read more
How using a coaching approach can help you manage situations where you may need to give some difficult feedback.Read more
These are the most common areas for improvement that I see from managers when they practice asking effective coaching questionsRead more
I had a whole draft ready to go for you today about common ways to improve your coaching questions, but then someone sent in a question that preempted that! So you can look forward to a discussion of coaching questions next time! Today, though, we’re just about 3 weeks away from the deadline to register for Lead With Curiosity: Coaching skills for library leaders, so it feels pretty urgent to respond to this question: How do you advocate for the value of coaching in a way that will convince…Read more
This week, I’d like to share my experience of getting started actually coaching someone else for the very first time. I’ve shared this story before here, but a lot of folks have joined since then! And it bears repeating, because a lot of library leaders share some of the same fears that I had. So I hope that this reassures you that you don’t have to wait until you feel like a fully competent coach to start practicing at least a little bit of this! I’ll drop a quick reminder here that if you…Read more
Before I jump into today’s newsletter, I’m super excited to share that I recently appeared on a podcast! I joined Lorene Kennard on the Librarian Linkover to talk about coaching and leading with curiosity, as well as some potentially controversial opinions about what skills I’d like to see more librarians develop these days. Here’s the direct link, or you can find it on all of the major podcast platforms. Last time, I talked about the reality that you’re most likely going to stumble several…Read more