Know Thyself: Five Steps to Productive Self-Awareness

The Leader as Coach is a workshop to help leaders be more influential with their team members. Understanding the difference between coaching, feedback, mentoring and discipline is an important first step.

Leaders, today, need mastery at providing direction and giving clear and timely feedback on employee performance. This skill requires speaking clearly, concisely and objectively. We practice writing feedback and then practice delivering feedback in practice sessions. Taking away the judgment and being factual sounds simple but not so easy when giving feedback in the workplace.

Listening is essential. Asking powerful questions helps shape behavior and performance toward achieving goals. Questions help draw out the motivations and barriers employees may be facing. Leaders are given tools to help them plan for and ask the best questions to create a trusting environment for dialogue. Templates will be provided to make it easy to implement the new skills immediately after the workshop adjourns.

In addition to providing feedback, leaders must feel comfortable helping good performers transform into excellent performers. Coaching allows the leader and “coachee” to partner together as they move from the current situation to the desired state. The leader (coach) guides the conversations toward positive action—allowing the coachee to take ownership for action planning and ultimately success.

This highly interactive class will help leaders sharpen their interpersonal skills. They do this by listening to understand—not just listening to respond. A five-step process for improving listening skills will be presented and practiced.

Trust—the foundation for a strong leader-employee relationship is built when the employee believes the leader is sincere and genuine. Whether coaching for excellence or providing feedback for improved performance, the leader will learn how to communicate authentically and objectively.

Kathy Cooperman, CPC
Kathy Cooperman is President of KC Leadership Consulting, LLC, specializing in Leadership Development, executive coaching and facilitation. Her passion is helping organizations accelerate excellence in their leaders—engaging everyone to work together to achieve the business strategy while applying the core principals of Positive Psychology.