Leadership Coaching
Praxis is the gap between theory and practice. Talent Praxis focuses on helping leaders turn their ideas into actions ultimately developing an ongoing strategic practice to achieve their goals.
What is Coaching?
With Talent Praxis, coaching is a partnership, where the coach partners with the coachee through a question-based creative process to find inspired solutions. The coach respects and believes in the coachee's expertise and acts as a partner to help unlock potential.
Talent Praxis utilizes coaching for strategic skills in leadership where there is no clear solution. In these situations, options are endless for any challenge or opportunity based on the leader's skills and needs, the skills and needs of the audience, and the unique needs of the organization.
The most common leadership topics are:
Setting and achieving impactful goals
Managing your team for high-performance
Nurturing strong relationships
Working and leading strategically
What Can You Expect in Coaching?
Coaching is a partnership based on creative questions and observations to find inspired solutions.
Coaching is unlike training, advisement, or consulting in that the coach is not there to give you advice or tell you specific next steps but rather to ask questions and create a space where you tap into greater awareness and determine the best approach to achieve your goals.
You can expect your coach to look at you as a partner in setting a valuable coaching focus, building your plan for coaching, and determining topics on upcoming calls. Expect questions like:
What are you hoping to get out of coaching?
What would be a valuable focus for coaching?
What is on your mind for today’s call? What do you want to focus on today?
Where’s the best place to start? Where should we go from here?
Coaching is also unlike therapy because coaching is more focused on progress and looking toward the future. Coaching is also not diagnostic. There is not one way to be a great leader, so your coach is not there to diagnose your leadership capabilities but rather to inspire and empower you to explore them.
You can expect your coach to share observations for discussion, ask you what you are observing from things you share, and ask you thought-provoking questions such as:
How is this important to you?
If you achieve this what becomes possible?
If you remove barriers what can you learn?
Looking forward to the moment you achieve your goal, what is present?
Through our intake process, reviewing guides on the most common leadership topics, and partnering with your coach you can set a valuable focus for coaching and create a strategic plan to achieve your goals.
The Coaching Process
Introductory call to align on expectations for coaching and build the relationship.
Partner with your coach to build a custom coaching focus and plan based on your goals and needs.
Regular coaching calls directed by your goals and needs:
Conversations are designed to evoke awareness through powerful questioning, silence, metaphor, or analogy.
Cultivate learning and growth by designing goals, actions, and accountability.
Utilize Talent Praxis resources, worksheets, and coaching frameworks based on key management and leadership tools.
Reflect on progress and observe results, consider:
What awareness have you gained from coaching?
What changes have you made or what actions have you taken?
What have been the results of those changes?
How has this allowed you to make progress toward your goals?
The Coaching Structure
The coaching structure includes establishing an overall coaching plan and goals for the coaching relationship as a whole and desired outcomes or takeaways for each individual coaching session.
This is directed by the coachee’s goals and needs from coaching. Some coachees may prefer to create a detailed agreement that outlines a specific duration, goal, success criteria for the goal, and topics for each call.
Other coachees may discuss more of a coaching focus or high-level goal they are working towards and discuss topics for individual calls in real time depending on their present context or needs.
On either end of the spectrum as the coachee, you can always adjust direction, needs, or success metrics for a given call as needed. You can also pause to reflect on your goals for coaching and the value of coaching. Your coach is there to partner with you and customize the experience to your needs.
The Coaching Call
Whether you have partnered with your coach to follow a specific structure and plan or are moving more fluidly towards your goal for coaching each call is an opportunity to reflect and focus on what is important to you.
Your coach will act as your partner and guide you through these general areas:
General check-in
Reflection on the previous actions or takeaways
Setting a topic for the current call
Partnering through the creative coaching process: powerful questions, active listening, observations, silence, metaphor, analogy, and collaboration
Discussing learning and takeaways
Designing goals, actions, and accountability
A coaching call is a unique experience. Expect reflective and introspective questions designed to evoke awareness and allow you to tap into your own expertise, creativity, and insights.
Examples of partnership questions:
“What would you like to discuss on our call today?”
“What would a successful outcome look like?”
“Where’s the best place to start?”
“What has been most impactful so far?”
“Where should we go from here?”
“What are your options?”
“What do you want to take away from this?”
“What do you want to do differently?”
“How will you hold yourself accountable?”
“How will you know if you are successful?”
Examples of questions to increase awareness:
“How is this important to you?”
“Imagine as if you had everything you needed, what happens next?”
“How would you advise yourself in this situation?”
“Where have you made up your mind and where are you still exploring?”
“What becomes possible?”
“Who do you become?”
“What do you observe in reflecting on what you shared?”
“Imagine you are in the future, what would you tell yourself now?”
“Think as if you are your biggest fan, what would you want yourself to know?”
“What are you trying to achieve?”
The Coach’s Role
Your coach is there as a partner. Your coach believes in your capability and expertise and works with you to set goals for coaching calls, evoke awareness, and create next steps and accountability.
Your coach is certified and committed to following the International Coaching Federation's ethics and core competencies. The Talent Praxis coaching definition, process, and structure are also founded in the ICF coaching ethics and core competencies.
Your coach works to stay present, open, and flexible on calls. Practicing curiosity, the power of silence, and seeking to understand you and your needs.
Your coach is also there to challenge you, present observations, and ask questions that allow you to expand your thinking.
Your Role in Coaching
Similar to your coach your main role is to act as a partner. As a partner, you share information with your coach to help them customize the coaching process and ensure it is value-adding. You openly share your observations, needs, what is helpful, and what may be even more helpful.
To get the most out of coaching practice self-reflection by approaching coaching questions with curiosity, honesty, and flexibility.
The format of coaching may be new and unfamiliar. Give yourself time and space to learn a new format for learning and growth.
Challenge yourself to spend time in between calls to practice any takeaways you committed to, reflect on the conversation and awareness, and brainstorm potential topics that are important to you for the following call.
You are committing to showing up prepared and present during calls. Prep for a coaching call may only take 5-10 minutes. Ideally, the time commitment or “homework” in between calls does not take any extra time; instead, you are committing to practicing your day-to-day work differently by applying your new awareness and drawing awareness to the results.
