You are the client, not your supervisor – even if your supervisor is paying us. Only you will know how much weight to give to your supervisor’s perspectives based on factors such as the nature of your goals, the degree of respect you have for his opinions, or how well she actually knows and understands you and your work. Our conversations with you are confidential. Typically, we will be asked to provide a progress report to your supervisor or to Human Resources or both. In that case, we share only general trends or impressions – and only after discussing these with you – not the specifics of our conversations with you.

Coaching won’t work unless there’s something you want to change. If you and your supervisor differ about something as important as this, coaching isn’t the answer. Instead you may need a facilitated dialogue between the two of you. We can help you do this in a way that supports mutual understanding rather than polarization.

Our answer is the same: whatever role you want it to play. We encourage you to gather others’ opinions about what you do well and what you can do to be even more effective – provided you respect those individuals and believe they have your best interests at heart.

360 instruments can help point you to areas you want to explore. We will work with your company’s instrument, if they have one. When given the choice, we prefer The Leadership Circle™ 360 instrument. (Refer to our ‘Services’ menu).

For most clients, any 360 instrument is just a beginning. They generally want to delve behind the numbers, or skip the instrument altogether, and ask us to collect more in-depth information via confidential one-on-one interviews. In that case, we summarize what we have heard in a report that is for your eyes only.

Another vehicle for gathering feedback is observation. Many of our coaching clients ask us to sit in on a meeting or two so we can see them leading in action. This allows us to gain a first-hand impression of group dynamics the leader has described in coaching.

Hopefully our coaching description conveys that we subscribe to the old adage: it’s better to teach someone to fish than to give them a fish. By helping our clients (1) learn to reliably access their Clear State of Mind, from which insights emerge, and (2) understand the process of translating insights into action; we hope to equip them to be their own life-long coaches – and even be a coach to others! Working with an open and receptive coaching client, this typically takes 6-12 months.

However, some leaders find they benefit from having a confidential, third-party sounding board – someone who is not employed by their company or who, unlike a family member, is not directly affected by their actions. These leaders contract with us for longer-term, though less frequent, engagements. They may also call on us to provide support during times of transition to a new assignment. (Refer to the “Onboarding” section of our ‘Services’ menu).