coaching in leadership“Coaching is about unlocking potential in order to maximise performance

– it’s about bringing out the best in people.”

David Dixon 2008

Objectives

The session has been designed to give you the confidence and solutions to develop your skills as a

coach and improve teacher leadership.

• Clarify coaching and your role as a coach• Improve your skills to coach others towards improved

performance• Explore goals, motivation, questioning, listening and

finding solutions• Understand the coaching relationship• Explore coaching models and undertake practical

sessions• Motivate you to coach further immediately

Rationale

• Learning to be a coach is one of the most effective ways to become an excellent teaching/leadership practitioner yourself

• Coaching is personalised learningat its height

• Enables people to challenge limiting beliefs safely

• Developing leadership capacity: growing tomorrow’s leaders

Activity 1 – What is a coaching?

• Think of a special person in your childhood or career, someone who helped you develop. Then ask yourself the following questions

• What did they do?

• What qualities and behaviours did they display?

• How did you feel as a result?

Is this common?

They:

• treated me as an equal• listened to my point of view• believed that I could…• challenged me• were fun and enthusiastic• showed trust and respect• gave me time and full attention

I felt:

• special• valued• confident• safe and cared for• supported• self-belief

Coaching is not about:

• giving answers or advice

• making judgements

• offering counselling

• creating dependency

• imposing agendas or initiatives

• confirming long-held prejudices

Coaching is about:

• Coaching is a leadership approach that can be used flexibly to meet the needs of individuals and groups.

• The coach should focus on the goals of the individual and/or the school and use sensitive questioning to establish an agreed action plan.

• The process is based on the three core skills of deep listening, precise questioning and promoting action.

• Coaching fits best in a school culture that is predicated on shared leadership rather than a command and control, hierarchical structure.

Activity 2 – Approaches to coaching

High Motivation

Low Motivation

Low Skill High Skill

Identifying learning goalsProviding support forprogressionModelling, observing and articulating practiceListening

Sharing planningEstablishing the

relationshipProviding feedbackQuestioning

Providing guidance and directionDrawing evidence from research and practiceSupporting reflectionReviewingAction planning

Activity 3

• Assessing your coaching skills…….

• Where are you at?

• What areas do you need to work on?

Coaching models

COACH COACH

GROW GROW

STRIDESTRIDE

COACH

• Competency - assessing current level of performance

• Outcomes - setting outcomes for learning

• A ction - agreeing tactics and initiate action

• CHecking - giving feedback and make sense of what’s been learnt

GROW

Goal - Reality - Options - Will• “What you want to get out of this session?

(Goal)• How do you see your current situation?

(Reality)• What is the best way to use what you are

saying to find a solution? (Options)• How committed are you to taking this action?

(Will)”

STRIDE

Common ground

Coaching is grounded in the skills of :

• Building rapport and trust • Listening • Questioning • Prompting action and reflection • Developing confidence and celebrating success

Activity 4 : in practice

• Listen to this coaching session

In pairs• can you identify the different aspects of

the STRIDE coaching model?• What strikes you about the process?• What limiting beliefs are challenged

here?

Feedback

• How open are we with one another in our feedback?

• Can we think of a time when we weren’t open in feedback and discuss it now, so that we can identify what got in the way, or what we might have done differently?

Giving Feedback

You need to wrap it up as well as you can so that it is as acceptable to the receiver.

Types of feedback

• Positive – the easy bit

• Constructive – A I D

• Negative – B E F A A

Negative feelings feedback

• Describe the behaviour or action you feel strongly about.

• Point out the effect this has.

• Tell them directly what feelings or reactions you have about this.

• Say what you want to happen and get their agreement.

What next?

• What are you going to do as a result of this training?

• Choose someone in your department that you would wish to develop in some way and try out some of the skills you have developed

• Come back next time and share your coaching experience

"Coaching is 90% attitude and 10% technique"

further reading

VLE – www.wickersleyvle.net

StaffZone > PDP

Enrolment key = “wickersleypdp”

The Ten Principles of Coaching

There are ten key principles upon which coaches operate:

1. Be non-judgmental.

2. Be non-critical.

3. Believe that people can find their next steps within them.

4. Make agreements about how you will work together

5. Be positive and believe that there are always solutions to issues.

6. Pay attention to recognizing and pointing out strengths and building and maintaining self-esteem.

7. Challenge individuals to move beyond their comfort zone.

8. Break down big goals into manageable steps.

9. Believe that self-knowledge improves performance.

10.Hold a genuine willingness to learn from the people you coach.