Coaching the coach

I was really inspired by a course that I attended this week. It was without doubt the best course that I have attended for many years. The topic was “Coaching in Leadership”, and was facilitated by a guy called Joe Lafferty.

His style and the topic appealed to me in equal measure. I guess that the coaching approach fits naturally with my approach – although there are still lots of things to learn and develop.

During the practical exercise, the facilitators had to join the small work groups to make the number work, and Joe joined the group that I was in. Being a bit slow on the uptake, I let my colleague go first, then I realised that this meant that I would be playing the role of coach for the coach. (Must learn to think ahead a bit more!) Actually it went fairly well, and Joe was complimentary about my efforts.

During these exercises we were dealing with real issues for each of us. While I’m not going to break the confidentiality agreement, using the coaching approach with Joe’s problem triggered some thoughts for me. There will be developments in the near future – check back over the next couple of days for more info.