Are We a Fit to Work Together?

I specialize in partnering with leaders devoted to developing their confidence, resilience, cultural competence and effectiveness as they lead dedicated teams of front line workers supporting families struggling with systemic oppression, white-body supremacy, discrimination, social justice, violence, and poverty.

Leaders often find themselves promoted into higher positions of authority and responsibility without additional education or training in this area. Yet, it is this responsible wielding of power that separates good leaders from great leaders. Employees deserve the very best from their leaders. When leaders partner with me, they see results in the areas they deem most important for their own, specific professional development.

I help create the conditions that build the confidence, self-esteem, trust, and self awareness leaders require to continually support employees through their exposure to the effects of listening to families’ experiences (often known as ‘vicarious trauma’), maintaining a healthy degree of mutual accountability within their team(s), strengthening their employees’ cultural competence, resilience, and effectiveness, and making compassionately informed decisions that affect employees and the vulnerable people’s lives they serve.

For example, for years I served as a Cultural Team Leader and cultural liaison within an Indigenous led organization in Calgary where I worked with many front-line staff, of various ethnic backgrounds, promoted to Team Lead, and Manager positions. I spent countless hours coaching and mentoring new leaders in the subtleties of working within a pan-indigenous cultural context, helping them to learn about leading their teams while deepening into their understanding of intercultural awareness and application, both within teams and with the families being served. This often included, but was not limited to, educating folks about how to respectfully participate in cultural events and ceremonies offered by Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers from numerous different indigenous cultures.

I achieve that through an agreed upon series of coaching conversations where we explore what’s important to you.

Are you interested in what others are saying about working with me? Here are their testimonials.

Coaching: What is it?

Conversations maintaining a results orientation without giving advice. What results are you working toward achieving?

Partnership towards greater competence and effectiveness. Who’s supporting you to develop and improve professionally?

Engaging the specific leadership challenges together.  Hurdles and obstacles are common. Who supports you in overcoming them?

Leaders develop in the process of producing extraordinary results. What results are you prepared to deliver?

Masterful coaches give people the gift of their presence – a high quality of time and attention.  One of the ways I provide that kind of presence is through listening.  For example, among other things, I am listening for expressions that demonstrate addictions to interpretation.  These petrified thoughts reveal who people are as a commitment, who people are being in their listening that gets them into trouble, attitudes and behaviours that get people into trouble, beliefs and assumptions people are taking for granted, where people have jumped to conclusions or have gaps in their reasoning.  

What assumptions have you been holding about coaching?

On the inverse side of the conversation, I practice committed speaking and non-directive questioning.  As Hargrove states, “Committed speaking involves speaking with the ruthless compassion necessary to penetrate illusions.”  I love this expression.  I maintain a high degree of curiosity about the many ways in which people, and leaders in particular, are wrapped up in our patterns of self-deception and laziness.  I call people into greater self-knowledge. I rely on my own executive coaches to call me in to greater self-knowledge as well.  Often it entails bursting the bubble of some unexamined belief system we adopted without intending to.  I sometimes refer to this as an archaeology of the self, gently brushing away the sediment to reveal the essence beneath/within.  

What precious parts of yourself require uncovering?

A better understanding of who we are, what we value, and what motivates us leads to greater acceptance, appreciation, confidence and effectiveness in our actions.  Working with a coach can be like having a mirror held up in front of us so that we can see ourselves (best selves) more clearly, shifting perspectives and revealing patterns of self-deception and counter-productivity.

What are the questions that, if asked, would allow you to be truly known?

As an Executive Coach, I hold my clients capable of unsticking themselves.  I establish and re-establish agreements throughout the coaching process.  I champion my clients in each and every conversation.  Ultimately, coaching is about challenging and supporting people as they develop greater resiliency in their work and life.  For example, I encourage folks to adopt a learner’s mindset to increase tolerance for reactivity.  Competency in this mindset reminds us that feelings of frustration, anxiety, and awkwardness are survivable, expected, and not enough to deter us from our goals.  According to Marilee C. Goldberg, “coaching is the most explicit and personal vehicle for encouraging and training individuals in transforming themselves into intentional, innovative, and productive learners.” As leaders, orienting ourselves toward a learner’s mindset opens possibilities for future innovation and change. 

What supports you to remain open to learning?

Mastery of resilience (bouncing back) is about practicing inner and outer behaviours that keep us grounded and centred so we can address external changing dynamics.  According to Kevin Cashman, “The formula for fostering more resilience in our lives usually involves two things: 1.  Improve the quality of activity and reduce the quantity somewhat.  2. Improve the quality and quantity of our rest and recovery.”   

What self-honouring practices support you to achieve greater rest and recovery?

My attention is on cultivating a kind of calm presence, ensuring that clients feel SEEN, HEARD, and UNDERSTOOD.  If I’ve attuned well, I will have successfully moved someone into a state of being willingly courageous.  I achieve this primarily through being curious, non-judgmental, non-directive, asking open-ended questions, encouragement to identify existing resources available, exploration of needed resources, and mentoring/teaching when necessary.  These conversations take place in the domain of accomplishment, not therapy.  

What’s different for you when you notice someone offers the kind of presence I’m speaking about here?

Mentoring: What is it?

Mentoring involves the direct transfer of knowledge gained through education or experience. As developing leaders, it’s important to differentiate between those things we need to figure out about and for ourselves and our team members through a coaching process and those things we simply need to learn how to do. Sometimes we just need to be taught how to do something. For example, “this is how you apply this software to the task I’ve assigned you.”

When coaching clients, there often emerges moments in conversations when I need to put down the ‘coaching hat,’ and put on the ‘mentorship hat.’ This is something I normally make very overt in a given conversation. I want people to be able to recognize the clear difference between coaching and mentorship.

How do you already understand the difference between coaching and mentorship?

One of the areas of expertise I carry is about how to work within intercultural teams. In particular, within teams where knowledge and competence in reconciliatory practices with Indigenous Peoples are an asset. As a descendant of settlers from North Western Europe, I’ve gathered a great deal of experience over the years of working with Indigenous Leaders, Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers, Traditional Helpers, Youth, Children, and Families. After many years of receiving mentorship and guidance from many of these generous folks, I’ve humbly come to understand more about respectful protocols of approach and engagement.

For me, mentorship includes sharing teachings I have been exposed to, things I’ve been specifically taught, and my own learned experience along the way. When it comes to Traditional Knowledge, I need to be very careful and respectful about how I share those things. There is a time, a place, and often, a method. It’s common that certain protocols are required. Then, there are those things that I’m not permitted to share. I honour those protocols and the ways in which they were passed to me. It’s my responsibility to uphold the integrity of that knowledge I’ve been entrusted with. There are also certain things that people just can’t teach you. Some things need to be learned from the withinside. Fortunately, however, there are very effective methods for learning some of these things that a mentor can share and guide a person through.