Coaching

Benefits of Coaching

People need coaching now more than ever. While many are feeling overwhelmed and like they are wandering in the desert, we are at a pivot point in our culture and in the church. Coaching can help a leader unlock possibilities, expand their options, and create accountability for the completion of goals.

 

Lay leaders, deacons, priests, and bishops are all invited to consider coaching. A coaching relationship:

• recognizes each person as resourceful, creative, and whole
• focuses on the goals and issues of the coachee
• is a self-discovery process in which the coachee can discover new aspects of themselves
• helps expand the possibilities for a coachee’s life and ministry
• is action oriented
• challenges a leader to take calculated risks
• offers support to a leader
• provides accountability

 

The focus of coaching is always generated by the coachee. The coach is a partner who listens deeply and asks powerful questions, so that the coachee might set goals that are attainable and timely.

 

Coaching Formats

Individual Coaching—a one-on-one conversation with a coach, focused on the leader’s own needs, plans, and goals. This format suits leaders who are focused on personal growth and development and who need time to process their challenges and develop their plans. Leaders who might appreciate individual coaching: senior wardens, vestry members, church staff members, clergy, committee chairs, and bishops.

 

Coaching Clusters—triads of people coached together in a ninety-minute session, each receiving thirty minutes of coaching. Members of the group usually have something in common, and each works on their own goals. This format suits leaders who want coaching while also connecting with others facing similar challenges; hearing others being coached often leads to deeper learning, and the cluster builds community and network along the way. Leaders who might appreciate a coaching cluster, gathered by shared role: senior wardens, vestry members, church staff members, deacons, priests, chairs of diocesan standing committees, and chairs of diocesan commissions on ministry.

 

Team Coaching—focused on a whole team and the work its members are trying to do together. The team may already share a goal and mission, or may be trying to define one. Sometimes a group is not yet functioning as a team and wants to learn how; sometimes a team wants to take its mission and ministry to the next level. Teams that might appreciate coaching: vestries, church staffs, diocesan staffs, camp and conference staffs, parish committees, diocesan standing committees, and diocesan commissions on ministry.

 

Coaching is not:

• mentoring
• consulting
• training
• counseling
• spiritual direction

These are all useful tools, but they are not coaching.

 

Leadership Coaches Are Available to You

The Leadership Coaching Project was launched to support lay and clergy leaders in Province V. Whether you are looking for a coach or thinking about becoming one, the buttons at the foot of this page will take you to the next step.

 

Province V’s guideline for a coaching session is $50–150.

 

This project is brought to you by the leadership of Province V and the Diocese of Fond du Lac. We are grateful to the Roanridge Trust Grant Program for the grant that launched it.

 

Curious what coaching actually looks like? Watch two Province V coaches in a live coaching demonstration below.