Using Individual Coaching to help the Director of a small Child Welfare Agency become a more effective supervisor

Outcomes

Situation
Faced with the complexity of day to day programmatic issues combined with larger organizational challenges, Carol, (not her real name), the Executive Director of a child welfare agency, said that she found herself “spending an increasing amount of time on staff supervision, including crisis management and problem solving. There were few, if any, resources for her to turn to. Her Board members didn't have the proper expertise and it was not appropriate to discuss these issues with other staff. She was reluctant to bother her colleagues (directors of similar sized organizations), and she wasn't sure if they had the knowledge she was looking for anyway.” Carol asked us to provide support through individual coaching, following our facilitation of a larger team building process with her and her staff.

Approach
We provided Individual Leadership Coaching to help Carol utilize supervisory and leadership methods to help her manage the internal operations of her organization. We emphasized a strengths based approach, identifying Carol’s strengths as a leader and helping her to create strategies to further develop her strengths.

We modeled the methods of:

deep listening
strengths based questioning
providing compassionate feedback

We questioned Carol’s assumptions about her own skills and about her staff. She learned to look more deeply at her choices in a supervisory interaction and to make choices based on what she knew about the person and what she wanted to achieve. We assisted and supported Carol through several staff transitions. Over time, we assisted Carol to build her confidence as a leader and supervisor.

Results
Carol reports that she is “more proactive in the area of personnel management.” She says: “I don’t wait until situations become problems, I am more confident in my ability to handle problems, and I think I am a much better supervisor because of coaching….” She also reports that “having the support and expertise of a coach has enabled me to get my agency's 'internal house' in order, freeing up time to build external alliances.”

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