FAQ

 “A misconception about coaches is that they tell their clients exactly what they should do. In reality, coaches listen to their clients, ask questions to get them thinking differently, and help them come to their own solutions. The process is creative and thought-provoking to help the client maximize their own potential.”

Experience Coaching, International Coaching Federation

Coaching is a collaborative partnership that connects at the deep personal level of beliefs, values, and vision. It is based on a body of knowledge, proven methodologies, and a style of relating that focuses on the development of human capacity. It is a powerful tool for learning, change, and transformation.

While there are many types of coaching, leadership and executive coaching is embedded in organizational and systems contexts. Its purpose is to enhance a person’s leadership impact by helping them to develop mindsets, abilities, and skills to perform better as a leader and to help their organization achieve its vision, mission, and goals.

Effective leadership and executive coaching provide a customized approach that acknowledges and honours the leader’s individuality, and creates a confidential space to pause, explore, and reflect upon the many issues they are grappling with. The coaching process enables leaders to set goals to change behaviours that are holding them back.

Both leadership and executive coaching primarily focuses on helping leaders at all levels of the organization. This can include working on specific challenges or skills gaps, building confidence, identifying blind spots, and addressing many other roadblocks that get in the way of the leader’s effectiveness. The difference is in scope and focus. Leadership coaching is broader, and supports leaders at all levels to develop skills related to managing others, leading teams, improving interpersonal, communications and decision-making skills, and leadership presence. While executive coaching is all of these things too, the difference is that conversations with senior leaders, are often at the strategic and systemic level. What leaders bring to executive coaching are issues and challenges that, when solved, are essential to their leadership success. These may broadly include:

• Developing self-awareness and enhancing communication skills;
• Creating strategies for improving organizational relationship, structures, and goals;
• Exploring systemic relationships and patterns;
• Exploring career goals, succession planning, transitions, stretching from established patterns, and getting comfortable with taking risks;
• Improving engagement, commitment and strategic alignment;
• Managing energy and priorities;
• Reframing limiting beliefs that get in the way;
• Discovering other personal leadership or organizational topics that keep you stuck and that are preventing you from achieving your goals.

Coaching is a form of active learning and is tailored to the individual. It integrates unique personal and professional development, as well as organizational needs. It works because it helps leaders adapt to new responsibilities, learn more productive behaviours, enhance teamwork and alignment, facilitate succession, and support organizational change.

Leadership and executive coaches are not technical advisors, mentors, or consultants; we are partners that believe you have unlimited potential to achieve the goals and outcomes you set. We are invested in supporting  your leadership development and change. We will engage you in honest self-assessment and deep personal exploration of your challenges and assumptions, and will hold you accountable. We will challenge old stories that are no longer useful, and help you learn and reframe thoughts, patterns, and behaviours that are getting in your way.

Benefits of leadership coaching include increased self-confidence, improved work performance, better communication skills, and sustained behavioural change. Coaching also helps leaders to broaden their thinking, challenge assumptions, and learn new ways to respond, which encourages flexible and adaptive mindsets. With more self-awareness and improved skills, an empowered leader has the potential to increase productivity and create positive shifts in their teams and organization, which directly impacts employee well-being and engagement, workplace effectiveness, and bottom-line results.

A Price Waterhouse Suvey indicates that companies report an average ROI of seven times the cost of employing a coach, and other studies report a strong correlation between coaching and increased employee engagement. A MetrixGlobal research study focused on a Fortune 500 firm found that coaching (as a leadership development strategy) produced a 529% ROI and significant intangible benefits to the business.

Today’s world is complex and changing, and organizations need different approaches to respond to many emerging challenges. They need to develop sustainable and effective workplaces, and need to be more collaborative than ever. Developing high performing teams that can create connections and shared goals on multiple levels are the key to wider organizational effectiveness. Systemic Team Coaching strengthens teams internally and supports teams to connect to external stakeholders for better team results.

Systemic Team Coaching (STC) is a powerful and effective process that enhances the performance of the whole team to enable the team to improve its ability to deliver sustainable and inspired high performance. The approach focuses on the team, rather than the individuals making up the team, as the “coaching client” and creates an environment where the team can get beyond their differences and competing interests to align with collective goals and collaborative KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). The approach is “systemic” because the work goes beyond the internal team – it helps the team bring in stakeholder perspectives and how the team can integrate these perspectives as they work towards common purpose and goals.

The benefits of Systemic Team Coaching are a better understanding of team dynamics, shared working agreements and norms of engagement, increased understanding of collaboration and increased commitment to working towards shared goals.

The role of the Systemic Team Coach is to partner with the team to co-create a learning environment where the team can explore how to better connect internally (as a team) and with their external stakeholders. Over a period of several months, the systemic team coach facilitates team conversations that are driven by the team’s priorities, and that supports the team to:

• Align on common purpose, collaborate and mutual accountability;
• Learn across diversity and develop collective leadership;
• Explore issues that relate to collective performance, enabling the team to recognize and manage influences on its performance, now and in the future;
• Take a systemic view of those influences, which may concern the team’s internal dynamics and/or how it interacts with its stakeholders;
• Explore how to effectively engage with their key stakeholder groups;
• Jointly align with and transform the wider organization.

Systemic Team Coaching relies on a blend of skills: coaching, facilitation and consulting. In addition to being a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), Jocelyne is a Certified Senior Practitioner in Systemic Team Coaching©, has Advanced Certification in Team Coaching (ACTC), and is a skilled facilitator. The Systemic Team Coaching model incorporates five key disciplines that involve a focus on both internal and external team learning and development goals. The approach is non-linear and adapts to the team’s priorities, which are identified through a scoping and inquiry process at the outset of the engagement, and that is further refined in the first team engagement. The 5 disciplines are:

Jocelyne is trained in Peter Hawkins Systemic Coaching Approach, which forms the backbone of her team coaching work. As a holistic practitioner, Jocelyne also draws on many other “systemic” and “team” theories, tools, and approaches, including Organization and Relationship System Coaching (ORSC), Jennifer J. Britton’s work on group and team coaching, and Mary Beth O’Neill’s systemic leadership coaching. She also draws on years of experience and training in leadership, adult education, and facilitation. Jocelyne is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC), a Certified Senior Practitioner in Systemic Team Coaching© (GTCI), has Advanced Certification in Team Coaching (ACTC – ICF), and Individual Team Coaching Accreditation Practitioner (ITCA – EMCC). Jocelyne is also a faculty member of the Global Team Coaching Institute.

Coaching Supervision has been a well-accepted practice for more than two decades, especially in Europe and France, and it is increasingly being accepted North America. In 2022, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) recognized coaching supervision as a valuable component of a coach’s professional development, and stated that up to 10 hours of coaching supervision can be applied towards Continuing Coach Education (CCE) units for credential renewal. While not a requirement for initial credentialling, it is encouraged for ongoing development and learning.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines Coaching Supervision as a “collaborative process where you [the coach] engage in reflective dialogue with a trained supervisor to explore your practice, enhance your skills and deepen your self-awareness. Through this partnership, you gain valuable support and guidance.”

The European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) defines Coaching Supervision as “A safe space for reflective dialogue with a practicing supervisor, supporting the supervisee’s practice, development and well-being.”
EMCC states that supervision is important because it is a form of facilitated reflective practice, and it contributes to the professionalization of practice areas in our industry, and it is a requirement for professional practice, ensuring practitioners are acting with responsibility and with accountability.

Coaching Supervision is different from Mentor Coaching, which focuses on developing core competencies and skills for coaching. Coaching Supervision much broader, and its emphasis is on co-creating a psychologically safe space to reflect and learn from your coaching experiences in three main functions: normative, formative or restorative ways.

1. 1. Normative/Qualitative function provides quality control in working with people and contributes to the quality of coaching and ethical decision making. Coaches usually work in isolation with their clients, and no matter how experienced, they may have blind spots about potentially ethically challenging challenges. Supervisors have a responsibility to ensure their supervisee’s work is appropriate and falls within defined ethical standards,

1. 2. Formative/Developmental function addresses the skills, understanding and capabilities of the supervisee through the reflection and exploration of the supervisee’s work with their clients. In this exploration, the supervisor helps the coach to:
      • understand the client better
      • become more attentive of their own reactions and responses to the client
      • understand the dynamics of coach–client interaction
      • examine how they intervened and the consequences
      • become aware of systemic considerations that influence the relationships and the coach’s work with the client
      • explore other ways of working with this and other similar client situations.

1. 3. Restorative/Resourcing function provides emotional support enabling the coach to deal with the intensity of working with clients. Inevitably, coaches will be affected emotionally by being present and empathic with their coaching clients. To remain effective, coaches need to attend to themselves so they avoid over-identifying with their clients or defending against being further affected.

Jocelyne has certification and experience in both Coaching Supervision and Systemic Team Coaching Supervision. She offers coaching supervision in one-to-one sessions and in group supervision formats. Coaches can bring a single client for supervision, or a team client.

One-to-one sessions enable the coach to bring cases they wish to unpack. In the session Jocelyne brings different lenses and strategies that support the coach to explore the relationship, ethical considerations, systemic influences, parallel processes and strategies that will help the coach reflect and learn from their practice. Jocelyne brings different learning approaches to her work, including using somatic experiences, working with metaphors, images and objects, and inviting the key stakeholders or partners into the room (metaphorically) to help the coach explore different viewpoints. Above all, she works with the coach to create a safe space to explore challenges, become more aware of themselves in relationship to their client(s) and their practice, and to think through potential ethics concerns.

Supervising Pairs of Team Coaches who are co-coaching the same team may also book a session together. In team coaching, the team is the client, and co-coaching partnership is also an element of the system that the coaches can examine.

Group Coaching Supervision is a form of coaching supervision, where a small group of coaches work together, with a trained supervisor, to reflect on their coaching practice, share experiences, and seek support from the group. In group coaching supervision, the wisdom of the group is core to the process, and coaches who share cases have opportunities to hear from many lenses to support their reflective practice. What is special about group supervision is that all coaches actively participate in exploring, learning and gaining insights from each other’s cases,  thus group supervision is a way to  build capacity for a cohort.

The role of the Coaching Supervisor in group coaching supervision to facilitate a reflective space for sharing cases and engaging all group members to think, share insights and to enhance each group member’s skills, ethical awareness and overall competence through shared experiences. The supervisor also participates in the reflective rounds to support learning.

Jocelyne has been receiving coaching supervision since 2019, and is very grateful to the coach supervisors who have helped her reflect on her practice. Her thinking and approach about coaching supervision comes from many places, including the formal Coach Supervision Certification training with Goldvarg and Associates and the Systemic Team Coaching Supervision Certification offered by Renewal Associates. The information in this FAQ is based on these sources as well as the referenced websites within the document.

Assessment tools and techniques can enhance self-awareness and facilitate planning and achieving your individual and / or team learning goals. They provide a structured approach to exploring your strengths and areas for development, and enable your coach to provide tailored coaching strategies.

Jocelyne is trained and certified in administering and debriefing MyWorldView, Emotional Intelligence Inventory 2:0 (EQi-2.0), Emotional Intelligence 360 (EQ 360), and Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI 2.0). She can also custom-develop a Narrative 360, where leaders can focus on the questions that will best leverage the feedback they need to grow.

Based on over 50 years of research, MyWorldView helps locate your current worldview in a range of seven. Based on Bill Torbert’s work, the instrument enables you to explore the 7 stages of adult development and apply it to the different contexts and systems in which you belong. Increased awareness of your current worldview allows you to identify ways to stretch into other perspectives and actions. With increased self-awareness, you will also begin to see how the worldviews of others and of systems are shaped, and I will work with you to identify how this knowledge can enhance your leadership impact.

Leadership starts from within, and being aware of how your emotions impact yourself and others is the first step to being an emotionally intelligent leader. Leaders with high EQ (Emotional Quotient) can better manage relationships, especially in times of crisis or stress, and can inspire and connect with others. The Emotional Quotient-Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) assessment measures an individual’s emotional intelligence (EI). This is an easy-to-use, online tool that provides you with an assessment of 15 EI competencies, and how you rank based on normative data. I will provide you with custom reports and coaching to support you in understanding your results.

In addition to supporting you on an individual level, I can tailor workshops – such as Leading with Emotional Intelligence – specifically to your organization’s and your team’s needs. Learning about EI competencies and behaviours will support your efforts to shift organizational culture and provide a common language for your team to grow together.

The EQ 360 is a multi-rater assessment, and like the EQ-i 2.0, it measures 15 competencies. Along with your self-report, the results are combined with the perceptions of people who know you well, resulting in a 360-degree assessment. I will provide you with debriefing, coaching, and support in creating an action plan to work on building on your strengths and shoring up your weaknesses.

A Narrative 360 is a powerful assessment tool that employs a more personal, tailored approach to learning about a leader’s strengths and growth needs. With narrative 360s, I work closely with the leader to develop questions that are most suitable to their learning needs. Together we focus on appreciative questions that identify strengths and determine what “best” means to that leader. As well, we explore solution-focused questions to identify specific desired behaviours. I also work closely with the leader to identify a cross section of employees, colleagues, and stakeholders to interview and obtain feedback. This process provides a detailed analysis that results in rich, real-time, contextual feedback that helps the leader focus on behaviours and competencies most critical to performance in the leader’s role in the organization.

What is Core Strengths Relationships Intelligence (RQ) and the Strengths Deployment Inventory 2.0 (SDI 2.0)

Core Strengths RQ and SDI 2.0 supports individuals and teams to discover personal and collective core strengths, underlying motivational value systems, and how to manage overdone strengths and conflict styles. The SDI 2.0 supports you to reflect on how you typically respond to conflicts, and to explore ways to deal with challenging situation and people.

Strategic planning enables organizations to examine where they are, where they want to go, and how to get there. Strategic plans are not meant to be static, and while strategic directions are critical to ensure mission alignment, today’s organizations must have adaptive mindsets and be able to adjust their plans and priorities to meet the changing needs of their stakeholders as well as environmental factors.

While there are many techniques for facilitating this process, there are two basic approaches: a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and SOAR  (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results). While both have merit, each approach will get different results.

A SWOT analysis allows an organization to looks at where they are in the present and analyzes where strengths and opportunities can be highlighted or advanced, and where weaknesses and threats can be shored up. This process leads to recommended strategic alternatives that would best serve the organization. External elements play a major factor in how strategies are developed in SWOT analyses.

SOAR is a strategy formulation and planning framework that takes an appreciative approach to engaging an organization’s stakeholders in planning for their preferred future. In contrast to a traditional SWOT analysis, which focuses on the present, SOAR enables an organization to see where they are today from a strength-based perspective, and builds on this to create a vision and aspirations for the future. Because of the appreciative stance, the approach tends to be generative, engaging, and inspiring to the participants.

Both SWOT and SOAR are valid strategic planning methodologies and have some overlaps. The difference is that while SWOT includes discussions about weaknesses and threats, SOAR embeds conversations about aspirations (who we should become) and results (what do we want to be known for and how do we measure results). In SOAR, weaknesses and threats are not ignored, but they are reframed as opportunities. Additionally, like Appreciative Inquiry, the positive stories and experiences that participants bring to the conversation are SOAR’s foundation. Through common language and inspiring stories, with SOAR, participants tend to feel more invested in the outcomes and directions of the strategic plan.

For more information about SOAR, see the Appreciative Inquiry Commons website. For more information about SWOT, see the SWOT analysis Wikipedia page.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a way of thinking, seeing, and acting for powerful, purposeful change in people and organizations. The AI approach assumes that whatever you want more of already exists in the system, and inquiry is based on the discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. Rather than focusing on problems, the AI approach starts with a very specific affirmative question about a topic of choice. This is based on the premise that the questions we ask will be the focus of our findings. When we focus on problems, we tend to find more problems. When we ask questions about the “best of what is”, we create an environment for generative conversations.

Appreciative inquiry is based on the work of David L. Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva (1984) and is still best known as methodology for generating large systems change in the organizational development world. Yet the concept of AI been adapted into many forms of inquiry and practice, such as strategic planning, leadership approaches, and coaching.

I am experienced in facilitating Appreciative Inquiry in organizational development, strategic planning, and team building processes. I embedded AI in my Masters project both as an approach and as a meta-analysis. This was published in 2009: Choosing Appreciative Conversations for Nonprofit Board Development: Using an Appreciative Inquiry Lens to Align Board Action Plans with Organizational Mission and Strategies.

As a coach and consultant, I bring an appreciative lens to all my work. To be clear, I do not ignore problems; however, I will support you in reframing your challenges from a strengths-based and solutions-oriented approach.

For more information and resources about Appreciative Inquiry, see the Appreciative Inquiry Commons website.