“Diving more fully into your Mission i.e. living the culture that you have determined will best serve your goals”

Most organizations have spent considerable resources developing their mission, vision, values and strategic plan. These are the building blocks of success and represent the culture that you believe will best serve your business goals. Meeting the vision successfully means that everything that happens in your organization – the culture-needs to have a hard focus on that work. Rather than seeing the need to change your culture Growing Leadership helps you and your teams dive deeper into what that Mission, Vision Values and Strategic Plan would need to look like, act like, relate like, move like if it were truly to guide your success. We establish shared metrics and through group and regular individual /small group coaching move the metrics forward.

What the leaders of the organization appreciate, appreciates. We help you notice where you are looking and help you bring your actions more clearly into alignment with what you say you want to do. We help you notice where your relationships are working, with teams, customers, partners, suppliers and make the changes necessary when they are not working. We challenge, nudge and bring the experience to coach your teams who have the courage to get the skills to have the crucial conversations that will take your organization forward. We help you turn up the volume on your curiosity – the skill that most leadership gurus state unequivocally is the key to forwarding action , building confidence, saving time, and generating the creativity and energy that is demonstrated by teams who feel they are flourishing .

Teams, people, organizations drift off course from time to time. We forget what it was that we were meant to be doing together; we forget to be kind, we get lost in worry and fear. Coaching can help you remember, get clear, own the mess and make choices; take action to get back on purpose, to move on, to move forward, to resolve, to make a difference. Mediation builds on a common view of the future, shared ownership of how you got in to the mess and calling forth each person to use their strengths, goals, self in service of the mission/relationship/the future. Our unique ABC approach – (building Authenticity, Boldness and Curiosity) will be used to help the team, the leaders and individuals sustain the changes they choose to make during the mediation.

We can help you develop a mediation process that serves your goals directly through Growing Leadership or for those who access their EFAP through Homewood Human Solutions we can be requested as your mediator through them.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is where up to 70% of your impact and success as a leader and an organization lies – great news – you can grow it once you understand your unique EQ profile and then where to put your effort to broaden your capacity to use more of your EQ in service of your goals.

The evidence that being able to grow the emotional intelligence of an organization reverberates with success on the bottom line is compelling and well documented. Daniel Goleman the thought leader in emotional intelligence reflects leadership research when he states “Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.” He goes on to state “Leaders need an inner focus to be aware of their own feelings, values and intuitions, and to manage themselves well. A focus on others allows a leader to read people well, which is key to managing relationships – the art of leading itself. And an outer focus lets a leader understand the larger forces and systems that she must navigate and to determine the best strategy going forward. [Every leader needs to cultivate this triad of awareness, in abundance and in the proper balance, because a failure to focus inward leaves you rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided]”.

Using the Learning In Action EQ Profile, a tool with high-level statistical validity and wide spread use with a diverse group of people, including adult men and women of different age groups (from under 25 to 70), different employment status, different socioeconomic status, and different geographic regions across North America gives each user specific examples related to their individual capacity to be aware of their emotions and consciously use them, to be aware of others emotions, and the ability to manage themselves effectively in relationships. This tool provides individuals with a profile of their basic internalized relational map that has been developed through life experience from infancy to this moment. The report profiles an individual’s relationship strategies in different difficult contexts.

Rather than self-report about what a person thinks they would do, this tool places individuals in a real situation as they watch several video segments where someone is talking directly to them. They are asked to track their own experience as they watch the video and attend to what the individual talking to them must be experiencing. Individuals are then given about fifty words and statements for each video segment and are asked to rate the degree the word or statement fits their actual experience now.

An EQ Profile report is created based upon their reported experience. The tool provides a “snapshot view” of how an individual uses his or her emotional competence in various stressful situations. The analysis will support each leader in building awareness of where their emotional intelligence is currently serving them and where building new strengths would be more impactful and effective. Working with the report and the analysis provided by Growing Leadership each person can then use the profile independently or in conjunction with personal coaching to deepen their personal understanding of their relating styles and how to make effective choices in using each style, to notice where habits get in their way and be supported and celebrated in making new habits and responses. Coaching will provide specific practices that have been demonstrated to strengthen individual components of an individual’s EQ.

This unique partnership between Growing Leadership and Iron Works Art Centre in Clarksburg (Ironworksartcentre.com) provides the opportunity for teams to deepen their connection to their work and each other and build their capacity for communicating in a challenging environment. TEAM FIRE mirrors today’s workplace – teams needing to be successful and achieve a shared purpose ( meet the bottom line in terms of service or finances) through independent, interdependent and dependent working relationships, timelines and defined expectations of quality. Teams will create and weld a team project. Each person will learn to safely work in the welding shop using chop saws, anvils, hammers and the welding torch. Throughout this process they will also notice, reflect on and re-design their capacity as a team to be mindful of their emotional intelligence, internal, external and outer focus and how each choice they make serves or does not serve their goals and those of the team.

TEAM FIRE challenges and inspires teams. It is housed at Iron Works Gallery and Studio in Clarksburg owned and operated by Michael Pocock artist. Iron Works provides teams with a well equipped iron working studio with comfortable meeting space, access to beautiful outdoor spaces along the Beaver River, Savory meals and snacks. A well planned agenda facilitated by Michael Pocock and Pat Morden brings together the elements and the experiences that help teams do the hard focused work of moving from good to great.

Michael and Pat will help each team design an effective workshop and follow up coaching that will support and sustain the growth and success of the team.