Someone on your team stops by with a problem. You know the answer, so you give it. It works, and it feels like leadership. Do that enough times and you have quietly trained your staff to bring their problems to you instead of building the capacity to work them out themselves. In a nonprofit, where everyone is already stretched, that reflex concentrates the thinking at the top and leaves your people waiting on you. You have created a bottleneck and most likely feel the burden of that.
There is another way to lead the conversation. A coach approach starts with a different move: ask before you answer. Get curious about how the other person is seeing the situation. Stay quiet a beat longer than feels comfortable, and let them do the thinking. Silence in these conversations is often where the work happens.
This is a learnable skill, and it does not ask you to become a different kind of leader. It asks you to set down the problem-solver hat often enough that the people around you grow.
On Wednesday, September 9, from 12:00 to 1:00 PM Eastern, SPARC is hosting a free, practical introduction for Vermont nonprofit leaders: how to take off the problem-solver hat and use a coach approach with the people you lead. One hour, concrete skills you can use the same afternoon.
Register Here
If the hour leaves you wanting more, there is a path, and a reason to take it now. SPARC is the exclusive U.S. partner of the Academy of Executive Coaching, and we bring its globally recognized, triple-accredited training to Vermont. The two-day Coaching Skills Certificate is a practice-first foundation, roughly 70% live coaching practice rather than lecture, with the next cohort on October 8 and 9. The six-month Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching is the deeper, credential-bearing next step, with cohorts starting this fall and again in the spring. As a special for Common Good Vermont members, we are offering 25% (code SPARC2FIVE) both programs on these cohorts.
We are based in Randolph, and we built this work here on purpose. If something in this resonates, we would love to have you in the room on September 9.
Shannon O’Neill, Ph.D., PCC · Co-Founder, SPARC Executive Development and Consulting