From Introspection to Team Development to Building a Vision Your Team Can Get Behind: How I Coach Leaders
Every January, I see the same pattern play out.
Talented leaders come into the New Year energized but unsettled. They know something needs to change — how they lead, how their team functions, how their organization operates — however they can’t quite name what or how. They’ve read the books. They’ve attended the workshops. They’ve set goals before. And yet, the same friction shows up again.
This is exactly why I coach the way I do.
While I respect the International Coaching Federation (ICF) principles on reflective inquiry, my approach blends reflection with training, foundational knowledge, and practical application. Most leaders don’t arrive in their leadership roles with formal preparation in how motivation truly works, how teams develop over time, or how to lead through the layered complexity of change. And frankly, why would they?
My coaching assumes that leadership is learned, not assumed (or only discovered from “within”). I bring proven theory and behavioral science into the work, then translate it into tactical, usable practices leaders can apply immediately. Just as importantly, I help leaders find their pace: when to push, when to support, and when to step back.
Usually over the course of six sessions, I intentionally move leaders through three distinct phases:
Introspection & Self-Alignment
Team & Staff Development
Managing Change & Creating Strategic Vision
It is a crescendoing effect. We move from introspection and self-alignment, to employee and team development, and ultimately into shaping a clear, compelling vision for the work itself — one the team can understand, believe in, and rally behind.
Phase One: Start With the Leader
The first sessions of coaching are about introspection.
In coaching sessions with leaders, this means getting very specific about how they show up — not how they intend to, but how they are actually experienced. Tools like the Johari Window help us surface blind spots, untested assumptions, and patterns that sit outside a leader’s awareness but quietly shape trust, communication, and decision-making.
We also spend time on energy audits — because leadership is not just cognitive, it’s physiological and emotional. Where does your energy consistently get restored? Where does it leak? Who and what drains it? Leaders quickly discover that unmanaged energy shows up as impatience, shortened communication, or reactive decision-making—often without realizing it.
Layered into this work is Jim Collins’ Level 5 Leadership framework. We examine the balance between humility and resolve.
Together, these conversations help leaders see:
How their leadership presence expands or constrains others
Where blind spots are creating unintended friction
How energy management directly impacts team performance
When humility needs to be paired with firmer resolve
Phase Two: Develop the Team
Once a leader has stronger self-awareness, we shift to people development.
Most leaders are promoted because they’re good operators — not because they were trained to develop others. Coaching helps leaders learn how to:
Using our Greenthumb Leadership model, leaders learn how employees develop over time — seedlings, adolescents, disgruntled, and mature contributors — and what each stage truly needs to grow. Each phase comes with different motivations, fears, and friction points, and leadership effectiveness depends on responding appropriately rather than defaulting to one style.
Leaders also learn to diagnose team dynamics using Tuckman’s Team Development model — understanding when a group is forming, storming, norming, or performing, and adjusting expectations, communication, and support accordingly.
We also introduce our CAMP Method of Motivation (Competency, Autonomy, Meaningfulness, and Progress). Leaders first identify which of these intrinsic motivators most strongly drive their own engagement and fulfillment. Then, they learn how to diagnose what motivates each team member and intentionally design work, feedback, and expectations around those drivers.
Adjust leadership style instead of defaulting to one approach
Balance high support with high standards
Stop carrying work that should be owned by others
This is where many leaders experience relief. They begin to see that their role isn’t to do everything — it’s to build competency, capability and commitment around them.
Phase Three: Treat Your Role Like a Mini-Business Unit
By about session four, I ask the question: “If your department were its own business, how would you run it?”
This is the moment leadership shifts from reactive to strategic — from cog in the system to owner of the work.
Instead of managing tasks and putting out fires, leaders begin to think like entrepreneurs:
What is the purpose of this division?
Where are we actually going — not just surviving toward?
What must we be excellent at to deliver on our mission?
What is no longer working that we’ve been tolerating?
From there, we do something many organizations avoid: we name the dissatisfaction with the status quo. Not to assign blame—but to create clarity. If there isn’t enough tension with how things currently operate, there’s no real reason to change. Comfort sustains mediocrity.
Once that case for change is clear, we begin to develop the individual's vision for their section of work:
Strategic pillars that hold up the future state
Clear goals that make progress measurable
First steps that build momentum without triggering unnecessary resistance
This is where leaders stop talking about change and start leading it. Not through edicts or urgency alone, but through clear direction, repeated communication, and visible ownership of the work.
A New Year Invitation
If you’re heading into this New Year sensing that:
Your role has outgrown your current tools
Your team needs clarity, not more urgency
You’re ready to move from survival to strategic leadership
…then coaching might be the right next step.
My work is about helping leaders build the internal clarity, team capability, and strategic vision needed to lead well.
If this approach resonates, let’s talk.
