If you want to invest in leadership training right now, don’t. Invest in group coaching instead.
There is no playbook for this moment. As we continue to navigate a time of trauma, uncertainty and change, leaders are facing an unprecedented call to manage their own stress, adapt to a constantly changing landscape, and support their teams (and families, and communities) with empathy and compassion. And, as we head into more months of lockdown in the deep of winter, we are facing a potential crisis of loneliness and mental health.
Leadership support and community building are needed now more than ever. One investment that you can make in your leaders today is to repurpose you leadership development budget to more coaching and, in particular, group coaching.
What is group coaching?
As popular as group coaching has become, there isn’t really one singular definition of what group coaching is, but the International Coaching Federation (ICF), gives us a good place to start:
Group coaching, is a collection of potentially unconnected individuals who are looking to learn in a group environment. The focus typically, though not exclusively, is on personal development and growth.
Group coaching is NOT team coaching (I’ll talk about that in a future blog), which “typically involves all members of a team — project, department or function. In other words, the individuals share a common goal and task and are usually looking for someone to help with the process of working together more effectively to achieve that outcome.”
To sum it up, group coaching is coaching for a group of people that aren’t necessarily on the same team, nor do they necessarily have a common goal or task to achieve other than a shared commitment to growth and learning as people and leaders. A great group coaching program will find solid points of connection around group members’ current challenges and future development goals and build a program that brings this collection of disparate individuals on learning journey of shared meaning.
A great group coaching program will find solid points of connection around group members’ current challenges and future development goals and build a program that brings this collection of disparate individuals on learning journey of shared meaning.
The format of a group coaching session can take many shapes — an entire session might be spent coaching one person, or it might be spent coaching all team members around a certain topic. The coach and facilitator may do all the coaching, or may steadily train the group members to act as coaches to one another and provide feedback along the way. The impact of coaching happens when the building of trust leads to shared vulnerability, support and learning. The magic of group coaching happens when a participant says, “I thought I was the only one experiencing this challenge. I now not only feel like I’m not alone, but I’ve come up with five different ways for solving it.”
Ultimately, group coaching is about connection, community, and deep relationship building that transpire on a shared path of learning and growth and the role of a lead coach and facilitator is to create the space and condition for that to happen (which as a coach is quite the exercise in letting go of one’s ego).
The magic of group coaching happens when a participant says, “I thought I was the only one experiencing this challenge. I now not only feel like I’m not alone, but I’ve come up with five different ways for solving it.”
What are the benefits of group coaching?
Group coaching helps participants:
- Develop resilience and strategies for managing stress
- Develop your capacity to problem solve and coach others, which will have ripple effects across your organization
- Develop the mindsets and skills to lead with purpose, clarity and creativity during this moment of change and uncertainty
- Develop skills to create psychologically safe, inclusive teams, even in a virtual setting
- Build a supportive network of peers
For organizations, group coaching provides an opportunity to scale the impact of coaching in a cost-conscious way, while also developing internal coaching skills, increasing organizational awareness, and building collaborative cross-department relationships.
Why is group coaching more valuable than training right now?
Here’s the thing. I’ve been facilitating leadership development trainings and workshops for over 15 years. I am their biggest fan and biggest critic. So, yes the title of this article is slightly facetious — I do believe that organizations need to invest in developing leaders at every level and “training” is an important pillar of a comprehensive leadership development strategy, but it has it’s limitations, particularly in a world that is constantly changing and in which there is no real playbook for success.
A few years from now, when some smart minds have looked back on these times and codified what we’ve learned, perhaps we can create a really great two hour training module with that title, but right now we’re doing the learning…and coaching is all about enabling leaders to strengthen their resilience and learn, adapt and grow in real time.
Before March 2020, no one was developing a training program called, “How do you lead an effective globally dispersed, 100% remote team, in the midst of a global lockdown and health crisis, when working parents are stretched so thin they’re transparent and all anyone really wants is to grab an afterwork cocktail with their colleagues but has to do it virtually in a zoom call of twenty people that is so awkward everyone wants to cry?”
A few years from now, when some smart minds have looked back on these times and codified what we’ve learned, perhaps we can create a really great two hour training module with that title, but right now we’re doing the learning…and coaching is all about enabling leaders to strengthen their resilience and learn, adapt and grow in real time.
Group coaching takes this to the next level by providing a community of support and solidarity.
If you are in the learning and development space, you’ve probably heard the term “culture of coaching” batted around a lot lately. If you really want to see what a culture of coaching looks like, then invest in a carefully tailored group coaching program.
Meghan O. Mahoney is a leadership coach and consultant with M2 Leadership and the host of the What Got You Here? Podcast. Sign up below to subscribe to future posts or reach out directly to learn more about our offerings and inquire about how we can support you in creating a culture of inclusive, human-centered leadership at your organization.
