4
April 2016
Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau
From the President
Here we are already starting the second quarter of the year. Where did the first
one go!? As like many of you, I made some new year’s resolutions and have let what
I felt was important to me fall by the wayside. We often hear of the importance
of having a “partner” for exercise . . . an ally when we want to achieve something
significant. The reason being? They hold us accountable.
Many of you know that we work very closely with the Kansas Leadership Center
Jeanine McKenna
President & CEO
(KLC), and that they have incorporated coaching into their curriculum. More often
than not, when you finish a program of theirs who get six or more hours with a coach
to help hold you accountable on practicing what you learned through your KLC
experience.
I believe their approach to coaching would be highly beneficial to you our
members, so one of my resolutions this year was to work towards receiving my
coaching certification through the International Coach Federation (ICF) using KLC
principals.
So what is coaching? According to KLC, their approach to coaching is to
encourage individuals to adopt an experimental approach to understanding
leadership situations and support individuals in building their capacity to take
smart risks in service of something they care about. Leadership Coaches support
more frequent and effective acts of leadership at all levels in business, organization,
institution and communities.
Coaching is not facilitating, because facilitating is a process of moving a group
through specific content to a desired outcome. It is not mentoring, because
mentoring is imparting knowledge to another to guide them based on their own
personal experiences, and it is not counseling or consulting. I think KLC says it
best by stating, “Leadership coaching concentrates on helping people become who
they need to be and do what they need to do to successfully energize others to make
progress on big challenges.”
So now I need your help. In order to move forward in getting my credentials, I
need to provide at least fifty (50) hours of coaching using ICF competencies and KLC
leadership framework. Each coaching section logged must be a minimum of thirty
minutes long, and I will do this pro bono for our Chamber members.
I have used a coach at various stages in my career and I can attest to the
usefulness of having someone holding me accountable and making progress
on issues that I care about. Get back to achieving your new year’s resolutions