Yes, yes I am starting today with an early Cardi B reference 😂
The hardest part of developing a coaching approach to leadership is that you're going to feel knocked down over and over, but you just have to keep resetting your intentions to try again tomorrow.
One of the major challenges is that you can't expect everyone to just magically open up and engage in the way you're hoping for them to respond. You'll probably get at least some resistance from employees who have good reasons to not feel safe opening up to their boss about what they're struggling with or who don't trust that it's worth taking initiative. (More on this next time!)
And, of course, the other major challenge is that changing your own habits takes time. You've spent most of your life getting the message that you demonstrate your competence by having the right answers, so you're probably going to trip your own self at least a few times! Shifting your mindset to value asking the right questions, instead of having the right answers, takes time and effort.
I don't know about you personally, but most of the librarians I know have at least some perfectionist tendencies. And that can be the worst saboteur of your success out there, because it tells you that you failed the very first time that you stumble. And that's a lie.
To illustrate how harmful this can be, I'm jumping off into a tangent here... I started smoking cigarettes when I was 16. The first time I quit was when I was 21. I didn't actually intend to quit that time, but I got bronchitis so bad that smoking hurt worse than the withdrawals. And I did great for a couple of months! And then, I went out into a setting that I associated with smoking and gave in. After asking for a cigarette from a friend a couple of times, I declared myself a failure and just bought my own pack.
Lather rinse repeat over and over again through most of my 20s.
I didn't actually succeed in quitting until I told the perfectionism to shove off, and gave myself permission to stumble. I gave myself permission to give in when I had a little too much to drink, or when I was under an abnormal level of stress, or encountered any of my other regular triggers. I even gave myself permission to buy a pack with the full expectation of throwing away whatever was left the next morning, instead of finishing the pack because it was there.
I stayed in that space for a few years. And then, in December 2011, I finally shifted my view of myself from "quitting" to "former smoker." I was still in my first year as a librarian, and my library had a big holiday party with a band and free wine... When that wrapped up, I went out to a local bar with some colleagues, and wound up asking for a cigarette from one of them. I took like 2 puffs and had to put it out because it felt so bad. And that kind of blew my mind 🤯
So why is this relevant?
First, giving myself permission to stumble made all of the difference in my success. That's why I love the idea of setting intentions instead of strict action plans.
Second, consciously knowing the reasons to change my behavior wasn't enough to override the psychological triggers that caused me to reach for a cigarette. And we have graphic medical evidence of just how toxic smoking cigarettes really is!
Consciously knowing why your team will benefit from a coaching approach won't be enough to override your knee-jerk response of giving advice when your psychological triggers cause you to reach for that old comfortable behavior. And that's ok, as long as you recognize it and reset your intentions as soon as you have the capacity to do so.
Third, I didn't realize that I had actually become a former smoker until long after I quit smoking for the last time. I don't remember the last time that I enjoyed a cigarette or the last time that I set an intention to not smoke. I only remember the day when I realized that I had completely changed my relationship to cigarettes.
You probably won't feel like you've fully become a coaching leader until long after you've shifted your relationships with your team members.
And that last point kind of sucks, because I know I like to have some clear marker to indicate that I've succeeded!
But even while you're in the in-between liminal phase of adopting a coaching approach and stumbling a lot, your efforts will add up to make a big difference for your team.
Even if all you do for the next few months is focus on shifting your own mindset to be more curious instead of rushing to judgment, that's going to show up in how you interact with your team members.
So set your own intentions and small markers of success that you can celebrate along the way to keep you motivated.
This challenge was the reason I created my small group program:
Leading With Curiosity: Coaching Skills for Library Leaders
In May 2023, I taught Coaching as a Leadership Skill at LJA for the very first time. I've been teaching there since 2016, and that was the absolute best experience I had ever had there. The participants were active and engaged and cared so much about building a healthier culture in their libraries.
But.
Four weeks is not much time to make this big of a change in how you interact with your team.
And the fully asychronous format didn't allow for live practice sessions or the sort of conversations that we have over Zoom about applying this approach in each person's context.
So I put together a pilot program with four participants, one of whom had been in that first course at LJA. (I do offer a discount for those who completed the LJA course first!)
I've adjusted the format a little bit since then, going from 12 sessions to just 10 sessions over 5 months. And I've played around with the name.
And now, based on feedback from past participants, I'm trying another new format, frontloading the new skills into a one week intensive "jumpstart" program in July, and then holding twice monthly meetings in August through October to provide ongoing support. And this format makes a lower price point more manageable.
I'm offering two date/time options for the summer jumpstart program to accommodate both North American and UK working hours:
July 21-24 @ 6pm London / 1pm Eastern US / 10am Pacific
July 28-31 @ 2pm London / 9am Eastern US / 6am Pacific
The ongoing support meetings will be scheduled based on a poll of participants in each group, accommodating the different time zones.
Registration is officially open, with the earlybird deadline for payment on May 15.
If you have any questions about the program, please let me know! Either respond to this email or schedule a video chat.
If you know anyone who might be interested, please help me spread the word!
And, of course, you can also opt out of any more promos about this Summer Intensive program.
Total side note:
What do you think of the new design? Frustration with one tiny little setting on my webpage led me to install a different theme, which then led me down the path of a whole new design and color scheme for the website, and then updating my template here to match 😂