I think everyone at YPC needs a leadership coach

I think everyone at YPC needs a leadership coach, someone whose role is to support them. Leadership development is something that leads definitely do for everyone, but I think there may be more in-depth work that a dedicated coach can do. For example, coaches would facilitate leadership development reviews. Coaches could also all meet together to debrief with one another.

My leadership coach, for example, could be Josh Kwan, even though I get support from so many other people, too! Josh’s volunteer time is pretty much all about coaching me which allows him to really focus.

I brought this idea up in the SoFA facebook group and @TedRau had this comment

sounds like a great plan. Like a buddy. Leadership Coach has a bit of a top-down flavor to me - like I wouldn’t want to have a Leadership Coach unless it’s my own idea :wink:

Ted, I’m thinking you definitey have a point here! Maybe what we actually need is a menu of different strategies for growing as a leader and having a leadership coach is one of those menu options. Other examples menu items: attending trainings, joining a community of practice, reading a book. Each strategy can be associated with more specific supports like here’s a list of trainings offered by our partners or these are recommended books or here’s how you can identify a leadership coach and what that relationship could look like. This way people can be thoughtful about what specific strategies they’ll try out.

I love menu of options over prescriptions!