Coaching
What is executive coaching?
Executive coaching is, simply, working towards goals that you have defined for your professional life, alongside a trained expert in coaching conversations.
A great coach will listen to you better than you've ever been listened to before; ask you challenging questions to make you think deeply about how you'd like to change; they will help you to challenge any assumptions that are holding you back.
A great executive coach supports you to thrive in your work, using tools like the Integrative Enneagram to aid your reflection.
“James supported me in a coaching capacity as part of my leadership development which I found incredibly valuable. Whilst he has the ability to dive deep into the ‘why’, what I valued most was his focus on ‘…so what?’. He has a knack of helping you move forwards vs sitting and contemplating on the past. He does this through thinking about longer term future direction as well as specifically what can you do today, tomorrow to take steps forwards immediately. He leverages a mix of your own self discovery, probing and using frameworks to help you reflect on yourself in a manner that then also invites action. He was excellent at helping me to reframe how I look at myself, my context and my future - this included better self acceptance and instead of a focus on how to change, looking at how to leverage core existing qualities and traits. Lastly, his overall style invites dialogue: it’s easy to build a rapport and trust with him and at the same time, he won’t go easy on you and makes you put in the work. I would highly recommend James, especially if you're looking at a more ‘so what?’ and actionable set of outcomes from each session and the work overall.”
“James is a wonderful coach and working with him helped me grow professionally and mature as a leader. He builds a trusting, safe environment which encourages nuanced reflection, and is adept at bringing out new insights and perspectives, as well as practical exercises and frameworks to help apply learning to day to day work. Thoroughly recommended.”
James is an EMCC accredited Coach/Mentor at Senior Practitioner level. This means you can have greater certainty in his competence and ability as a coach, and his commitment to continuous professional development.
James is an accredited iEQ9 Integrative Enneagram practitioner. The Enneagram is a psychometric profiling tool of exceptional power and depth, enabling deep reflection into what drives us to succeed, why we behave the way that we do, and crucially, what to do about it.
We are a member of the Association For Coaching, one of the leading professional bodies dedicated to promoting best practice and raising the awareness and standards of coaching, worldwide.
Click below to see a typical executive coaching programme from Bridgford Consultancy.
What is Team Coaching?
We love Team Coaching. This is when you work with an intact team, facilitating them to build a vision and a strategy, innovate, improve ways of working, engage with other teams and stakeholders, to achieve far more working together than they could ever do individually.
In Team Coaching, one or more coaches may work with the team as a whole, as well as coaching the leader and team members individually on goals that are specific to each person.
What can Team Coaching help with?
Strengthening trust and relationships
Vision and purpose - defining, or re-defining
Designing and implementing a strategy
Values and behaviours - ways of working
Hybrid working - how best to employ hybrid
Improving processes and efficiency
Building resilience and maintaining wellbeing
What is Group Coaching?
Group Coaching is different to Team Coaching: rather than an intact team that works together, instead a group of individuals meet with a coach to work together on their own personal goals. Often there'll be a theme that unites them: new leaders, graduates or apprentices, returning to work.
The power of Group Coaching lies in the support and shared wisdom of the group; hearing others' perspectives and experiences helps individuals shift their thinking on their own objectives, bringing fresh ideas and raising confidence.
What can Group Coaching help with?
Managing organisational change
Leadership development
Career transition and development
Building internal networks
Mutual support for project work
Working towards professional qualifications
A typical executive coaching programme
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Initial, complimentary, chemistry call to determine if the coach and coachee are a good ‘fit’ – this is essential as research shows that a large proportion of the success of a coaching intervention is down to the strength of the relationship between the parties.
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Programme includes initial tripartite meeting with participant and their line manager to clearly understand the business context and to set stretch goals for the coaching, ensuring all three parties are aligned to what’s required.
We recommend using an iEQ9 Integrative Enneagram Professional Report to support the coaching process.
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We recommend a minimum of six hour-long sessions, with a review point after four sessions. We feel it is essential to be flexible here and assess the appropriate number of sessions according to the specific needs of the client; hence we do not offer ‘off the shelf’ programmes but rather tailor each programme.
Coaching sessions can be delivered online or face-to-face, and may cover:
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Creating a mission and purpose for your organisation or division;
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Understanding self and in relation to others;
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Defining your optimum leadership style and your organisation/division at the moment and in the future;
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Considering various methods for motivating teams towards optimum performance;
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Forging and strengthening relationships across multiple stakeholders, whether internally or externally, including a constellations stakeholder analysis.
Executive coaching delivered through a positive psychology lens ensures a focus on optimum performance, balance and wellbeing, inspiring others through mission and purpose, and protecting against the very real dangers of burnout at senior leader level.
Your coach provides an independent, impartial, confidential sounding-board for the participant to self-reflect and understand key areas of their own development. Once these areas have been identified there will be an option to explore literature on specific topic areas, discuss and apply them to the business.
For leadership teams, we recommend the option for PROPHET profiling to best understand the individual’s strengths and preferences in a senior team role. We are accredited practitioners to commission and analyse PROPHET reports for individuals and teams. A report includes analysis of Business Motivations, Decision-making Styles, Inclinations towards critical business activities and a Heat Map of Role preferences against a typical business cycle. This will also identify areas for further development, and can be used as a reference point throughout the programme.