The Coach's Craft: Powerful Practices to Support School Leaders

Coaching leaders demands high-level skills that challenge even the most knowledgeable and experienced coaches. Grow in confidence and competence in the coaching role by exploring the foundation of highly effective coaching, attributes of successful coaches, and strategies for coaching. Define effective coaching using an Innovation Configuration map, learn new ways of thinking that lead to more effective coaching, and understand how to develop a coach's wisdom. From describing your philosophy of coaching to learning the language of coaching, hone your skills to support school leaders' critical work. Learn to create a purposeful, focused action plan. Establish goals, and design strategies to achieve them. Take steps to develop trust, observation skills, listening and questioning techniques, and use the self-assessment tool to uncover your own strengths along with those of the individuals you are coaching. Each chapter offers questions for reflection, strategies and investigations, and suggested readings.