☕ CoffeeChat Weekly
Opportunities & Insights from Across Our Community
Hi everyone, here’s what we have for you this week:
How do you make the most of your side gig? In this week’s episode of The Everyday Leader, we hear from the Head of Talent at Big Cabal Media on how she balances her HR role and her role as coach, and the guidance she provides her team when they pursue their own side gigs.
Coaching is global, but can benefit from local context. We take a look at the International Coaching Federation’s efforts at diversifying its research.
Leaders learn in different ways. The results of our latest LinkedIn poll showcase the diversity of learning style preferences for leadership development programs.
Read on for more details…
Making a career pivot within a company, how best to approach your side gig, and how media influences how we show up as leaders
Here are a few highlights from the conversation with Temi:
Career pivots are possible inside companies: Often people associate career changes with moving to a new company. This was not the case for Temi, who decided that she wanted to move into HR while working at Rensource Energy. She had been serving as a Business Analyst when she realized she liked being able to help both the business and people on the team. Because she already had a comprehensive understanding of the business from her existing role, it was a relatively easy transition, though she did need to reach out for help and went through specific training to ensure she was fully up to speed in the HR functions.
The best side gigs are win-win for both staff and employers: Remote work and professional trends have normalized the concept of actively working on side gigs alongside a full-time role. As an HR practitioner, Temi rightfully insists that a side gig should not interfere with someone remaining fully productive in their core role. She also highlights that side gigs can even bring value to one’s primary role, in cases such as developing yourself as a leader and achieving personal goals. In her own case, she also works as a coach outside of her work with Big Cabal Media. In both her conversations with team members and with her personal clients outside of work, her goal is usually the same - to help individuals find clarity. She has found both roles very complementary.
The media influences how we show up as leaders: The media plays an important role in putting a spotlight on both good leaders and bad leaders to help shape the narrative on leadership best practices. Recently Big Cabal Media featured several cases of toxic workplaces at tech companies, which helped spark conversations and reflection around striving for better team cultures.
Coaching can benefit from local context
The reality is that most coaching research has been produced by Western institutions. The International Coaching Federation recently released a thought leadership article highlighting several interesting studies diving into the need for further research as coaching as a professional service increases in popularity globally. One such study published in March 2022 details how this type of research could be conducted in the coming years.
Leaders learn in different ways. What’s your preference?
Leadership development programs are a cornerstone of building successful careers and talent pipelines. So it’s important to understand and accommodate for a diversity of learning style preferences. In a recent poll we ran on our LinkedIn company page, there was a healthy mix of preferences across small group, 1:1 and self-led formats.