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Opportunities & Insights from Across Our Community
Hi everyone, here’s what we have for you this week:
Which are your top 3 strengths to lean on during challenging times? In this week’s episode of The Everyday Leader, Krista Davidson from Injini in South Africa shares a tool she picked up during sessions with her executive coach.
CoffeeChat offers 3 ways for companies to introduce or scale up coaching. We share a quick summary of the different types of coaching support teams and leaders can access with our professional and peer coaching networks.
Read on for more details…
Aligning on working styles with new teams, leaning on your strengths during challenges, and being intentional about making the most of hybrid work
Krista Davidson is based in South Africa. Krista is the Executive Head at Injini, Africa’s EdTech Accelerator & Think Tank, and part of the Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative (CiTi). Krista leads the team at Injini, focusing on the organisation’s business development and strategic direction. She has spent her career working in and with social impact enterprises and has a particular passion for tech startups using their innovations to positively impact accessibility and quality of education, healthcare and financial services for vulnerable and under-resourced communities.
Here are a few highlights from the conversation with Krista:
With new teams, use early and frequent sessions to align around working styles and values: In the past year, Krista has set up a new team of 8 staff to pursue a new expanded mandate at Injini, which now includes an edtech startup accelerator, ecosystem development initiatives, and a think tank. She has kicked off things by encouraging a practice of monthly 1:1’s to specifically create an open and safe space to reflect on everyone’s working relationship and share feedback. She says it provides an opportunity to be vulnerable and to also create a clean slate each month.
Identify and remind yourself of your top strengths when facing challenges or experiencing imposter syndrome: During the transition period of redefining Injini’s mandate and focus areas, Krista would sometimes doubt herself or feel anxious. At this time, she was working with an executive coach through CoffeeChat. The coach introduced a framework of identifying and leaning into her top 3 strengths, and so during challenging times, Krista found it helpful to remind herself of this list as a way to not only build confidence but to strategize on how she could overcome a particular challenge.
Be intentional about making the most of hybrid work: Krista’s entire team in based in Cape Town. While they continue to work remotely most of the time, they still have an office they can all access. To ensure there are opportunities to build team culture and strong working relationships, they have so far closely coordinated in-person working days and organized specific team-building sessions. Meanwhile, the team continues to adopt new asynchronous tools to optimize their remote work.
3 ways to experience coaching in the workplace
Here are the primary ways we have worked with companies to help build a coaching culture across their teams and build a resilient leadership talent pipeline:
1:1 Professional Coaching: Staff select their own coach from our network of certified executive coaches based on their preferences and chemistry. They can schedule 1:1 sessions flexibly as needed through the year, developing and refining new customized strategies for personal and professional growth based on their individual context.
1:1 Peer Coaching: After completing our self-led 1-hour Peer Coaching Essentials guide and quiz, participants are matched monthly with someone new at a different company in Africa at the same seniority level to conduct a two-way conversation, each person playing the role of peer coach for the other. Two-way peer coaching is a great way for managers to build coaching skills, conduct high-impact networking and discover new perspectives.
Small Group Coaching: Organize monthly group sessions facilitated by our coaches and experts on important themes arising across your team. These sessions of between 5-15 staff can also be complemented with 1:1 professional coaching sessions where individual attention is needed.