The past two months have flown by!
Big personal news first: I have officially submitted my resignation as a library faculty member at the University of West Georgia, and my house is up for sale. I’m taking a gigantic leap into the unknown, creating a rewarding worklife for myself as a coach, freelance instructor, and consultant.
In May, I had an amazing time teaching Coaching as a Leadership Skill at the Library Juice Academy. Working with a group of leaders who care deeply about creating a more supportive and empowering environment for their team was incredibly energizing.
That inspired me to create a more intensive group training program, Developing a Coaching Approach to Leadership. We’ll meet via Zoom for 75 minutes twice a month. There will be some overlap between the content in the Library Juice course and this program, adjusted based on what background knowledge the participants bring with them, but with a lot more time to explore the topics in greater detail.
Discussing the core skills and mindset that go into effective coaching is useful, but I know from experience that going from talking about it to actually enacting a coaching approach can feel like a giant scary leap, and then how do you know whether you’re doing it right? This format provides space for participants to actually put these ideas into practice in a small group setting, practicing coaching one another to get feedback on what you’re doing well and how you could improve.
I’m looking for 5-8 participants who would like to join me. We’ll start around Oct 1, give or take a week based on the scheduling that works best for all participants. *Late October update: here’s the link for all of the details on the next cohort of this program!
In June, I massively shifted gears to teach Beyond Libraries: Translating Your Skills to Other Contexts. Overall, that went really well! I’m exploring opportunities to build on that topic, as well. Stay tuned for more on that!
Coming up in August, I’m scheduled to teach another new course, Strategizing the Promotion (and Tenure) Dossier, again on Library Juice Academy. The ideal time to take this course is 1-3 years before you’re actually ready to submit a dossier – after you’ve settled in enough to have a good sense of your department’s culture, but while you still have plenty of time to be strategic about checking off those criteria that will make or break your application for promotion / tenure.
In addition to all of these major and professional updates, after letting it grow out since last fall, I chopped my hair off again last week!
