The Coaching Librarian Newsletter hits your inbox every other week. You can check out some past issues below, but only some issues get posted to the web. I keep some of the best content for email subscribers only!
What’s happening is just the latest iteration of trying to come up with a good name for a list with regular updates about what I’m up to 😂 That comes out once a month + whenever I have something exciting to share that I can’t wait to tell you about!
Train your brain to choose curiosityOnce you train your brain to lean into curiosity before it jumps to giving advice, then everything else comes more easily. When you're genuinely curious about what ideas your team member already had to solve a challenge, instead of just focused on a technique to reach an outcome, then it's a lot easier to ask open ended questions. Read more
"Why does a library leader need coaching skills as professional development?"I had a whole draft ready to go for you today about common ways to improve your coaching questions, but then someone sent in a question that preempted that! So you can look forward to a discussion of coaching questions next time! Today, though, we’re just about 3 weeks away from the deadline to register for Lead With Curiosity: Coaching skills for library leaders, so it feels pretty urgent to respond to this question: How do you advocate for the value of coaching in a way that will convince…Read more
How can you start to put some of these coaching ideas into practice?This week, I’d like to share my experience of getting started actually coaching someone else for the very first time. I’ve shared this story before here, but a lot of folks have joined since then! And it bears repeating, because a lot of library leaders share some of the same fears that I had. So I hope that this reassures you that you don’t have to wait until you feel like a fully competent coach to start practicing at least a little bit of this! I’ll drop a quick reminder here that if you…Read more
Understanding how trauma affects your team's willingness to be coachedBefore I jump into today’s newsletter, I’m super excited to share that I recently appeared on a podcast! I joined Lorene Kennard on the Librarian Linkover to talk about coaching and leading with curiosity, as well as some potentially controversial opinions about what skills I’d like to see more librarians develop these days. Here’s the direct link, or you can find it on all of the major podcast platforms. Last time, I talked about the reality that you’re most likely going to stumble several…Read more
Knock me down 9 times but I get up 10Yes, yes I am starting today with an early Cardi B reference 😂 The hardest part of developing a coaching approach to leadership is that you're going to feel knocked down over and over, but you just have to keep resetting your intentions to try again tomorrow. One of the major challenges is that you can't expect everyone to just magically open up and engage in the way you're hoping for them to respond. You'll probably get at least some resistance from employees who have good reasons to not…Read more
Effective team-building requires shared purpose and priorities. Before committing to your next team-building exercise, keep these 5 elements in mind.Read more
6 steps to help your team members (and yourself!) set and achieve goals that matter. Read more
Once you train your brain to lean into curiosity before it jumps to giving advice, then everything else comes more easily. When you're genuinely curious about what ideas your team member already had to solve a challenge, instead of just focused on a technique to reach an outcome, then it's a lot easier to ask open ended questions. Read more
Strategies for using a coaching approach as a leader when you feel like you don't have time for coaching.Read more
How using a coaching approach can help you manage situations where you may need to give some difficult feedback.Read more
These are the most common areas for improvement that I see from managers when they practice asking effective coaching questionsRead more
I had a whole draft ready to go for you today about common ways to improve your coaching questions, but then someone sent in a question that preempted that! So you can look forward to a discussion of coaching questions next time! Today, though, we’re just about 3 weeks away from the deadline to register for Lead With Curiosity: Coaching skills for library leaders, so it feels pretty urgent to respond to this question: How do you advocate for the value of coaching in a way that will convince…Read more
This week, I’d like to share my experience of getting started actually coaching someone else for the very first time. I’ve shared this story before here, but a lot of folks have joined since then! And it bears repeating, because a lot of library leaders share some of the same fears that I had. So I hope that this reassures you that you don’t have to wait until you feel like a fully competent coach to start practicing at least a little bit of this! I’ll drop a quick reminder here that if you…Read more
Before I jump into today’s newsletter, I’m super excited to share that I recently appeared on a podcast! I joined Lorene Kennard on the Librarian Linkover to talk about coaching and leading with curiosity, as well as some potentially controversial opinions about what skills I’d like to see more librarians develop these days. Here’s the direct link, or you can find it on all of the major podcast platforms. Last time, I talked about the reality that you’re most likely going to stumble several…Read more
Yes, yes I am starting today with an early Cardi B reference 😂 The hardest part of developing a coaching approach to leadership is that you're going to feel knocked down over and over, but you just have to keep resetting your intentions to try again tomorrow. One of the major challenges is that you can't expect everyone to just magically open up and engage in the way you're hoping for them to respond. You'll probably get at least some resistance from employees who have good reasons to not…Read more