Barbary Cook

1 on 1 Coaching

My coaching approach locates you in the center of your organizational system. I support you to figure out how you can become a better analyst of what’s going on around you, your role in it, and how you can lead past calcified organizational values, habits and practices.

A diagram describing the coaching process with 5 circles outlined in dark green. Each circle is connected by a fine pink line, so that they are all connected in a pentagon. There is text inside each circle. The first says understand yourself, the second says see the system, the third says use your power and agency, the fourth says act more effectively, and the fifth says make an impact and lead change.
Coaching change cycle

Using my training in adaptive leadership and organizational transformation, I create a safe, private space for reflection where you can learn techniques for seeing organizational dynamics more clearly, becoming more aware of your actions and reactions in the group, and experimenting with new ways of behaving that break patterns and lead to new creativity.

Newly blossoming dark pink Eastern redbud in early spring.
Blooming Eastern Redbud branch

After working together, you can expect to:

  • See your organization and your role within it more clearly. You’ll better understand the dynamics shaping your leadership and the choices available to you.
  • Lead with greater confidence and intention. You’ll make decisions more deliberately, rather than simply reacting to events around you.
  • Handle complexity without becoming overwhelmed by it. Instead of needing all the answers, you’ll become more comfortable finding the next useful move.
  • Build stronger relationships across difference. You’ll become more skilled at working with conflict, power and competing perspectives.
  • Develop your own way of leading. The goal isn’t to become the kind of leader I think you should be. It’s to become more fully yourself, with greater clarity, agency and confidence.

I give deep, sustained support to coaching clients. I offer honesty, love and challenge, wisdom from my own experiences of what you’re going through, and a deep passion about change and resistance to change. Oh, and a sense of humor. Because you know, groups are wonderful and exhausting!

I work with senior leaders who have formal authority but who discover that they have less room to maneuver at the top than they expected. They find that figuring out what’s going on in the organization as a whole somehow gets harder when you’re running the show. I also work with middle-level team members who are on the cusp of senior leadership. I love this period of change, and supporting them to step into their agency and power as they navigate the organizational system in a new way.

I center questions of power and identity in all of my work, coaching included. Together we can explore how power dynamics are affecting your degree of influence in the group system.

Sometimes, I step onto the dance floor with you. Traditionally, coaches ask questions but don’t offer advice. Together you and I will decide where the boundaries of listening, questioning and answering should lie. My practice has evolved to include offering my own insights, experience and guidance.

Finally, I’m practical. I support you to experiment with change, reflect on your experiments, and keep on moving forward with the next imperfect step. I am not waiting to become a perfect person to act, and nor should you. Over time, the goal is to become better at seeing what’s happening, understanding your part in it, and finding the next move you should take.