What's Your Superpower as a Group and Team Coach? | By Jennifer Britton MES, CHRP, CPT, PCC

Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as What's Your Superpower as a Group and Team Coach? | By Jennifer Britton MES, CHRP, CPT, PCC

You probably already know how valuable group and team coaching can be in terms of scaling your impact and results. Whether you want to boost your earnings per hour or work with more clients, group and team coaching are often part of the trajectory of the growth of a coach.

I’ve been training group coaches since 2006 through the Group Coaching Essentials program, and team coaches since 2010 in our Group and Team Coaching Intensive. I’ve also had the privilege to connect with thousands of coaches, both through our programs at Potentials Realized and in speaking to groups as part of ICF Chapters or Coaching organizations. And in working with so many coaches, I’ve seen the varied ways they embody the ICF Core Coaching Competencies: our styles influence the many ways we show up to support our clients, including activating our own coaching strengths.

Uncover Your Superpowers

As many coaches appreciate, our strengths are our go-tos in any conversation, magnified in times of pressure, stress and urgency.

So it’s valuable to explore your natural superpowers as a group and team coach.

With that in mind, I created the Team and Group Coaching Superpower Quiz ¹ in the summer of 2022. My goal is to have 25,000 coaches participate in this quiz during 2023, so please share with your colleagues and friends who are coaches.

Let’s take a look at the five main superpowers that group and team coaches may lean into. These are:

The Spiral Lighthouse™ coach
The Grounded Labyrinth™ coach
The Catalytic Firecracker™ coach
The Ecosystem Connector™ coach
The Creative Toolmaster™ coach

The innate strengths of each of these approaches will influence the way we coach—how we show up, our presence, the tools and approaches we may gravitate to and the different types of the questions we may ask. In the ACTIVATE Your Superpowers Program, we explore these in much greater depth.

While most coaches have a primary superpower, they are also likely to have a close secondary, and even tertiary, approach. And part of the growth of the coach is in expanding our range. So at some point we may become well versed in all five of these approaches.

A Closer Look at the 5 Superpowers

1) The Spiral Lighthouse

The Spiral Lighthouse coach’s strength is building trust, safety and connection.

This coach is all about digging into different layers of the coaching terrain. Like a safe harbour, the Spiral Lighthouse coach may have a natural affinity for group coaching and exploring different perspectives.

From their superpower perspective, the Spiral Lighthouse coach may ask questions such as:

What are different ways of looking at that?
What do you notice about different perspectives around that issue?

2) The Grounded Labyrinth

The Grounded Labyrinth coach has a super-strength around mindfulness and groundedness.

They create a “pause” for coaching clients to notice layers by incorporating techniques like meditations, somatic approaches including embodiment, mindfulness techniques and other body-centred approaches.

Some of the questions they may ask are:

What’s going to get you grounded?
What’s going to create a pause around this?
What can we do to slow things down so we can speed it up?

3) The Catalytic Firecracker

The Catalytic Firecracker coach is all about action and being bold.

Their natural affinity may be to spark people into action and insight. As a catalyst, they want to get things moving.

From their superpower perspective, the Catalytic Firecracker may ask questions such as:

What’s going to get you started?
What’s bold?
What will help to accelerate your work?

4) The Ecosystem Connector

The Ecosystem Connector coach is all about connections.

They are attuned to and curious about the context in which they are coaching, as well as eager to build networks and connections across people, information and resources.

The Ecosystem Connector may ask questions like:

How are these topics connected?
What’s the connection with others? With resources? With approaches?
Who can help you be successful with your goals?
What else do you need?

5) The Creative Toolmaster

The Creative Toolmaster coach is all about injecting creative approaches into the coaching conversation to boost interaction with teams and groups, while supporting enhanced awareness and forward action.

They are also keen on supporting both results and relationships through the varied coaching tools they bring.

From their superpower perspective, some of the questions the Creative Toolmaster might ask are:

What’s going to support you with flow?
What are the belief systems that are shaping your actions?
What’s another perspective?

Wrap-up

The journey of development as coaches invites us to not only activate our superpowers but also grow in related areas.

What is your group and team superpower? What’s next for your growth?

Did you enjoy this? Check out these resources:

¹ Are you wondering what your group and team coaching superpower is? Try out the Team and Group Coaching Superpower Quiz here ™ >>

Consider joining Jennifer and her team for one or more of their upcoming ICF CCEU approved programs, including ACTIVATE Your Group and Team Coaching Superpowers (14 CCEs), which takes you into a deep dive around the five superpowers.

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