Deciding to be a coach

I decided to become a coach because I loved working with coaches so much. Working with coaches, I went from wishing, hoping and dreaming to doing it. I also learned to have difficult, real, authentic conversations because of this work, which turns out is a useful skill for coaching.

In graduate school, I felt so stuck. Going to graduate school was the next logical step and what was expected, but it wasn’t working. I had never heard of coaching, but thanks to Google, I did find support in the form of Molly Mahar, founder and creator of Stratejoy. I am the type of person that thrives with external accountability and at times this is my downfall. I will do what needs to be done for everyone else without doing what I need to do to move the ball forward. Working with Molly in both small group coaching and individual 1-1 coaching, I was able to envision a life that I wanted to live, not just let life happen to me.

When I became a nonprofit Executive Director, i checked back into professional coaching because I needed support as a new leader. Utilizing a coach, I became a proficient manager and became more comfortable over time in my leadership role. I was able to pinpoint the specific areas that needed professional development, dig in and apply my learning rapidly. The thing that sticks out to me is that the times I’ve worked with a coach, I clarified Wildly Improbably Goals and then I made plans to go after them.

The Open science community tends toward workshops and trainings, but don’t have a lot (any?) professional development support specifically for leadership. It seems there is a mythology that good leaders just happen. This isn’t true. Leadership takes work and practice. I am becoming an Open science leadership coach to support the leaders around me. I think by supporting Open science leaders, we will have more leaders, better leaders and the Open science movement will accelerate.