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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
06 June 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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We all know that crossing the road is easy…right? But what has this got to do with coaching? Well, stay with me and I will explain.
In coaching, we use the GROW model, a widely recognised framework designed to structure coaching sessions. It is an acronym widely used due to its simplicity and usefulness in the coaching process. It stands for Goal, Reality, Options/Opportunities, Way forward/Willingness. It's a great model for understanding your goals and how to reach them, which I have recently had the chance to put into practice.
I have recently had the privilege of going to Cambodia to do some volunteer coaching with SHE Investments, a Social Enterprise making a great impact locally by working with local business women. This was a great opportunity for me and the start of a great adventure which began with simply crossing the road.
As a coach, this was my time to literally walk my talk. Here’s how I crossed the road using the GROW model.
Goal: What do you want?
The goal was set. The Royal Palace, the destination. It was a SMART goal – it was Specific – the Royal Palace, Measurable – I could tick off that I had been there, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. I had the route mapped out and could do it and be back in time for dinner.
Coaching helps you to create SMART goals. Getting the right goal for you and understanding the importance of having this goal to you – is a critical first step to the coaching process.
Reality: Where are you now?
Ok, so I was confident that I knew how to cross the road - I had done it many, many times before. I had graduated to unconscious competence nearly five decades ago. I was good to go.
What I hadn’t bargained for was the traffic in Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh. It is just crazy! These were not like any roads I had ever seen before - there were motorbikes, scooters, tuk-tuks, push bikes, cars, vans all moving …at the same time…at different speeds …in different directions. My brain went into panic mode. Where are the pedestrian crossings? Where is the green man when you want one? OMG I don't want to die! OMG how am I going to do this?
Crossing the road had just become a daunting and scary prospect.
In coaching the first step is to be aware of where you are right now. Checking your reality. What is going on for you in this moment? How are you feeling about that? What is working for you and what is not? What is important about taking this next step? What is the purpose?
Coaching is about moving forward to the next step - and my next step was going to be into a sea of oncoming traffic. I began to question just how much I wanted to see the Royal Palace.
When assessing whether to take the next step or not fear can often hijack the amygdala and stepping out of the comfort zone can seem like a real ‘high stakes’ prospect. In my case it felt pretty real. But real or imagined, the grip of fear can make that comfort zone (or the comfort of my hotel room) seem very appealing.
Options/Opportunities: What could you do?
Decision time. It was time to assess my choices.
Do I just step out with gaze fixed on the other side?
Do I wait until the traffic comes to a grinding halt (that seem unlikely to ever happen)?
Do I walk really slowly? Or
Do I walk really fast to increase my chances of a successful outcome?
Survival. The stakes were high.
Coaching helps to explore choices (and possible consequences). Once the goal has been set and the destination in sight. What then? Options considered – the only real choice is will I do it, or won’t I?
"The time for courage and trust had arrived."
Way forward/Willingness: What will you do?
At some point I needed to actually take the next step. The time for courage and trust had arrived. The edges of the comfort zone had been reached and it was time to step out.
I gripped the arms of my travel friends - safety in numbers right? (Who is around to help?), walked with confidence (‘fake it till you make it’), waited for the flow to ebb - albeit only slightly (assess the risk), reminded myself that although this was a challenge, it was one I was definitely ready for - I was well qualified to do this (substituted negative thoughts ‘OMG I’m going to die’ for more helpful thoughts ‘You can do this. Look at all the other people (including that child just out of nappies) who have managed it successfully.’
Coaching is generative. It is about moving forward. It requires action. It is ok to ponder, and explore and examine and talk out loud...but when all is said and done - what action will follow? The choice to pull back is ever present until you really commit. This stage often requires trust - a willingness to take that first step. Sometimes it might just be to test the waters and (due to some unforeseen motorbike) you might have to jump back on the pavement and wait for a bit before trying again. Sometimes it about striding bolding and committing - half way there, is also half way back - so time to keep walking. The destination is in sight.
So I lived to tell the tale. Coming out of your comfort zone, is really just like crossing the road.
"Coming out of your comfort zone, is really just like crossing the road."
If you are interested in finding out more about stepping out of your comfort zone, you might be interested in reading – Dare to Lead by Brene Brown in which she talks about the importance of choosing ‘courage over comfort’, or Emotional Agility by Susan David, which discusses ‘showing up and stepping out’
And if you want to try stepping out of your comfort zone, we have recently launched the Backpack, which includes a number of tools that offer as a step-by-step guide to tackle social leadership challenges in practice. These tools can hopefully help you cross the road on your own leadership journey.

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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
23 May 2019
Updated: 23 October 2020
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The Wandsworth Innovation, Skills and Empowerment (WISE) Programme is a free leadership development initiative delivered in collaboration with the Battersea Arts Centre and generously supported by the Wimbledon Foundation and the Battersea Power Station Foundation. The programme will run over 3 years, with annual cohorts of 20 free places available for leaders who are keen on developing the resilience, confidence, and efficiency necessary to drive personal, organisational and Borough-wide change.
Commenting on this initiative, Liz Moreton, Director of Creativity and Social Change from Battersea Arts Centre, said:
"Battersea Arts Centre's mission is to inspire people to take risks to shape the future, and we are thrilled to be working with Clore Social to deliver this innovative programme for the next generation of local social leaders. This programme builds on our experience of capacity building with the Local Roots charity network, and supporting the next generation of social entrepreneurs through The Agency programme. I'm excited to see the great positive change in Wandsworth that the participants on the WISE programme will no doubt deliver.”
"I'm excited to see the great positive change in Wandsworth that the participants on the WISE programme will no doubt deliver."
Participants will be involved in a range of group and individual learning activities, action-learning sets, coaching and a mentor programme. In addition, they will have the opportunity to design and deliver a Local Challenge project, which will enable them to identify needs in the community and to achieve improvements over the course of the programme. Building on all aspects of our Social Leaders’ Capabilities Framework, the programme aims to help leaders become more empowered, focused, and generous, so that they can effectively transform the social sector to meet current and future challenges, and lead social change.
The 2019 WISE Programme participants are:
- Julie Jowett, Thrive Horticultural Charity
- Hadas Hagos, Waste Not Want Not Project
- Beth Rattigan, Citizens Advice Wandsworth
- Marcia Thompson, Women's Space
- Tracey Ford, JAGS Foundation
- Mike Dignam, Generate Opportunities Ltd
- Rebecca Wilson, Little Village
- Teresa Harris, Learn to Love to Read
- Emma Chisholm. Age UK Wandsworth
- Ellie Cusack, Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees
- Egle Banelyte, CARAS
- Eniola Akinlabi, Business Launchpad
- Marie Bidegaray, AGORA ARTS CIRCLE
- Leanne Wood, Share Community
In partnership with the Battersea Arts Centre, Supported by the Wimbledon Foundation

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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
22 February 2017
Updated: 22 October 2020
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Andreana Drencheva is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Sheffield where she helps social entrepreneurs to develop entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities.
“How am I doing?” and “How can I do better?” are two simple, yet powerful questions for social leaders. Using these two questions to seek feedback from diverse individuals is a fundamental strategy for social leaders. It can help them learn, develop and implement more creative solutions, build communities, and ultimately to create social change. Yet, the evidence shows that not all social leaders seek feedback. If asking these two questions is a simple way for social leaders to grow and develop, why don’t they seek feedback more often? I suggest that it is because seeking feedback presents five personal, professional, and organisational challenges.
- Seeking feedback can bruise the ego. Like all of us, social leaders have personal egos. While they are often described as heroic figures, they are human beings with personal feelings and identities. As social leaders often pour their hearts and souls into their work, seeking feedback requires putting personal feelings and identities aside to receive developmental, critical, and useful feedback, which is can be negative. Yet this can be difficult because these emotions and identities are what motivates them to do their work in the first place.
- Seeking feedback requires resources. Seeking feedback takes time, effort, and energy. While it may seem like a simple act, asking for feedback competes for resources with other important activities at work, such as strategy or fundraising, and in their personal lives, such as childcare or quality family time.
- Seeking feedback can disappoint others. Social leaders recognise that seeking feedback comes with the implicit assumption that the provided feedback will be used in some way. Yet they may not always be in a position to act on their feedback even when they agree with it. This might be due to a lack of resources or institutional and organisational constraints that make it difficult or even impossible to implement specific changes. Thus, instead of giving false hope by seeking feedback, they may choose to refrain from it.
- Seeking feedback can damage social leaders’ reputation. One of our expectations of social leaders is that they are competent, knowledgeable, and strong individuals. Recognising this assumption, social leaders are sometimes concerned that seeking feedback might portray them in front of others as weak, indecisive, and incompetent. They fear this portrayal might damage their reputation as well as the reputation of their work.
- Seeking feedback can limit organisational advantages. Seeking feedback often requires at least partial disclosure of information related to ideas, approaches, and methods unique to the work of the social leader. We might think or at least hope that the social sector is guided by ethical decision making. However, there are numerous examples of individuals and organisations appropriating the ideas of social leaders after giving them feedback. Therefore instead of creating opportunities for collaboration and improvement for social leaders, seeking feedback might enhance the competition.
How can social leaders address these five challenges? The first step is to recognise the trade-offs between seeking feedback and refraining from seeking feedback; to recognise both the bright and the dark side of seeking feedback. The second step is to make active choices between the trade-offs and to balance the benefits and costs with a long-term view.
Do you agree with these points, or do you have further suggestions on the topic? Please share your views about this blog post below, or contact Andreana on Twitter.

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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
19 August 2016
Updated: 14 October 2020
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It is a testing time at the moment for charity leaders in the UK - a ‘perfect storm’ of difficult events are bubbling up around them. With an uncertain political and economic climate, the landscape is changing for charities. There is more public scrutiny than ever, and more people needing their services; all of this adds to the challenge of their roles.
Leaders need to find ways to be able to communicate their message effectively, campaign hard, collaborate with others, inspire teams and win funds. For that, they need to grow their influence. What do I mean by influence? You can find a longer explanation here. Without having enough influence, they can’t have the impact that they want and their cause desperately deserves.
In my work as The Influence Expert, I regularly see both good and bad examples of charity leadership when it comes to influence. Good examples include things like being authentic so that beneficiaries, volunteers and funders really have the chance to know what the people at the top of a charity stand for. Bad examples include things like (to my mind) outdated ideas such as mistaking having a personal brand with ‘bragging’, when really it is simply about being clear about the things you stand for and are known for so that you have a chance to further your cause.
In this speech I gave at an international charity conference, I outline some of the ways that people working for charities can build their influence. As a former charity chief executive, I know that time is precious, but making a start to improve the amount of influence that you have needn’t take long. My LEAPS Model, mentioned in the video, gives 5 broad areas to focus on and improve:
L- Likeability - How do you come across to other people? How do you relate to them and empathize with them?
E- Expertise - What are you good at? What should you specialise in? Do others recognize you as an expert?
A- Authenticity - Do you come across as a genuine person? Do you walk the talk?
P- Personal Brand - Do you have a clearly defined and strong personal brand and do you know how to reinforce it both offline and online? Using online platforms, such as LinkedIn, effectively, is important.
S- Synthesis - Are you bringing all the other elements together and do you have a consistent plan to grow your influence over time?
Growing your influence is a marathon not a sprint. Over time though, it can transform the ability of a leader to make an impact on the cause that their charity is fighting for. Of course growing influence is not just about leaders at the very top: everyone in the organisation should be supported to grow their influence so they can be more effective in their roles and progress in their own professional lives.
Alex Swallow is The Influence Expert, helping you grow your influence to increase your impact. He is also the Founder of Young Charity Trustees and of the interview series, Social Good Six and has a background in the charity sector, including as Chief Executive of the Small Charities Coalition.

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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
08 August 2016
Updated: 14 October 2020
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Heather Black is Managing Director at Economic Change CIC a management solutions social enterprise.
As the leader within a non-profit it’s important to reflect and ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you effectively communicating with your different stakeholders to harness their energy, enthusiasm and engagement?
- Do you need to improve engagement with your stakeholders to help increase referrals, funds and resources?
- Do you have a strategy in place to communicate regularly with your different audiences e.g. your beneficiaries, funders, donors, volunteers, trustees, partners, influencers?
On a daily basis I help leaders develop stronger and more intuitive relationships with their community of stakeholders, through reviewing ways in which they can communicate, interact and involve them in the organisation’s success.
I achieve this by helping them segment their stakeholders, identify the messages they want to send or hear from each stakeholder group, and finally determine the best methods or tools to engage with them. Once this is decided, I work with the leader to embed the use of a good Client Relationship Management Systems (CRM) with integrated e-marketing tools to execute the strategy.
Below I have summarised five approaches that may be useful to your own organisation:
- Customer support management - Introducing a formal way to track, catagorise and analyse customer enquiries helps to identify if there are common issues, concerns or questions arising amongst your stakeholders. Introducing an online customer support form or call handling service with a clear case management process and/or a self-help Q&A forum can help improve and speed up standard communications. This also provides a way for customers queries to be heard, logged and monitored in a quality assured way, flagging areas to improve or develop for the organisation.
- Targeted e-communications – When I work with clients on a new CRM this is often is a catalyst for them to organise, update, cleanse and re-categorise their contacts into target audiences. This enables them to send out targeted and focused emails and newsletters to certain audiences via integrated e-marketing tools.
- Social media engagement – Engaging with stakeholders via social media is becoming increasingly important and as a result, my customers are now asking to track social media handles for both contacts and organisations within their CRM, and recording if they have completed the action to find and follow them.
- A community discussion forum – Introducing a community platform can enable different groups of stakeholders to share common interests, discuss ideas, thoughts and issues together. I have deployed community platforms for staff, volunteers, members, beneficiaries and learners to interact together.
- Ideas exchange – You could establish an online ideas voting platform, which lets stakeholders post ideas, vote on ideas and comment on them. This can support co-design and development of new solutions that are customer led.
If you are interested in streamlining your communication practices with stakeholders and implementing a good CRM using Salesforce with integrated tools for your organisation, contact Heather at heather@economicchange.co.uk for a free consultation.

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