Higher Ground Leadership^® Coaching Practice

Leaders are coaches. Great coaches inspire. A coach develops an ongoing partnership that inspires others towards improved performance and greater quality and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives. All great athletes have coaches – they wouldn’t be great without them – and greatness in life is no different. Coaches listen, observe, and advise others based on their own experience and wisdom. They honor and support the sacredness, creativity, and resourcefulness of those they coach. Coaching is an act of love and service. Great coaches— and great leaders— identify fears, erase them with love, and therefore inspire.

From Inspire: What Great Leaders Do, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2004, p xxxiii

There is a saying in Executive Coaching: “No one gets to the Olympics without a coach, so why would you try to win your best life without one?"  Higher Ground Leadership^® Coaching is offered as a method of supporting leaders on their journey to Higher Ground, helping them to clarify their values, focus and direction, to build their skills as Higher Ground Leaders and teachers, to create loving relationships in every part of their lives, and to assist them to stretch, grow, discover their Destiny, Cause and Calling (Why-Be-Do) and to live the CASTLE Principles of Higher Ground Leadership^® in rich, meaningful and impactful lives.

Higher Ground Leadership^® Coaching is an “inside out” rather than “outside in” mentoring approach with a primary focus on the soul and a secondary focus on how the personality may serve the soul.  It is a holistic and experiential approach that will develop the greatest Mastery, Chemistry and Delivery from within each client.

The intention of every Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach is to inspire the client beyond the ordinary, help enhance the effectiveness of their client and elicit the very best from their soul and their personality.  The Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach does this by “being fully present”, exercising sacred listening, focusing on the client’s agenda, commitment and vision and respectfully delivering feedback. The Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach becomes the client's advocate and helps them to hear their own inner wisdom, see their different perspectives and feel their dedication to the areas being addressed.  Higher Ground Leadership^® Coaching helps leaders free up their thinking, envision possibilities, make wise decisions, nurture creativity and imagination, clarify paths that lead to resolution of quandaries and supports them in transferring their learning into effective behaviors and actions that lead to enhanced personal and organizational results.

Higher Ground Leadership^® Coaching does not seek to “impose” skill training onto leaders; it seeks to help leaders grow into "being" Higher Ground Leaders rather than being theoretical about it. The Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach does not to impose an agenda on their client either, but rather helps them to achieve, or better still, exceed, their client’s own agenda as they navigate their path to Higher Ground. In this way, Higher Ground Leadership^® Coaches encourage their clients to stretch, to reach even beyond their own visions and to achieve results that they might not have previously believed to be realistic.

While not imposing an agenda, Higher Ground Leadership® Coaching is unique because it guides the leader to personal success and high performance by establishing a learning contract around the principles of Higher Ground Leadership^® and inviting the client to apply those principles to their own needs and aspirations. It is also unique because the client is invited to teach the Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach—a Socratic method that recognizes the ancient wisdom that “we teach what we most need to learn”.

The coaching relationship begins with a dialogue between the client and our Coach Coordinator, Tracey Gilmore. Tracey is responsible for all aspects of the client relationship. She ensures that the highest standards of coaching techniques and technologies are consistently utilized to achieve an outstanding and inspiring client experience. This discussion helps to determine the best fit between client and the Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach. The client and coach then schedule the initial coaching session (called an “Intake Session”) and the schedule of appointments between the client and the Higher Ground Leadership^® Coach.  Following the establishment of the coaching agreement, and a relationship being established, the Intake Coaching Session is conducted, which normally takes between 1 ½ and two hours. The Higher Ground Coach and client then determine and schedule 4 sessions per month for a minimum of 3 months, each session lasting 1 hour. Subsequent one-hour coaching sessions are then scheduled once per month for remaining 9 months of the one-year Higher Ground Leadership® Coaching agreement.