Coaching : On-The-Job Support for YWAM Leaders
Are you a busy leader? Get leadership support without leaving your post!
Wherever you go in YWAM, you'll find people who would love to receive some leadership training but who find it hard to get away from their ministry commitments. For busy leaders, it is hard to put aside responsibilities for a 2 or 3 month residential course.
Some YWAM leaders have teamed up with Coaching Mission International to offer a great alternative: on-the-job training and support where students (a.k.a. leaders who are also learners) are linked to a coach for a whole year: no need to leave your ministry, and your work itself becomes an intentional growth opportunity! What could be better?
The coaching package includes 8 sessions of leadership coaching, one week intensive residential training in coaching skills, currently held in Spain at the retreat centre for YWAM in Western Europe , and 8 follow up coaching sessions (plus 3 follow up tele-classes) for skill development as leaders begin to coach others, applying their new skills within their ministry context.
The coaching approach provides a structure within which leaders can explore areas of development and potential growth. Terry Sherman works at the Heidebeek YWAM centre in Heerde, Netherlands, as a fundraising trainer and coach in the Staff Care and Development Department. She first heard about the coaching training through the newsletter for YWAM in Western Europe and could immediately see how it could serve the people she works with. "Often leaders feel alone," Terry says. "Coaching allows you to share your heart and dreams with someone else who is committed and able to provide a structural way of helping you move forward."
This sort of input mostly takes place alongside ongoing ministry. This is particularly helpful in the YWAM context, where leaders may live quite a distance from an available coach and may not be able to leave their day-to-day responsibilities for extended periods of time. Barbara Connor is another YWAM leader who has found the coaching training offers a helpful opportunity. She lives near Malaga in the south of Spain, where she works with YWAM's Leadership Development ministry, offering courses such as the Leadership Development Course and intensive coaching seminars.
Barbara explains, "I had just returned to Europe, after living and working in Africa for fourteen years. Friends in Africa sometimes emailed me to ask, "Would you be willing to mentor me?" I always said no, because I didn't see how I could realistically mentor a person who was on the other side of the world. However, when I discovered the coaching paradigm, I realised that this was one way I could connect with people "long distance," helping them to grow in their leadership and achieve their desired personal and ministry goals."
Our YWAM operating locations are very diverse and our staff require a variety of input. Some people live on huge training centres where they have access to many wise and experienced leaders, while others live in isolated settings with very few other people around. Coaching face to face can happen in the context of a bigger base, while coaching by Skype is one way of serving a leader who lives in a remote part of Africa or Asia. Both kinds of coaching can help a developing or transitioning leader to feel supported, believed in and more effective in accomplishing what God is calling him/her to do.
What causes coaching to stand out from other ways of developing leaders is the emphasis placed on question-asking, rather than giving advice. Terry describes the benefit of this approach, saying: "In mentoring I felt responsible for moving people along, but coaching puts that responsibility on the person. I just provide a context in which they can formulate their goals and discover steps to reach those goals. It truly serves people and stimulates growth and responsibility."
The coach training can interface with other kinds of leadership training offered in YWAM. As Barbara Connor puts it, "DTS staff would find the question-asking skills useful in one on ones with students. Those involved in training outreach leaders would find that coaching is an effective way of helping them to process and plan their trips. Pioneers beginning new bases or city teams would find that being coached gives them support and help in discerning and developing God-given strategies for their location."
The facilitators of the coach training want people to return to their ministry locations in the confidence that they are not alone. By connecting people with a coach, YWAM is developing an enlarged capacity to effectively support leaders working all over the world, even in hard to reach places with very few fellow YWAM workers. For a missionary movement called to radical pioneering, and in light of our shared belief that many more missionaries will join our efforts in the coming years, this could be a key strategy to supporting our workers.
As Barbara Connor says, "Peer coaching is a way that we as YWAM leaders can help each other process areas of new dreams and vision. The possibilities are probably limited only by our imagination and our availability."
For more information, see http://www.coachingmission.com/ or contact wolfgang.jani@gmail.com for more information about the 1 year coaching program (dates to be set soon for the program starting this autumn).