Re-introduction
When I started 1:1 coaching, I loved helping leaders gain clarity, confidence, and career growth. Clients were achieving goals, but over time, I began to notice a pattern.
Even high-performing individuals, committed, self-aware, and equipped, was ceilinged / limited by the systems they were working in. They weren’t stuck because of a lack of insight or effort. they were stuck because of a myriad of reasons beyond their control - sexism, capitalism, racism, command & control leadership, or what I would occasionally refer to as the 'isms'. They were navigating systems that weren’t designed to support the change they were trying to make, as individuals or as leaders.
That insight challenged me. If I truly wanted to support transformation, I needed to broaden my lens. I began exploring the questions beneath the questions: What’s happening in the system around this person? What factors are shaping this pattern? What’s being reinforced, rewarded, or silently tolerated in the culture? How can I have an impact on the way we work?
It was through one of the WBECS pre-summit sessions 5 or 6 years ago that I first encountered Peter Hawkins and his work. His articulation of systemic team coaching, and widescreen empathy resonated immediately, it was compassionate, purposeful, and grounded in real-world complexity. It offered a way to move beyond surface-level solutions and into the deeper levers of change.
That led me to the Systemic Team Coaching. The frameworks, practices, and questions it offered didn’t just add tools to my toolkit, they began to help shape how I understand leadership and organizational development.
What shifted was not only my coaching practice, but my definition of leadership and organizational impact. Supporting leaders isn’t just about helping them do more. It’s about helping them see more, and work collectively towards beneficial impact.
For those of us committed to making meaningful change, systemic team coaching offers more than a methodology. It invites a new way of engaging with complexity. It’s an ongoing practice of seeing, sensing, and shaping the future, not just for individuals or teams, but for the systems they inhabit.
