The Powerful Coaching Conversation

Most great leadership doesn’t happen during boardroom presentations or at annual meetings. It happens in hallways and on telephone calls. It happens in cubicles and over lunch. It happens in project status meetings and in routine one-on-ones. In fact several authors assert that “most leadership happens one conversation at a time.” At Bluepoint, we agree with this proposition. We also believe that the coaching conversation is one of the most powerful of all conversations. So what is different about a coaching conversation? Simply put, when the leader engages in a real coaching conversation, the other person, the talent, leaves the conversation better in some way. They may leave the conversation challenged, inspired or refreshed. They may leave with a profound question or a new insight. They may leave with a minor problem solved or with a totally new way of thinking about their work. Such is the power of the coaching conversation.