GAEL Micro-Credentialing Course: Leadership Coaching

Most leadership problems don’t need a faster answer. They need a better conversation. We sit down with Cindy Flesher, Kerensa Wing, and Wanda Law from GAEL to get practical about leadership coaching and why it’s becoming a must-have skill for principals, assistant principals, district leaders, and anyone supporting others in schools. If you’ve ever left a meeting thinking, “I gave great advice and nothing changed,” this one is for you.

We unpack the real difference between mentoring and coaching. Mentoring often centers on sharing experience, while coaching relies on active listening and open-ended questions that help the other person clarify goals, explore options, and choose next steps they actually own. We talk about why coaching can work even when you’re not “job-alike,” and how curiosity can be more powerful than expertise when the goal is growth.

You’ll also get clear details on the GAEL leadership coaching micro-credential, including the virtual option on June 1 (Teams, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.) and the in-person option on June 16 in Athens (8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.). We explain the full pathway, from the training day to three follow-up virtual check-ins in August, September, and October, when you earn the badge. We also share what ongoing monthly coaching connections will look like so your coaching skills keep getting sharper long after the training ends.

If you’re building a leadership pipeline or trying to “grow your own” leaders, trained internal coaches can be a game changer. Subscribe for more practical leadership learning, share this with a colleague who coaches others, and leave a review with your biggest coaching challenge so we can tackle it next.

Transcript

Welcome To GAEL Unscripted

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Welcome to Gale Unscripted, where leadership meets learning and real conversations drive real impact. I'm Ben Weggins, Executive Director of Gale. Join us as we go beyond the headlines with Georgia's top education leaders. Let's elevate the conversation. We've got special guests today. You already recognize Cindy Flesher from Gale. But we've also got Carenza Wing and Wanda Law, and we are here today to talk about leadership coaching. Cindy, just for the two Gale members that may not know who you are, why don't you introduce yourself very quickly, let them know what you do at Gale, and then we'll go to Carenza and then to Wanda.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Hi everyone. My name is Cindy Flesher, and I'm the professional learning coordinator for Gale. Have been serving in this role for about five years now. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. And you know, we really try to focus on providing quality professional learning and opportunities for people to network and everything that we do. So we're hoping that you'll uh hear more about this leadership coaching training that we're offering this summer and want to participate.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Hi, I'm Carenza Wing, and I am one of the co-directors for the Gale Coaching Division. And I'm excited to be able to help deliver the leadership coaching uh micro-credentialing virtually.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Hi everyone, I'm Wanda Law. I'm the conference specialist for Gale. I also work closely with Cindy with our aspiring principals academies. Enjoy that and have been doing the leadership coaching presentations for about three years now, and really enjoy it getting to meet new leaders and really working on coaching skills. So looking forward to having some of you participate with us.

Virtual Training Details And Cost

SPEAKER_03 1:54

All right, so we've got some leadership coaching training coming up in June. And I think we have two opportunities, two different dates. One is a virtual date, one is a face-to-face. So talk, let's talk first about the virtual option. For those that would like to join virtually, where do they sign up? Where do they register? I think uh we've sent out a couple of emails. Maybe if they did a search in their email for leadership coaching, that'll come up. But just talk to them a little bit about what that would look like from a virtual perspective.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Uh Carinsa, I'll let you explain a little bit about the virtual experience, but I'll give them some of the details about the virtual training date. That's going to be on June the 1st, and we will log in to a Teams call from at 8 o'clock in the morning until 2 o'clock. And um, the fee to participate in this uh coaching class for either the in-person or virtual is$150 for Gale members, and then for non-members, it's$200. Um and the virtual training has been an excellent way to reach people that can't come in person. And Carenza does a fabulous job in planning that and delivering it. Carenza, you want to talk a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Sure. So typically we have uh about 25 to 30 people in the virtual training. And so it's it's a it's a reasonable number of folks, but also a great opportunity to collaborate with leaders across the state that are wanting to do some coaching in whatever role that they're in. And the leadership coaching micro-credentialing is really providing you with some basic coaching skills as well as some uh coaching frameworks to use during your coaching experience. And you'll have the opportunity to interact. It's very interactive. The virtual is not sit and get. It is very much we are doing activities, going into breakout rooms, having lots of conversations with other leaders from around the state about coaching skills and how to improve those. And um, just why would you want to have a coaching experience with those that you're working with versus um a more management type of uh relationship? So just really looking at why coaching is important and how it can help you lead in a different way.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Perfect. And we're gonna get to a lot of those details as we we get into it some more. Cindy, did you have something?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yes, I was just gonna say for both of these, it's not just a one and done uh training day in person or virtual. It's that one day, and then we follow up with three virtual check-ins because the expectation is they take what they learn in the one-day session and start applying it in a real coaching situation. So we'd want them to have someone that they plan to coach starting at the beginning of the next school year, and we'll check in in August and September and October to kind of make sure they're staying on track and also provide a few more resources and some training along the way. These are just one-hour virtual sessions that we'll talk through some of that and network again, talking to other people and hearing about what issues they may be having or questions they may be having. So you don't earn your micro-credentialing badge until the last virtual session, which is in October. And all of these opportunities and others are on our Gale website at Gale.org on the events page. You can see more information about them and register for them.

In-Person Training In Athens

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Perfect. So Carenza is the leader or facilitator for the online course and Cindy and Wanda tag team, the face-to-face. Tell us what that date is and what's that location. Uh, and just very quickly without getting into a lot of details, because we'll get to that in a bit. But what can they expect in a short summary from the face-to-face?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

All right, that date is uh Tuesday, June the 16th, and we will be meeting at the Rivers Crossing Building in Athens. Uh, that's located at 850 College Station Road. That's also happens to be where the Gale office is. So you'll get to see where we operate from. Um, and that will be from 8:30 until 3:30 that day. And Wanda is the in-person uh instructor. And Wanda, I'll let you tell them a little bit about the training there.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Okay, thank you, Cindy. The training for in-person is very similar to the virtual. It's just that we're going to do it in-person for some people, and they like to have that interaction. So the content, the text of the work we're doing is the same as the virtual. So you're going through the same steps, but it is the opportunity one to meet other leaders throughout the state. And then the activities that we're doing, you'll be doing collaboratively in different groups with partners and just working on learning what that difference is between serving as a mentor, with a lot of you already do, and then changing that over to be a coach and just practicing those steps while you're with us. We'll we'll do some comparisons and some activities where you actually get to practice with two other people going through some coaching scenarios.

Coaching Versus Mentoring

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Perfect. So let's jump right into it. What is leadership coaching? You just mentioned mentoring. So talk to us a little bit about what leadership coaching is and how's it different than mentoring, just real quick.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Who wants to? All right. So um mentoring is really sharing your experience with someone that you're that you're helping along the way. It might be a new leader, um, and just really telling them about your experiences. So hopefully they can glean something from that and apply it in their current situation. With coaching, we are really working on the skills of active listening, um, open-ended questions to really help the leader that you're coaching think through what are what are their goals, um, and then what steps do they need to take to get there and trying to expand their thinking with what types of options can we look at to achieve those goals? Can where can we innovate? Um, but really allowing the coache to be the one that drives the coaching session with whatever their goals are, not it's not about what I know, it's about what they want to know and helping them using questions to help them get to their their end goal.

Who Should Take The Training

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Perfect. So let's talk about who this training is for. I'm a Gale member, I've I'm hearing about leadership coaching. Uh, if I'm an assisted principal, would this be something that'd be good for me? If I was a principal, is it only for district office people? Um, is it good for special ed rate? Who is this for?

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Wanda, you want to answer that? Sure. I think it could be for any of those people. So, in your role, if you have someone that you're guiding or working with that wants to improve and build and their skills, um, then you can serve as a coach. So it might be somebody that you're evaluating, it might be somebody that you're not evaluating. Um, it could be a principal, it could be an assistant principal in a school, anybody in the district office, it could be those areas as well. It could be a teacher that's coaching a new teacher that's come in. So it really is open to all levels, just someone that's really wanting to work with others and building their capacity and their roles.

Building A District Coaching Pipeline

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Perfect. So we talk about all the time with leadership, building our bench and building our own for people for a pipeline. This is a great opportunity for schools and school districts to build a pipeline for coaches. Um, and so then you can have some in-house coaches to help new leaders come along. So, talk about that a little bit, Carenza. What are the benefits to a school or a school district having some trained coaches that are able to do this process with their new leaders?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Um from my perspective, I really feel like having the skills to be able to do the coaching is important because it's going to be a very individualized method of helping someone grow. So even if you're doing some type of professional learning for like, you know, all your leaders in your district, following up and having that individualized opportunity to coach them through how they are applying that learning is critical in helping leaders develop their capacity and think differently, especially if they're like in a new role. And it doesn't, you can you can coach anybody, it doesn't have to be a new leader. Um, it can be anybody that's wanting to grow and and really um having that growth mindset around how do I push myself and push my thinking um to act differently in the future in my leadership role. So so having those skills to be able to lead someone through that process, I think is critically important and growing the capacity of your district, um, even if it's an evaluator that's coaching somebody. Um, because in some cases that you know you have to serve those dual roles depending on where you're working, but having those skills to do that and be able being able to delineate what what you're doing with that person, I think is important. So I think the the micro-credentialing really helps them put together a set of skills that will help others grow in their district.

Ongoing Support Through Coaching Connections

SPEAKER_03 11:33

Perfect. So it's a great opportunity, like we said, for a school or school district to have in-house trained coaches to be able to work with their people, um, whether they're in new positions or you see some potential in them. A lot of districts have their own in-house leadership development programs, uh, and investing a lot of time, effort, and money in building up their next generation of leaders. This leadership coaching is an excellent opportunity to have people trained inside of your district so that they can begin to push out into those schools and throughout the district to make sure that you're truly growing your own. Is there anything else any of you would like to add about the leadership coaching, the benefits, the advantages, why you think it's important for a school district to do this?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

One other thing I was wanting to mention is something new that we're starting this year is at the end of the three virtual sessions of support that we provide. We're going to provide ongoing support for the people that have gone through the leadership coaching training. Um, Carinza, you want to tell them some more about that and what we're planning?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

So we do have a group of Gale executive coaches that meets every month as a in a collaborative session where we work on coaching, ongoing work with coaching skills, and then we get to practice um with each other. And it's just to continue to hone our craft because very often you might be in a coaching scenario and there you might not have a job alike that you can work with. So this is this will be an opportunity that we'll have every month for people that have gone through the micro credentialing to join in with our Gale coaches in a monthly coaching connection to continue to work on their coaching skills and have a group of people that they can collaborate with about coaching.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

And Ben, I was just going to add to that, I think the continuation of it and building that cohort group is a big part of this leadership coaching. When we do those follow-up sessions that Cindy mentioned earlier in those three months after our training, the virtual group meets together with the in-person group. So we become a larger group for those follow-up. And this that networking, which we talk often about, Ingale, and the importance of having those networks and people you can reach out to. So that ongoing support and learning as they're continuing to go in their coaching cycle, and we're talking about what's worked for them, what maybe are they struggling with? They can get some um suggestions on how to um work some more with that or uh something to try. And that's always helpful.

Coaching Outside Your Job Role

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Perfect. One of you talk a little bit about sometimes people ask this question can I only coach people? You some Carenza mentioned job alike. So if can I only coach principals if I've been a principal? Can I only coach a special ed director if I've been a special ed director? Do I have to have HR experience to coach an HR director? Talk about that a little bit because sometimes I do think people kind of um misunderstand that and think that they can only coach people that um served in that very, very similar role. Even though in athletic coaching, we know there are coaches all over that coach a sport in a position that maybe they didn't play. Uh, but talk about that a little bit. Ex-basketball coach Carinza Wing.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Um, no, you do not have to have experience in the area of the person that you're coaching. And I would say I probably do a better job coaching somebody whose role I do not know because I'm more curious and I'm less likely to have this impulse to give advice, which is not what a coach does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

And that's probably the hardest thing is not to give advice. And so you're right, if it's not in your area, then it does make it a little easier just to stick to questions.

How To Register And Reach Out

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Perfect. Anything else any of you would like to say before we sign off for this episode?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

I can't think of anything, but if you are interested in this and you have any further questions, you can certainly reach out to me. My cell phone number is 478-256-8589, or email is C F L E S H E R at Gail G A E L dot org, and I'll be happy to assist you in any way. And we would love to see you in June, June 1st for the virtual or June 16th for the in-person in Athens.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Perfect. You heard that. If you're interested, or you've got a team in your school or district that you would like to get trained, uh go ahead and jump on that registration. It'll be some great professional learning that truly you could uh reap the benefits for for years to come with your leaders. So thank you, Wanda. Thank you, Carenza and Cindy, for joining us this week for this episode of Gail Unscripted. All right.