MINDFUL LEADERSHIP COACHING

Leadership Coaching

Old Sow Consulting offers mindful, compassionate, creative leadership coaching based on the principals and practices of the Center for Courage and Renewal, Evocative Coaching and empathic listening.

Clients are encouraged to contact "oldsowconsulting@gmail.com" for more information, to request an online Skype intial conversation, or to contact kirsten via Twitter @olsonkirsten.

About the work...

"Kirsten’s presence at our school was a reinvigorating inspiration for all of us. Her exceedingly clear insights, paired with her eloquence and limitless lexicon to tackle the complexity and subtlety of the work illuminated what we were in the cusp of knowing as a faculty. Her ability to compassionately push us forward into the next level of work imparted direction, language, and visions for improving instruction at our school that were not only empowering, but broadly galvanizing and unifying. Her effect in working with each teacher and administrator individually was to create a community with a common vision and plan to achieve it. Above all, Kirsten gave us the tools to be confident that we could achieve these goals. A day when she was on site was a day you didn’t want to miss; it was an opportunity to be healed, inspired, and moved to be a better educator."

-Elizabeth Castellan, Dean of Students, Uphams Corner Charter School, Boston, Massashusetts

"Kirsten and I work with school leaders, board members, administrators, and teachers who are struggling to achieve. In order to be effective in our work, we need them to share with us both the positive and negative aspects of their schools, and we need them to do so quickly. Naturally, this requires that we develop a high level of trust with the entire school community. Kirsten is simply phenomenal in this work. I have been amazed at how quickly she develops rapport and mutual trust with everyone in a school, including the students. Kirsten gets people to open up to her and to share their successes and challenges. This greatly informs our work, and it also creates a supportive environment so that the school community can hear our recommendations, which often can be difficult to digest.

Recently our team worked with a school that identified its problem as behavior issues associated with a large and unruly special education population. After several days at the school and as a result of countless interviews, we determined that most, if not all, behavior issues were the result of students who were not challenged academically and were being taught by unqualified, untrained, and unsupervised teachers. Also, a culture of blame the students permeated the school. When we presented our findings to the school's leadership and board, Kirsten delivered, without blame or judgment, a very difficult message at odds with their perceptions. Because she developed such a strong rapport with everyone at the school and since it is so apparent that she believes that insight can move you forward, regardless of its initial positive or negative energy, people trust her and hear what she has to say.

Kirsten is intently interested in each individual that makes up a school. As a result of her empathy, insight, and thoughtfulness she can re-energize school leadership. Kirsten is simply a great coach!"

-John Tarvin, Executive Director, Massachusetts Center for Charter Public School Excellence

 

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