Sage Leadership Group works with CEOs, senior executives, and executive directors who are committed to environmental and social responsibility. Founder and president, Michael Sanders, is committed to helping leaders and teams achieve their desired impact in the world.

Michael recently offered three complimentary leadership coaching sessions to the staff of HEC. Renée Sweany, Special Projects Manager, took him up on it. Below you’ll find a description of Sage’s coaching approach and a summary of Renée’s experience working with Michael.

Sage Leadership Group’s Approach to Leadership Coaching

Guest blog by Michael Sanders, Sage Leadership Group

Typically, we start working with the leader to understand their “here to there journey”.  In other words, the leader will articulate what’s going on for them and their team now, and what they are committed to producing in the future. Then, together, the leader and I will take a deeper dive to assess what’s getting in their way of producing the desired results. Based on these conversations, we’ll co-design a development plan that supports the leader and their team in closing the gap so they can produce their intended results.

These are the types of challenges where we can be useful:

  • Team leaders that want to take their team’s performance to the next level.
  • Teams that are dealing with issues around alignment, accountability, and trust.
  • Teams that are feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, or disengaged.
  • Teams that are missing deadlines.
  • Teams that are avoiding difficult conversations.

If your team is facing a challenge, go to a quiet place where you can zoom out to get greater perspective and contemplate these questions:

  • What’s going on? (Describe the current situation you’re facing.)
  • What result(s) are you committed to producing? (Describe where you want to be and by when.)
  • For the sake of what do you want to produce this result? (Describe why this is important.)
  • What are your conditions of satisfaction? (Describe your implicit and explicit expectations for a successful outcome.)

Renée’s Experience

Michael helped me identify criteria for my success and hone in on specific goals. With his guidance, I found that my to-do list of tasks can sometimes distract me from bigger picture needs to achieve success and realize terms of my personal satisfaction.

After each session I came away with specific action items and deadlines. Often times these action items were things that I didn’t even realize were important for my success! I also started to define what my conditions of satisfaction are in my career.

One specific challenge he helped me with was how I handled the transition of the HEC Green Business program to new leadership. My focus has always been ensuring that our HEC Green Business partners feel valued and supported by HEC, so much so that I was hyper-focused on seeing this through right to the end of my tenure with the program. While this, of course, is vital to the program, Michael helped me identify other areas that are necessary for a smooth transition, like preparing my supervisors with protocols & pitfalls and brainstorming ways I might enable the new staff member to be successful.



Renée Sweany, Senior Special Projects Advisor, HEC

If you’d like to explore how to enhance leadership and team performance in your organization, please contact Sage Leadership Group.