My 4 Step Coaching Framework

1. APPRECIATE

APPRECIATE your strengths. First become deeply aware of them – you’d be surprised how many people don’t recognize their own strengths, because they just seem so natural. Discover them, know what they mean and how they are meaningful, and celebrate them.

2. ACTIVATE

ACTIVATE your strengths. Strengths don’t mean anything unless you apply them. Discover how you can use your strengths every day, singly and in combination, to help you with tasks and projects, building effective relationships, and actively designing your leadership success.

3. AMPLIFY

AMPLIFY your strengths. Become a strengths-powered leader and learn how to recognize, reveal, and optimize other people’s strengths to foster their and your team’s success.

4. ADVOCATE

ADVOCATE for strengths. Don’t keep your strengths to yourself! When you talk about how your strengths help you succeed and how they add value to your team, you help others to start building their own strengths awareness. When you recognize and point out strengths in others, you help to build their success.

How I Will Help You Succeed

Hi there – I want to share some information about me. I’ve been working with the strengths paradigm and concept for more than a decade. I’ve shared a bit about my journey to strengths-powered leadership below. Here, I want to share more about what it’s like for leaders like you to work with me.

First, you really do work with me. I don’t delegate coaching, consulting, or teaching to someone else. You receive my total attention. I give you individualized attention, even within group coaching and course activities.

Second, I work from the assumption that you, or the people in your organization, have so much knowledge, experience, potential, etc., and my role is to help draw that out, help you shape it in ways that support your success, and help you turn your leadership aspirations into reality.

Third, I live up to my own values, and use my strengths to support you in appreciating, activating, amplifying, and advocating for yours. I call this the 4A strengths value ladder and it forms the framework for my approach to coaching, teaching, and consulting. It takes you through progressively greater depth of understanding your strengths in a meaningful way and using them every day to grow your leadership confidence, effectiveness, and career.

SPICE Up Your Learning!

Strengths, like spices, come in many different colours, flavours, textures, etc. Like strengths, they spices can be overused, yet when used optimally, they can totally change the success of a meal. Learning is like that too – we all learn in different ways, using our strengths to do so even if we don’t realize it.

My goal, whether in a coaching or a teaching relationship, is to create an empowering, constructive, and personalized environment that supports everyone’s success. I want you to feel comfortable sharing your leadership ideas, aspirations, and challenges with me and with others while exploring “what could be” and how you can change how you lead. Creating space for trying new ideas and approaches is crucial to your success, and it’s your success, powered by strengths, that energizes me. I pay a lot of attention to making that real, whether live or online.

My model is called SPICE, an environment that is and features:

Safe, comfortable, and supportive, where it’s ok to be vulnerable, ok to celebrate, and ok to be an active participant in the learning process

Provocative discussions to challenge your thinking

Individualized elements, even in group situations, that enable you to focus on YOUR needs, aspirations, and goals.

Confidence-boosting interactions and exercises

Energizing environment, often featuring collaborative and supportive co-learning

My Strengths-Powered Leadership Journey

I used to be just like most leaders, mired in deficit-based leadership, spending my time and energy trying to improve my own and team members’ performance by focusing on weaknesses and failures. It sort of worked – minimally greater engagement, minuscule performance improvement. My world was full of Ds – drained, dispirited, disengage, despair, despondent, disheartened, defeated, disappointed, doubtful, downhearted, discontented, distracted, discomfited, discouraged – you name it, a D word was there.

I knew there had to be a better way to lead, some way that would take me and my team beyond mediocrity, beyond good enough.

There is! I learned how conventional, deficit-based leadership creates all those Ds. When you focus your leadership on what is wrong, broken, and in need of fixing, you create a culture of avoidance, fear, and change aversion.

I discovered strengths-based leadership, which I now call strengths-powered leadership, because working from strengths really does power up your leadership. Wow! What a difference! By discovering my own strengths and using them to lead, I increased my confidence, effectiveness, and success. Helping my team discover and use their strengths generated increased engagement, higher levels of performance and productivity, and growth of their careers.

The D words became E words – energized, excited, engaged, enthusiastic, elated, enlivened, enraptured, exhilarated, entranced, enthralled, enamored, enthused, electrified, effective, exhilarated, enlivened, emboldened, encouraged, empowered, enabled.

Now, through Kieran:Patrick, my purpose is to help leaders like you create your own strengths-powered leadership success, design and build strengths-powered teams and organizations, and create a strengths-powered life and world.

I create value for you and your team through one-on-one and group coaching, various workshops and webinars, my MasterMind program, and more. See the “Strengths Solutions for You” page for more detail.

Testimonials:

" I did the Strengths Profile with Sylvia and was impressed with the simplicity and applicability of the process. Starting by defining my goals and then understanding the intention behind those goals provided a great contextual lens from which to analyze the results of the Strengths Profile. The way everything is laid out leaves room for nuance which I believe is missing from some other types of assessments. Would highly recommend going through the process with Sylvia if you’re looking to make the next big decision in your career/life. "

" I was fortunate to have been referred to Sylvia to participate in the Strengths Profile assessment. The assessment tool was thorough and unlike other assessments I found great value in the results and process while debriefing with Sylvia. She is incredibly knowledgeable and insightful. She was able to provide me a number of tangible takeaways within the first five minutes of our conversation which can be applied to my current job search, long term career goals and personal development. I appreciated her friendly and professional consult, and the ease of accessibility offered with the virtual consultation option. "

" I found the Strengths Profile exercise, and especially Sylvia Lee’s assistance working through the details of the profile, incredibly helpful in thinking about a career transition. After many years of work in academia, unforeseen cutbacks forced me into the daunting situation of having to consider an entirely new career. Although I could point to my PhD and long experience as an instructor and researcher as evidence of my value, I was at a loss at how I could present myself as someone with the types of skills employers in the private sector are seeking. After completing the questionnaire, the Strengths Profile immediately highlighted my strengths and weaknesses in language that could easily translate onto a resume and in a job interview. Further, the Strengths Profile also highlights one’s learned behaviours and unrealized strengths in ways that allow you to think clearly about the type of work that will most energize you (and the type of work that will not!). Above all, Sylvia’s capacity to work with me to understand my Strength Profile and help me see both my strengths and the opportunities that they can open, was very important for me. "

" I was grateful to participate in Sylvia’s Strengths Profile session. The opportunity came at a time when I was seeking to self reflect on my professional growth and the results enabled me to evaluate my strengths and evaluate the next steps in my career. The Strengths Profile helped to solidify how I was feeling professionally and gave me the confidence needed to start pursuing my passions, which the Strengths Profile confirmed as my strengths. Thank you Sylvia for the opportunity! "

" Sylvia brings a fresh perspective on workplace culture. She works from a strength based model and although not all organizations are ready for this shift...its more likely that employees are. She provides advice based on what you can do and takes time to help you use your own skills. If an employee is willing to take hold of their strengths and use them...Sylvia will lead them to the water. "

" Sylvia has been an excellent resource for us, guiding us through the process of understanding our company culture, its ramifications, and recognizing opportunities for improvement. This is unfamiliar territory for me so Sylvia had to bring me along each step of the way. She was patient and generous with her time. When it came time to analyze the data, she was insightful in unexpected ways. I learned some things about myself and my organization that I can put to work immediately. We may work with Sylvia again in the future and we wholeheartedly recommend her. "

My 4 Step Coaching Framework

Dr. Sylvia Lee

How I Will Help You Succeed

SPICE Up Your Learning!

My Strengths-Powered Leadership Journey

Testimonials:

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