Given the world’s shift to virtual work, we have translated all of our traditionally in-person workshops to virtual learning experiences and added several new programs that are geared toward leading in today’s new environment. Each virtual learning program is interactive, engaging, based on the latest research, and delivered virtually by two Boda coaches in a 3-session series, unless otherwise noted.

Being a Great Virtual Teammate

Working remotely is new to most people, and many are finding relationships strained, their team’s culture fading, and their personal engagement and motivation lagging. To help address this and turn it around, we teach participants the most important mindsets and skills that they as teammates can demonstrate to ensure their motivation is high, their team works effectively, relationships are strengthened, and the business results are achieved. This series is designed to be either delivered on its own or in conjunction with part two.

Being a Great Virtual Teammate – Part Two

Part two adds several new mindsets and skills for leveraging strengths and working with teammates who have different thinking styles. Using StrengthsFinder, we help leaders understand their strengths, recognize their actual and potential impact, and learn to communicate and lead from a strengths mindset. Part two is a five-session series.

Leading Through Change

Now more than ever, we all need skills to navigate ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty. Intense stress can wreak havoc on our minds and bodies, and leaders need to find a way to recognize change, understand both their colleagues’ reactions and their own reactions to change, and lead through the change in a way that brings people along with them to the new reality.

Building and Strengthening Virtual Relationships

The pandemic, economic downturn, and virtual work have all put pressure on relationships at work, and unfortunately, we are seeing more and more instances of relationships eroding or not getting built. In our extensive work with leaders and teams we see that a few core skills—Really Listening, Helpful Questions, Not Knowing & Curiosity, and Being With and For our Colleagues—can make a huge difference. Leaders who adopt these mindsets and demonstrate these skills build more meaningful relationships, are better at attracting, developing, and retaining talent, and are more effective teammates and team leaders

Coaching Skills for Leaders

Coaching is an often used and yet widely misunderstood term. Coaching is not advising or directing, or even just giving feedback. Coaching involves intentionally and deftly using some specific, research-backed mindsets and skills to help someone increase their self-awareness, consider possibilities, examine and challenge beliefs and assumptions, choose productive approaches and behaviors, learn and grow, and feel heard and known. Coaching is a core leadership skill and, sadly, is infrequently and or/unskillfully demonstrated by most leaders, leaving those around them missing a vital opportunity for support and development. Our Coaching Skills for Leaders program includes 12 virtual learning sessions. The foundational four (of fifteen) elements can also be delivered in three sessions.

Building Resilience and Thriving

At the beginning of the pandemic, we were all focused on shifting to virtual work and just surviving—literally and metaphorically. Now that many have at least somewhat adjusted to the new normal, there is a choice: Do we want to continue to merely survive or do we want to thrive? We believe this is a time of unprecedented opportunity to look honestly at all that is changing, to take stock of what we are learning, and to find opportunities in the business and in ourselves to reinvent and come out stronger. This program helps leaders navigate this journey and understand how they and their businesses can shift from surviving to thriving.

Effectively Navigating Virtual Conflict

Diversity is a powerful and essential component of any great team. Research shows that diverse perspectives increase a team’s ability to problem solve, innovate, and even leads to higher profits. And yet, our differences can also bring conflict. Working virtually reduces the social interactions that build relationships and buffer the relational negative impact of conflict. As a result, working effectively with conflict has never been more important. We help leaders understand the roots of conflict, become aware of and reduce their negative value judgement on conflict, appreciate its necessity and value, consider the nuances of conflict when people are no co-located, and learn to navigate conflict skillfully and productively.

Giving and Receiving Effective Feedback

Giving and receiving feedback are underdeveloped skills in 95% of the leaders we coach and work with. It can be hard to ask for information that we anticipate will be awkward or hard to hear, and it can be psychologically and even physically painful to share our thoughts on how effectively (or not) we think others are operating. This certainly does not get easier when teams are working virtually! In this four-part program, we explore how we typically respond to receiving and asking for feedback, the neuroscience of those reactions, and the mindsets and skills for asking for, giving, and receiving feedback effectively. We then work with leaders to practice these skills, turning cognitive knowledge into habits they can adopt every day.

Building, Strengthening, and Repairing Trust

Though many people talk about trust and its importance, few really understand the components of trust and what builds and erodes it. In this program, we teach leaders a model and the research behind trust. We then help leaders evaluate their own trustworthiness and set commitments about how they will strengthen their trust with others.

Personal Accountability

There is nothing new about the need to be accountable, but its importance is heightened right now as leaders are asked to work more independently, navigate a complex and changing environment, and deliver results in a very difficult environment. When most leaders think about accountability, they think about how accountable others are. In this program, we start by having the leaders reflect on their own accountability—in their mindsets and actions—and then we explore with them what it means to be personally accountable: what gets in the way, what leaders do instead, the impact they have, and alternate choices they can make to yield better results and more satisfaction.

Taking Stock of Your Leadership

With so much to do, most leaders are not taking the time to think and be deliberate about how they are leading. In this two-part program, participants reflect on and evaluate their individual leadership in this time of massive change, share strengths and areas to work on with one another, and create action plans to improve how they are leading in the near term. Participants are asked to request and collect feedback from colleagues in advance of the first session, to inform their perspectives.

Leading Effectively with Peer Support

Leaders often benefit from a safe space to think about, share, and work on their individual leadership challenges. To support this, we teach leaders core coaching skills and then work with them in small groups of typically 5-6 as they coach each other on the real leadership challenges they are facing. This is best done in a series of 4-6 sessions.

Women and Feedback

Too often, leaders—particularly women leaders—don’t get the feedback they need to succeed and thrive. In this standalone session, we teach participants what makes feedback essential, the barriers to getting useful feedback, and concrete and practical strategies for overcoming these barriers so they can excel. Learn more…