Coaching Leaders: How to Meet Leaders Where They Are With Skills, Presence, and Play

Want to coach leaders with more presence, less pressure to have all the answers? In this live session, Co-Active faculty member and executive coach Christina McFadden, CPCC, MCC shows us how. Walk through practical tools for working with leaders: "zipper coaching" (connecting how a client shows up in their personal life to how they lead), reading a client's focus using a three-point awareness model borrowed from horse behavior, and reframing the inner critic as a "negative voice" leaders can actually relate to. Key takeaway: "It's not our job to know it all. It's our job to be comfortable with the unknown." Note: A brief portion of the original live session — a spontaneous participant coaching demonstration — has been removed from this replay at the participant's request, in accordance with CTI's commitment to participant confidentiality and consent. The session content is otherwise complete. Key Moments: 0:00 Welcome 4:00 What does it mean to coach a leader? 4:47 The being and doing of a leadership coach 26:37 Understanding the leader's system 31:55 Live coaching demo (portion removed) 32:26 Questions to ask leaders 32:37 Why vulnerability, uncertainty, & authenticity is so important in leadership coaching 40:29 Logistics of a leadership coaching engagement 41:33 Q&A, Co-Active announcements, and wrap-up Resources mentioned in this session: Harvard Business Review, "How Elite Sports Coaches Make High-Pressure Decisions": https://hbr.org/2026/07/how-elite-spo... Grateful.org, daily gratitude practice: https://grateful.org/welcome/ 360 Interview Questions for Leadership Coaching (Christina's worksheet via Blue Door Partners): https://drive.google.com/file/d/16KH2... 👉 Watch more sessions + register for upcoming events: https://coactive.com/co-active-webinars/ 🔔 Subscribe for more leadership and coaching insights. Jump in on our lively global conversations! Find us on these other social media channels:   / coactiveleaders     / coactiveleaders     / coactiveleaders     / coactiveleaders   #CoActiveCoaching #LeadershipCoaching #ExecutiveCoaching #CoachTraining #CoActiveLeaders