Investing - making the most of coaching superpowers!

My colleague Dr Cathryn Lloyd and I work closely with leaders and teams, and we know leaders face an array of challenges. Over the past few weeks we’ve shared 10 coaching superpowers for leaders to experiment with - 5 mindset superpowers, how your thinking shapes how you show up and 5 behavioural superpowers, what you do and your actions as a leader.

To make the most of these, you need one more critical superpower...

⭐ Bonus superpower 11. Investing

Superpowers aren’t developed overnight. They require a sustained investment of time and energy. Valuing these mindsets and behaviours is an ongoing process of embedding new skills into everyday work life through - learning, experimenting and practicing. 

To make this stick, superpower development needs to become a core part of your team’s culture. This means allocating some of your current resources, time, budget, energy, and focus to build future capabilities that will be crucial for you and your team’s long-term success. 

Ways to maximise investment in coaching superpowers 

💡 Dedicate time - Set aside regular time, weekly or monthly, to step out of business-as-usual and focus on building superpowers. 

💡 Daily routines - Weave superpowers into everyday team life. Include them in meeting agendas, team rituals, minutes, and follow-up actions. 

💡 Reviews - Evaluate progress regularly. Use team meetings or performance  conversations to reflect on how well superpowers are being developed. 

💡 Measure and track - Use tangible metrics to monitor progress. For example, track team resilience, collaboration scores, or feedback loops. 

💡 Professional support - Get support from a professional coach or team coach to help bring superpowers to life in a structured and supportive way. 

📌 Practical tip – making the invisible visible with a team coach 

A team coach can help your team see what they can’t see themselves— hidden habits and blind spots that shape how you work together. 

Let’s say your team is focusing on superpower 8: bringing in diverse perspectives. A team coach might observe a subtle pattern and say:

“I’m noticing that when someone offers a different perspective, the conversation quickly shifts or gets shut down. What might be happening here?” 

This gentle observation invites the team to:

📌 Pause and reflect. 

📌 Notice what’s going on beneath the surface. 

📌 Experiment with new ways of engaging. 

📌 Practice superpowers in real time.

In this way, the coach acts like a mirror, helping the team grow together with greater awareness and intention. Team and individual coaches can support superpower development in many more ways. 

We’d love to hear how you’re applying these ideas. Share your thoughts with us or get in touch - we’d love to continue the conversation.

Stay tuned as we bring all coaching superpowers together over coming weeks.

Image: Cathryn Lloyd

Snapshot of five behavioural coaching superpowers for leading teams!

Hi, we’re Helen Zink and Dr Cathryn Lloyd. We work closely with leaders and teams, and we know leaders face an array of challenges. Over the past few weeks we’ve shared 10 coaching superpowers for leaders to experiment with.

Below is a summary of superpowers 6 - 10. These are behavioural superpowers: what you do and your actions as a leader.

We previously posted a summary of superpowers 1 - 5, mindset superpowers: how you think and show up.

Stay tuned as we bring all 10 coaching superpowers together over coming weeks.

⭐ Superpower 6: sensing

Actively picking up on signals, patterns, and dynamics in the environment. Sensing helps leaders identify emerging challenges, recognise patterns and interdependencies, anticipate change, and enable proactive rather than reactive decision-making.

⭐ Superpower 7: learning

Encouraging reflection, feedback loops, knowledge sharing, and normalising failure. This helps teams evolve in real-time, rather than getting stuck in old ways of working and business as usual mindsets.

⭐ Superpower 8: linking

Noticing and linking dots, understanding context and systems, embracing diverse perspectives, and encouraging innovation. Linking leaders help their teams navigate uncertainty, value collective intelligence, and create pathways that help others connect to a shared purpose and outcomes.

⭐ Superpower 9: resourcing

Recognising potential, advocating, clearing obstacles, and tapping into networks to create opportunities. Leaders who excel in this don’t just fix problems; they equip their teams with the skills to navigate challenges independently and innovate with confidence. 

⭐ Superpower 10: resiliency 

Bouncing back from setbacks, adapting to new challenges, and maintaining focus in changing environments. Leaders who develop this quality themselves, and support their teams to do the same, create an environment for perseverance, agility and the ability to handle disruptions with confidence. 

Our top 3 insights:

💡 Sensing is similar to superpower one - self-awareness. Self-awareness is the mindset of paying attention to yourself; whereas sensing is about actively paying attention to the environment around you and the interconnecting systems you operate in. 

💡 Linking and resourcing are connected - both focus on the wider environment and how leaders and teams access and connect the relationships, tools, and support they need to thrive within it.

💡 Learning and resiliency are in concert and a continuous loop. Resilient teams reflect and adapt, and in doing so, deepen their learning, which in turn fuels even greater resilience.

🩷 We’d love to hear how you are experimenting and applying these ideas.

Image: Cathryn Lloyd

Resiliency – a coaching superpower for leading teams

Hi, we’re Helen Zink and Dr Cathryn Lloyd. As coaches who work alongside leaders and teams, we understand the challenges leaders face in today’s complex and fast-changing environment. To support you, we’re sharing 10 coaching superpowers that can help you grow as a leader and make a lasting impact on your team and organisation.

We’ve divided the superpowers into two categories:

Mindset Superpowers (1-5): How you think and approach challenges.

Behavioural Superpowers (6-10): What you do and how you take action.

These superpowers overlap, but each one brings a unique strength to effective leadership.

⭐ Superpower 10: resiliency

Our last but by no means least superpower.

Resiliency is more important than ever for both leaders and teams. The ability to bounce back from setbacks, adapt to new challenges, and maintain focus in an unpredictable and fast-changing world is crucial. Leaders who develop this quality themselves, and support their teams to do the same, create an environment for perseverance, agility and the ability to handle disruptions with confidence. By building resiliency, leaders empower their teams to stay grounded, maintain momentum, and thrive, no matter what challenges arise. By building resiliency, you’re also future-proofing your team and your organisation to skillfully navigate whatever might come next.

Here are a few ways to nurture resiliency:

💡 Physical and mental wellbeing: Encourage healthy habits and stress-reduction activities such as: regular breaks away from the screen, a walk outside, and healthy office snacks. Minimise work done outside of office hours. A well-rested team can weather storms.

💡 Purpose and meaning: Understanding how individual roles and team purpose tie into the bigger picture provides a sense of ownership during uncertain times.

💡 Camaraderie: Build connection and belonging within your team. Celebrate wins together and support each other through challenges.

💡 Resources: Know what you and your team can draw on - strengths, skills, or external resources (you’ll find more on this in superpower 9). When you understand what’s available you’ll be better equipped to take on challenges.

📌 Practical tip – resiliency timeline

On a whiteboard (virtual or physical), draw a timeline with "past" at one end and "present" at the other.

Invite your team to add in key challenges they’ve overcome together, marking them along the timeline.

For each challenge, discuss what helped the team get through it - what actions, strategies, or mindsets supported them?

This exercise not only gives your team a chance to recognise their shared strength but also helps them see the patterns in how they’ve been resilient in the past. These insights can serve as a powerful resource when tackling future challenges.

We’d love to hear how you’re using these ideas with your team. What’s worked for you?

Image: Cathryn Lloyd