I first met Jeff McAloon more than 15 years ago when he worked as a coach for sales professionals.
In conversation, I asked him who coaches him. I firmly believe every coach needs a coach themselves – someone to help them be accountable, to be their sounding board, to help them reach their goals.
It was a light bulb moment for Jeff, and it led him to working with Vision Coaching’s Angie Thompson.
They’ve been working together now for more than a decade, on and off – with Angie in Ontario and Jeff in New Brunswick, where today he serves as president and CEO of the Saint John Regional Hospital Foundation.
“I can’t say enough about Angie. She’s just phenomenal,” Jeff says. “She’s a seasoned, high-level executive with decades of experience – and road rash – who I have been able to benefit from.
“What I came to learn is that Angie, and I am sure other coaches like her, didn’t have the answers – she didn’t know me, didn’t know my community. But she is so skilled at helping me develop the thought process that would allow me to come to the solutions – bringing out the answers that were already within me but they needed some coaxing to come out.”
‘A different perspective’
He appreciates that Angie doesn’t live in the same city, doesn’t know the organizations he has worked for. That makes her a completely unbiased and independent counsel to him as he navigates the leadership challenges he has faced.
“She helps me get a different perspective. Often when I am looking at a challenge, I am looking at it from my perspective. And so the biggest help she has given me as a leader is to try to look at things through different lenses, from other perspectives, and to take those into account when I am making decisions,” Jeff says.
“She has helped me to shine a light on how I might be perceived by others – those that I work with, those that work for me, those that I work for. That’s been the most powerful tool that she’s helped me develop,” he says.
He views coaching as an investment.
“I see coaching as a business investment because it helped me create the right environment for people to excel. It’s had the side benefit of making me a better human being. But the main purpose – the main gift that I have gotten out of this – is that it has helped me be a more effective leader, to work more collaboratively and to develop my skills as a leader.”
To learn more about Angie, visit the Vision Coaching website.
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