Team & Group Coaching Flashcards

Bruce Tuckman's model describes the stages of team development. A newly formed project team is having difficulty agreeing on roles and decision-making authority, with some members openly challenging the appointed leader. Which stage is this team MOST likely in?

Answer: Storming

The Storming stage is characterized by interpersonal conflict, resistance to the leader, and power struggles as team members begin asserting themselves. A leadership coach working with this team should help them surface and work through these tensions rather than suppress them, as resolution is necessary before the team can progress.

What is the PRIMARY distinction between team coaching and team facilitation?

Answer: Team coaching builds the team's collective capability over time, while facilitation guides a group through a specific task or event

Team coaching is an ongoing developmental relationship aimed at improving the team's collective intelligence, relationships, and performance capacity. Facilitation, by contrast, is typically task-focused and session-bound. A leadership coach must understand this distinction to contract appropriately and avoid slipping into facilitation when deeper coaching is needed.

Amy Edmondson's research identifies psychological safety as critical to team performance. In a team coaching context, psychological safety is BEST defined as:

Answer: A shared belief that the team is a safe environment to take interpersonal risks

Edmondson defines psychological safety as a team climate in which members believe they can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, or challenge ideas without fear of humiliation or punishment. It is not the absence of conflict but rather the presence of sufficient trust to engage with conflict productively.

A leadership coach is working with a senior leadership team that consistently avoids direct conversation about poor performance among peers. Using a systems thinking lens, this avoidance is BEST understood as:

Answer: A structural dynamic the team has created and maintains collectively

Systems thinking in team coaching views the team as an interdependent whole, not a collection of individuals. Avoidance patterns are typically maintained by the system itself through unspoken norms, role expectations, and reinforcing feedback loops. A coach working systemically helps the team see and interrupt these collective patterns.

When transitioning from coaching an individual executive to coaching that executive's entire team, a leadership coach must adjust their contracting to address which unique consideration?

Answer: The coach must establish a confidentiality agreement that covers the team as the client, not individual members

In team coaching, the 'client' is the team as a system, which creates confidentiality complexities different from individual coaching. A team coaching contract must clarify what information stays within the team, what can be shared with the sponsoring organization, and how the coach will handle disclosures made by individual members during sessions.

A team coach notices that the same two members dominate every conversation, while three others rarely speak unless directly addressed. The MOST effective coaching intervention in the moment is to:

Answer: Create structured turn-taking by explicitly inviting quieter members to contribute

Structuring participation in real time — by directly and openly inviting quieter voices — addresses the group dynamic without singling out or embarrassing any individual. This intervention also models inclusive facilitation for the team, building their own capacity to balance participation over time.