Group Coaching - (Steinwedel Red Book) by Janet S Steinwedel (Paperback)

About the Book

"This is the third book in the Steinwedel Red Book Series-a series focused on the integration of Jungian psychology and executive coaching. In this book she explains her collaboration with organizations to choose a handful of leaders who will benefit from a focus on enhancing their leadership."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Janet Steinwedel's work with groups aims for a net increase in consciousness in the organization or community in which she is working. This is the third book in the Steinwedel Red Book Series--a series focused on the integration of Jungian psychology and executive coaching. In this book she explains her collaboration with organizations to choose a handful of leaders who will benefit from a focus on enhancing their leadership. Janet has focused on balancing the goals side of the coaching process with aspiration and inspiration in an effort to support clients on their path to individuation and wholeness. She has worked with many leaders that have been nudged out of alignment with their values and lose their passion for their work and her process is designed to bring that alignment back.

In her writing she has focused on the experience of opposites including woundedness and healer, student and teacher in an effort to both deepen her personal growth and support others in their growth and development--in the movement toward wholeness. She creates safety in the group for colleagues to try new behaviors--to experiment with being in relationship. While collaboration is paramount today this relationship work is not only about the relationship with workmates, but the relationship one has with one's self.

We have become a nation of strivers with a one-sided focus on greatness, she says. From one lens this is a wonderful thing, when it is out of balance it can create very dangerous leadership and consequences. The capability of observing oneself in order to be self-aware is a challenge. As soon as we try to observe our self we are no longer our self, but the self, or more correctly, the persona, we wish to be seen as. We are too often socialized to look only at our strengths and capabilities. But this is not the totality. It is not reality. It is disjointed and grandiose. And everyone suffers. Leaders who can effectively serve, guide, collaborate and be directive know their strengths and their weaknesses. They know how to build a team that supports both, providing the right balance of curiosity, experimentation and knowledge for the goals and needs of the moment. This requires, to use Jung's words, a knowledge of the times as well as a knowledge of the depths. Steinwedel sets the stage for leaders to develop by more accurately knowing their true selves through challenge to themselves and one another. They work at having empathy and compassion as well as a necessary toughness.

This "emotional intelligence," popularized at the turn of the new millennium, is important to the framework of Insight Group Coaching and a natural aspect of Jungian psychology. Steinwedel presents numerous ways for leaders to develop their EQ and their engagement--modeling an approach they can take with their own employees.

In his discussions about first half of life and second half of life, Jung queries, "is there perhaps a college for forty-year olds which prepares them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to the knowledge of the world?" Steinwedel believes group work can be a source for that kind of development, we invite you to read this book carefully and see if you agree.

Review Quotes

"Janet Steinwedel has extended the range and depth of the field of coaching to include both social horizontal dimensions and the vertical spiritual dimension. This book is a highly practical guide for professionals who wish to take their work further. The author's seriousness in this endeavor is to be commended, and her expertise is most impressive."

-Murray Stein, Ph.D., Author of Jung's Map of the Soul

"This is just the kind of intervention that we have been looking for in my community. As religious organizations engage in new, innovative and healthy transformation, we need leaders with authenticity. Dr. Steinwedel's approach to group coaching and leadership development is an important tool in cultivating this new type of leader. Gone are the days of old leadership templates where one type fits all. Drawing on the insights of Jungian psychology, Janet invites participants into a facilitated journey into their own deepest selves daring to look honestly at one's aspirations as well as their shadow self. This process holds a high value on the giftedness of the individual and confidence that given an honest and trusted environment the participant will strengthen their own leadership abilities.

"As a leader of a faith community I am delighted to see this coaching process embedded in a learning community. This further dispels old and unhealthy concepts of the 'lone leader' with its manifestations of manipulation and boiler plate methodologies. Dr. Steinwedel offers a way toward what I consider to be Biblical values of servant leadership and facilitates a healthier sense of living and working together in community.

"The bottom line is that this book offers insights into how those chosen to lead might do so with integrity that arises from deep self-reflection along with experiences of healthy collegial/community life. I know that my organization will be well served by this work."

-Rev. Dr. Harold M. Delhagen, Synod Leader/Executive, The Synod of the Northeast PC (USA)

"Dr. Steinwedel has an engaging ability to share theoretical perspectives on the benefits, processes, and approaches to working with groups, while providing candid and practical insight using many real-life examples. This approach enables the reader to see the roadmap, consider the pitfalls and understand enough theory to get why it's important. This is an interesting balance that makes the book intellectually engaging and tangibly practical for business leaders, group participants, and HR leaders alike. Steinwedel stays true to the title of the book in offering both the 'Art and Practice' of group coaching which enables the reader to not only apply the specific insights but to extrapolate from the broader context."

-Sandy Aman Keller, Vice President HR, West Pharmaceutical Services

"Janet Steiwedel's book is a practical and inspirational guide for a group coach seeking to integrate programmatic group coaching with the best of the Jungian approach, integrating vision and meaning."

-Justin Hecht, PhD, Certified Jungian Analyst & Certified Group Psychotherapist, San Francisco