Leadership Conversations - Strengths, Trust Building & Cross Cultural Cooperation

Cross Culture Workshop facilitation in pic 01, group discussions in pic 02 and group visiting of ancient site in pic 03

🫸 Pushing the Limits ⚠️

What I learnt from my Lebanon πŸ‡±πŸ‡§ trip.

Some context:

β–Ά It was a 5 days leadership retreat for an NGO and I was invited to facilitate 3/5 days, focusing on cross cultural cooperation and trust building.

β–Ά I had only 2 weeks to prepare amidst many other ongoing commitments. So I knew this work was going to really stretch me. 

β–Ά I had participants from many different countries - Syria, Lebanon, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, USA, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, South Korea and Germany.

β–Ά It was my first time listening, conversing and learning from those from the Middle East, Russia and South America. 


What I did:

β–Ά I needed an anchor to bridge the cultural differences. So I started with strengths as a language and a lens to build the container of safety.

β–Ά We explored how trust might look like in cross cultural work - what it looks like when it is strong and when it is broken.

β–Ά I taught a couple of leadership conversational skills and facilitated the practice - how leaders can generate context of trust and safety. 

β–Ά I had 1 on 1 coaching with each person to process the emotions and learnings. 


What I took awayπŸ‘‡πŸΌ

πŸ“Listening for our bias and assumptions is crucial. It starts by being aware that we bring our bias into the conversations. On day 1, I felt I had so much to learn as I hear different stories in a very diverse context. I felt I was the odd one out as a Singaporean, living in my β€œsafe” bubble. 


πŸ“Listening in a cross cultural context brings out more of the emotional and body context because of language challenges. For many, English is not the first language. The other aspects are heightened as a result. As I listened to the stories shared in English, I often experienced the intensity of the stories through the emotions and the body of the storyteller. 


πŸ“The Strengths Language truly deepens appreciation and respect for diversity. Once I facilitated the strengths conversations, the cross cultural differences was reduced and the strengths language facilitated conversations of trust building. 


It was truly an eye-opening week of being, doing and learning. My strengths felt satisfied. I’m now more confident in navigating high tension and conflict work. #Command #SelfAssurance #Communication #Connectedness

#teamcoaching #ontologicalcoaching #deeplistening

Coaching Skills Leadership Workshop - Competency Driven Growth

engaging and interactive coaching skills leadership workshop singapore

We coach, play and dance πŸ•Ί 🀩

It was CNY day 3. I thought the coaching workshop should be spiced up a little. Who says coaching workshops can’t be fun! πŸ˜†

Together with Yeang Cherng Poh and Jasmine Khoo, we brought the leaders through a coaching framework with some customized role plays, did some somatics work and learnt some coaching distinctions through games. 

We explored what it takes to lead through coachingβ€”how to partner and build trust, how to inquire and listen with empathy. More than just coaching skills, we also explored how being more coach-like is the game-changer. 

The shift was tangible: leaders walked away not just with new skills they can practice, but with a fresh perspective on leadership itself. 

π‚π¨πšπœπ‘π’π§π  𝐒𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐀𝐒π₯π₯ 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 π₯πžπšππžπ«π¬β€”π’π­β€™π¬ 𝐭𝐑𝐞 𝐦𝐒𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐑𝐞 π›πžπ¬π­ π₯𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬.

It was lots of fun facilitating the session. Glad it went better than expected. 

I must confess it wasn’t fun spending CNY thinking about the session and the highly customized design. There were definitely lots of discomfort and some anxiety doing the preparations.πŸ˜…

#CoachingLeaders #CompetencyDrivenGrowth #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #CoachingSkills #CoachMindset #StrengthsTransform

CliftonStrengths for Managers - Coaching Skills Leadership Development Workshop

Finished a coaching skills workshop designed to help a group of managers increase their abilities to coach their staff. The managers all had their CliftonStrengths Profiles as well. The aim was not just to learn coaching skills. Additionally, the design was to enable each person to see how they could use their talent themes to do coaching.

The workshop focused on 3 coaching tools to help the managers deal with different scenarios:
1. Growing and developing high performers
2. Difficult Conversations with low performers
3. Performance review conversations

Glad that the coaching workshop went very well.

Leadership Development Program - Coaching Skills for Emerging Leaders

As more and more organizations adopt a competency-driven growth model, coaching skills is seen more as a key competency required for managers.

Finished another leadership development program focusing on coaching skills for emerging leaders. This was the last run for 2024. There were participants from Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, China, India, Malaysia and Singapore.

We did a couple of role plays to help bring the coaching skills alive. We also did some leadership labs to help the leaders realize how they show show up during highly stressful and dynamic situations and grow in their self-awareness.

Overall, it was a great partnership with Damien to bring the leadership lessons to life!

Emerging Leaders Program - Coaching Skills & Leadership Development

I danced with the participants! πŸ•Ί

This was how I ended the day after facilitating the last day of a four days leadershipdevelopment program last week.

Dinner by the sea. Lots of laughter, conversations and dancing!

It was a blast.πŸ’₯

Often, we as facilitators might choose to disconnect from the participants after the program ended (mostly because we are too tired).

This time, I intentionally chose to stay after the program to connect with the participants. Many would be flying back to their home countries.

And I’m glad that the participants open up and invited me into their space. We chatted about leadership lessons, challenges in organizational leadership, hashtag#coaching and parenting.

This wasn’t a StrengthsFinder program.

Instead, I’m one of the two themeweavers on the last day. Our job is to help participants internalize and practice all the content they have picked up from the program.

This was the second last run of the program for the year. Looking forward to the last run!

πŸ“·: Sorry. No photos of me dancing with them.

Victor Seet β€’ World & Singapore's 1st Gold Awarded Gallup CliftonStrengths Coach β€’ Newfield Certified Ontological Coach β€’ ICF Coach (ACTC, PCC)

Leadership Development Workshop Program - Values, Strengths and Mindsets

Leadership Development Program with values strengths mindsets Singapore CliftonStrengths Expert Team Coach Victor Seet

Had a fantastic time facilitating the leadership labs with Alice and Eya for this leadership development program workshop. We belonged to the Smartful Works global team and it was fun working together to deliver this program together

Victor Seet β€’ World & Singapore's 1st Gold Awarded Gallup CliftonStrengths Coach β€’ Newfield Certified Ontological Coach β€’ ICF Coach (ACTC, PCC)