Coaching Model: The DARE

A Coaching Model Created by Katia Melazzi
(Executive & Leadership Coach, SINGAPORE)

Background

I have always been an enthusiastic advocate for women’s leadership. After 17 years leading marketing & branding departments in MNC companies, I’ve decided to stand up for a higher purpose and support women’s empowerment.

That’s why some years ago, after my last international move, I have embarked on a new journey with a couple of non profit organizations.

Now, I am leading a committee of passionate and committed volunteers to support Tabitha Foundation and Nokor Tep Society – two sustainable non profit organizations that aim at lifting underprivileged Cambodian families out of poverty.

In addition, I serve for PrimeTime, Business and Professional Women’s Organization where I am in charge of supporting KeyNote – Asia’s Women Speakers that is a program developed to bring more diversity on public speaking stages around Asia.

Today, I am much more in tune with myself and my authentic values. As I am completing my ICA journey, I am eager to start the next chapter of my life bridging my diverse experience into coaching.

My Niche

In my coaching, I target women facing different kinds of life transitions.

I am passionate about helping women in international moves who may feel intimidated by the change – especially when they have children in tow or they are the main breadwinner in the family thus making the relocation even trickier.

I also like supporting women in transition in their professional life during career changes whether they are starting a new journey, stuck in their job and thinking of stepping out of their current position or when re-entering the marketplace after a gap.

Why I focus on transition?

The truth is, transition is the place where the magic can happen and we are in between two lands. The land you are leaving which is still your comfort zone, thus tempting you to go back…even when you understand you are not developing and growing anymore.

On the other side, the new land is full of opportunities, promises and possibilities along with uncertainty, discomfort and challenges.

Transition is where you can go deeper (sometimes force to do that) and explore how to leverage your passions to become the most authentic version of yourself in the new land.

I enjoy partnering with women in transition to define their new vision and ultimately create their new voices and write their stories by:

achieving clarity about their values, beliefs, life purpose, passions, strengths and talents,
recognizing new opportunities and designing their strategy, action plan and next steps, and
embracing the courage to move into action to engage with the next phase of their life towards their best selves

The DARE Model

To empower women in transition to create their new voice and fulfill their personal & professional aspirations.

Define your vision

The first step of the process is all about defining your vision and what you want to stand for.
Envisioning the future - even better when visualising it - is the prerequisite to start the journey because only when you know where you want to be you can plan backwards what you need to get done to reach that place.
The vision needs to be specific enough so that you will be able to measure the progress towards it and adjust your path in case you will find yourself derailing from the original destination.
This is the phase where you will decide which is your time-frame to deliver against your vision.
As a coach, my focus will be on developing rapport with you and holding a safe space for you to feel comfortable in sharing your narrative.

Achieve clarity

The second stage is about assessing your current situation and the gap between who/where you are now and who/where you would like to be.
Together, we will start your self-discovery exploring and digging into your beliefs, values, life purpose to achieve clarity about yourself.
We will focus on your talents, strengths and capabilities to nurture them and mentally & physically prepare you to bridge the gap. At the same time, we will surface the challenges, obstacles, and personal limitations that could come in the way and prevent you to reach your vision.
This is the phase where you will begin to get new awareness around yourself and your situation.
As a coach, I will actively listen, support your exploration with powerful questioning and challenge you whenever we will feel the need to go deeper.

Recognize new possibilities

You will continue in gaining new awareness and be able to recognize new possibilities.
Real new possibilities will begin to unfold when you release any form of self judgement and turn your narrative from a self bias and negative to an empowering one.
Reflecting on those possibilities will help you focus on improvement instead of falling back into inadequacies or what you couldn’t do.
By the end of this stage, you will find yourself brave enough to embrace the risk of seizing new opportunities, understand how to make a good judgement of the trade-offs, and design your strategy and action plan to drive you forward.
In our partnership, I will share observations, provide feedback (or feed-forward) and keep questioning powerfully.

Embrace the Courage to move into Action

In this stage, you will embrace the courage to move into action that will help you create your new voice and walk into the direction of your best self.
After having designed your strategy, we will explore some support mechanism and evaluate the most appropriate methods of accountability to enable you to stick to the plan.
While engaging in your initial steps - either small or bold ones - it will be crucial for you not to pay attention to the inner critic telling you that you don’t have the skills or that you are not ready.
These will be the moments when you will build traction, momentum, and boost (or restore) the confidence in your ability to succeed.
Finally, we will celebrate your successes and encourage you to think about the learning along the way.