Amy McKenna, executive coach and CEO of HumanPoint, the company she founded, envisions a world where coaching happens naturally in thousands of everyday workplace interactions. Rather than being a special event or formal program, coaching becomes woven into the fabric of how managers lead—occurring in brief conversations, team meetings, and daily work moments. With 18 years of experience developing leaders through Humanpoint, McKenna’s vision stems from her fundamental belief that “there is no maximum to human potential.”
“Imagine growth by thousands of micro improvements happening all around your organization,” McKenna explains. When managers embrace coaching as part of their everyday practice, these small moments add to transformation. A quick question that prompts reflection, a conversation that uncovers a new insight, a challenge reframed as a learning opportunity—these daily coaching interactions create continuous organizational development.
Understanding Behavior Through the Coaching Model
At the heart of McKenna’s approach is a unique way of understanding human behavior and development. Through her observation of leaders over the past two decades, she’s found that behaviors and skills lie at the surface, but what truly drives those behaviors runs much deeper. “A lot of the times,” McKenna explains, “I’ll get a call from a leader saying ‘I want you to work with this person, they need to work on their communication skills.'” However, her experience reveals that surface-level behaviors often mask deeper truths.
Her HumanPoint coaching model explores several layers beneath observable behaviors:
- Values and beliefs that shape decisions
- Mindsets that influence approaches
- Emotional intelligence factors
- Individual authenticity and style
- Stress and anxiety levels that impact performance
Training addresses skill-building, and coaching provides opportunities to understand and address deeper motivations that drive performance and growth.
The Three Dimensions of Coaching
To make everyday coaching effective, McKenna defines it through three essential dimensions: “Coaching is a mindset, coaching is a skill, and coaching is a practice.”
As a mindset, coaching stems from the belief in continuous growth through “thousands of micro improvements.” Rather than viewing performance on a static bell curve, she envisions constant development throughout an organization, an escalator of leaders moving up in performance and potential.
As a skill, coaching involves specific techniques that improve with practice. These coaching skills can be intentionally developed in managers through training and practice, enabling them to coach more effectively and frequently in their daily interactions:
- Active listening
- Asking powerful questions
- Providing constructive feedback
- Creating accountability
As a practice, coaching becomes embedded in daily management activities. “We don’t want to give managers one more thing to do when they’re already so busy,” McKenna emphasizes. “We want to make slight tweaks or modifications to what they’re already doing, so that you get better results.”
Building the Foundation: Psychological Safety
For McKenna’s vision of everyday coaching to work, psychological safety is essential. “Individuals who feel safe on their teams and with their manager are more coachable,” she notes. “The reality is that if someone doesn’t feel safe, it’s harder to learn.”
McKenna believes that leaders who model authenticity in their leadership create safer team environments. She advocates for leaders to model authenticity by:
- Strengthening self-awareness
- Being genuine about strengths and weaknesses
- Sharing mistakes and learnings
- Demonstrating vulnerability
- Valuing different perspectives and approaches
Making Coaching Practical: Adult Learning Principles
McKenna’s approach recognizes that adults learn best through real-world application. She emphasizes that 70% of development should come from on-the-job experience, making everyday coaching interactions crucial for growth. Adults learn best when:
- They understand the purpose behind the learning
- Learning applies directly to their work
- They can build on existing experience
- They feel ownership of their development
This understanding shapes how coaching conversations unfold in daily work, focusing on drawing out solutions rather than providing answers.
Creating Sustainable Change
For McKenna, effective everyday coaching creates organizational transformation. She recommends a strategic approach:
- Start with self-awareness and authentic leadership
- Focus initially on coaching one person
- Expand to team-wide coaching practices
- Embed coaching into everyday management
“Success is iterative,” she emphasizes. “We have to tweak our process and approach continually. So, we ask for feedback. We listen, learn, adjust along the way, and get better.”
The Ripple Effect
The power of McKenna’s vision lies in its multiplier effect. When managers effectively coach their teams through daily interactions, those team members often begin coaching others using the same approaches. This creates a culture where learning and development become natural parts of work life.
“All powerful movements started with one spark, one person,” she reminds us. By understanding what lies beneath surface behaviors and creating psychologically safe environments for growth, managers can transform their teams through the power of everyday coaching moments.
By making coaching a natural part of daily management practice rather than an additional task, McKenna’s approach helps organizations unlock unprecedented potential in their people. Each small coaching interaction becomes part of a more significant transformation, creating environments where people thrive.
