Team Coaching: A Journey through the G.R.O.W.T.H. Model
From Good to Great: A Team Coaching Journey through the G.R.O.W.T.H. Model
“Before our work with Stefan we felt disconnected with some fo the team feeling like they lacked purpose. Now when asked to describe how the team feels they are optimistic, happy and connected. Within 3 weeks we had begun to trust each other and started to lean on each other for support. We had stopped asking, what’s in it for me? And started asking, what can I do? How can I help?”
A quote from Diana Sewell - DASA following our team coaching programme.
How would it feel to be saying that about your team?
Is your team truly aligned and thriving? Do they trust each other to deliver their best? Or are they stuck in habits that hold them back?
Most teams don’t need more meetings, reports, or superficial solutions. What they need is a moment of honesty—a pause to reflect, connect, and rediscover their purpose.
This is where real transformation begins. Not just in performance, but in mindset, leadership, and collective growth. With twenty years of experience working across sectors—from Nationwide to Stannah—I created the G.R.O.W.T.H. model. A structured, human-centred journey designed to help teams evolve intentionally, with clarity, purpose, and lasting impact.
It’s not just about becoming more effective—it’s about becoming more aligned, more aware, and more capable of real impact across organisation, sector, and even system.
What is the G.R.O.W.T.H. team coaching model?
G.R.O.W.T.H. stands for:
Grounding
Relating
Owning
Working
Transforming
Horizon
It’s a six-stage journey delivered through team coaching workshops, supported by inquisitive 1:1 sessions with each team member before and after, plus a team debrief to integrate the learning.
Each stage is shaped around real team needs—not generic exercises. This is coaching with depth, structure, and forward motion.
Let’s walk through it.
1. Grounding – Trust and Truth
We start by anchoring.
This stage helps the team surface the deeper story of who they are, how they’ve arrived here, and what matters most. We explore values, trust, and current reality—with compassion and candour.
How this usually works:
1:1 inquisitive sessions with the team leader and each team member
A team debrief drawing out key patterns, tensions, and possibilities
Team reflection to prioritise focus areas moving forward
2. Relating – The Human Layer
Relating explores the interpersonal dynamics that shape the team’s culture: how they give feedback, how they listen, how they avoid (or lean into) conflict, and how safety is built—or broken.
How this usually works:
Group coaching session to reflect on observed patterns and dynamics
Debrief of the themes surfaced in the 1:1s
Leader and team agreement on strategic and operational priorities along with responsibilities.
3. Owning – Courage and Accountability
Having taken responsibility, the team now accepts accountability —not just for delivery, but for the way it operates. We challenge passive behaviours and surface avoidance. We talk openly about accountability, power, and shared leadership.
How this usually works:
Group discussion about how the team is working and how it wants to work through tensions
Exploration of responsibility-sharing and psychological contracts
Co-creation of team agreements around accountability and action
4. Working – Rhythm and Reality
Now we zoom in on the engine room: how the team collaborates, meets, decides, delivers, and adapts under pressure. We look at values in action, and how behaviours align with stated culture.
How this usually works:
Group session reviewing progress since the last phase
Reflection on values, behaviours, and rhythm
Real-time co-design of next steps, habits, or working norms
5. Transforming – Identity and Evolution
By now, the team has shifted. This session invites them to notice, name, and embody that transformation.
How this usually works:
Group reflection on identity, impact, and energy
Exploration of new stories and shared language
Space for emergence and collective meaning-making
6. Horizon – Legacy and Systemic Impact
We finish with vision—not just for the team’s next steps, but their wider influence across the organisation, sector, and even the planet.
How this usually works:
Group session exploring achievements, impact, and future direction
Provocation: what legacy does this team want to leave?
Planning for continued evolution aligned with strategic and systemic influence
This Isn’t Team Building. It’s Team Coaching AND it’s Team Becoming.
The G.R.O.W.T.H. journey isn’t just a coaching model — it’s an invitation to deepen trust, sharpen purpose, and lead with greater alignment. Whether your team is navigating change, levelling up performance, or ready to build something that lasts, this approach creates the space — and the stretch — for real transformation.
Team coaching often begins before the team is in the room.
In many cases, the team coaching journey is built on the foundation of one-to-one coaching with the leader. This early phase is more than a warm-up—it provides critical insight into the wider system and helps build the trust, alignment, and readiness needed for deeper collective work.
That coaching relationship often continues alongside the team journey, but it’s important to clarify from the outset: team coaching isn’t the leader’s agenda. It’s the team’s agenda.
The leader is a crucial part of the system, but not the sole voice or driver. Making that distinction early on is essential for establishing the psychological safety required in the G – Grounding phase of the G.R.O.W.T.H. model.
It allows the team to begin from a place of shared understanding—not hierarchy or assumption—and sets the tone for a process where all voices matter.
And that’s often where the most powerful transformation begins.
What G.R.O.W.T.H. Unlocks:
Builds real trust and honest connection across the team
Strengthens collaboration and shared ownership
Aligns your actions with what matters most
Creates clarity on roles, direction, and next steps
Helps your team meet challenge with resilience and integrity
Lays foundations for long-term, systemic impact
What it could look like for you the leader.
A crucial part of the G.R.O.W.T.H. journey is your ongoing reflection and strategic debriefs, along with one-on-one coaching conversations. These sessions help you identify key patterns, refine your leadership approach, and unlock your team’s full potential long after the workshops have concluded. I’ll work with you to develop the skills and mindset needed to manage change confidently, ensuring that insights translate into real, lasting impact. Whether it's preparing for board presentations, driving new initiatives, or embedding culture shifts, this support empowers you to sustain momentum and lead with clarity. By nurturing your self-awareness and strategic thinking, you’ll be better equipped to guide your team through change and showcase their progress — securing long-term growth across your organisation.
A fully customisable and modular approach
Whilst the GROWTH approach appears fully predefined, it’s important to highlight that this is a collaborative approach which is designed to be co -created.
Ideally each team coaching programme will begin with a discovery session with you, the leader and 1-1’s with the team and end with a review, reflect and plan session; crescendoing in a celebration and gratitude session. How we get there, however, and what we cover in between is a dialogue for us to have based upon you and your needs and those of your team individually and collectively.
I love nothing more than sitting with a piece of paper and co-creating the steps needed to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
It’s also a key stage in ensuring you get the most from your available budget and in turn investment.
Case Studies: 3 Real-world examples
Having looked at what’s involved, let’s now look at three case studies which illustrate the difference team coaching can make:
1. Working with DASA the UK’s Defence and Security Accelerator
The team had grown organically over a number of years, including during lockdown and the scope of work was, - and still is - evolving. The growth and diversification of the team had led to silo’ed working and broken channels of communication.
The goal? to help reconnect all the disparate parts of the team. Create an open and trusting workplace. Unite us in a shared ambition with a common vision whilst playing to the strengths which already created a number of successes. The breakthrough came when the team turned to me and said, “No—this is what we stand for, and we’re aligned.” That was their moment of becoming. My role was complete. Theirs had only just begun.
Read more HERE:
2. Working with GDS the UK’s Government Digital Service
At GDS, the focus was on becoming even more effective and cultivating non-positional leadership. During the Grounding and Relating phases, team members began leading showcases and events, stepping into visible leadership without needing titles. Product managers and lead designers grew in confidence and influence—proving that leadership lives in behaviours, not roles.
Read more here
3. Working with Stannah the globally trusted leader in mobility solutions
Stannah’s engineering leadership team was facing a high-stakes challenge: how to innovate while honouring a legacy of over 100 years. During the Owning phase, a pivotal conversation emerged: “Are you really being all you could be?” The room shifted. The team confronted its potential and asked what it would take to truly lead as one—creating a new level of clarity and commitment.
Read more - Here
Benefits for Leaders: Personal Growth and Coaching Skills
Beyond transforming your teams, the G.R.O.W.T.H. model also offers significant benefits for leaders themselves. Engaging in this journey enhances self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and coaching capabilities—skills you can apply directly within your teams and wider leadership roles. Leaders gain greater clarity, confidence, and resilience as you learn to listen more intently, ask powerful questions, and cultivate a culture of trust and accountability. Ultimately, this process not only improves team performance but also supports your ongoing personal development as authentic, impactful leaders.
Let’s Talk.
The G.R.O.W.T.H. model is more than a process—it’s a catalyst for meaningful transformation. By guiding teams through trust-building, authentic relating, courageous ownership, aligned working, and future-oriented vision, it fosters lasting change from within.
Whether your team is seeking renewed cohesion, enhanced leadership, or systemic impact, this approach creates a space where genuine growth becomes inevitable.
If you’re curious about what this could look like for your team, I’d love to explore it with you — whether that’s a free inquisitive call, a tailored proposal, or a simple conversation to see what’s needed next.
Because every great team deserves the chance to pause, reset, and lead forward — with clarity, courage, and heart.
If this resonated with you…
If this message resonates with you, and you’re one of the good people leading great things, let’s talk.
Get in touch and Book an inquisitive call here.- If any of this topic resonated with you and you have something you’d like to share with me or if you’d like to discuss working with me on this topic - stefan@stefanpowell.co.uk works really well for me.
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For now; thank you.
Stefan
An executive coach who specialises in helping good people lead great things.
Good people care about others, our planet and beauty. Great things are changes for the betterment of society and all that lives within an around it.
It sounds big and fun - it is.
I'm also an endurance racing cyclist, award winning musician and coffee house founder - a go getter.
You can read more about me and what I do; how I work here