Dr. Randy Coats
Coach Overview:
Dr. Randy Coats is a leader, coach, strategist, and mentor with more than 35 years of success in many fields as a civilian and military officer/commander. His experience includes leadership roles in strategy, workforce development, information technology (IT), finance, human resources (HR), decision intelligence, innovation, and learning and development futures. In addition to weaving coaching into his leadership style,
Dr. Coats has coached executives and professionals from academia, Fortune 100/500 companies, the US military, and Congressional Staff.
As a Chief of Staff, he advised C-Suite leaders and orchestrated the activities of a 1,000-person staff. He has led a training organization and serves as adjunct faculty, teaching graduate leadership courses to mid-career leaders. In roles as Chief Learning Officer for IT, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Executive Director of Analysis & Innovation, he advised the CEO, leading a 60,00-person organization developing a 500,000-member workforce, and was 1 of 3 visionaries who crafted a vision to transform L&D for that global force.
Statement of Coaching Philosophy:
Dr. Coats grounds his coaching on a unique life journey, from a rural, crime-ridden upbringing by parents with no high school diplomas to multiple degrees and a successful career as a people-centric leader and visionary. His passion lies in service to others, and his core coaching beliefs are simple:
- Everybody wants to grow and achieve more, personally and professionally
- Everybody deserves a partner whose sole purpose is to help achieve those things
- His personal calling is to be that partner
His coaching approach is equally simple: Trust and hold the client in unconditional positive regard. Apply the insight and tools gained from decades of experience to listen deeply and ask powerful questions that help others visualize new possibilities and achieve sustained patterns of success and positive change.
Coaching Expertise:
- Individual coaching toward inspirational and successful leadership styles
- Peer coaching and peer group development
- Role transitions, particularly for high potentials and leaders new to 2nd/3rd-level supervisory roles or roles that require them to collaborate across functions
- Workplace culture
- Healing toxic work environments
- Strategy Cycle coaching and consulting
- Diversity acculturation, helping build bridges and trusting relationships among peers, subordinates, and supervisors with diverse backgrounds/life experiences
- Assessments: Certified to administer EQ-i 360. Experience coaching clients on Clifton Strengths, MBTI, DiSC, and proprietary assessment tools
Experience with Higher Education and/or Academic Medical Centers:
- Ongoing coaching relationship with an Academic Dean at a military medical school, helping the client navigate daily operations, interpersonal conflict, hybrid workforce challenges, and routine duties as a higher-education professional working with non-academic leadership and a highly diverse staff/student body
- Adjunct faculty since 2016, certified and continues to teach online graduate courses in leadership and command to mid-career leaders
- Each of the following roles included formal and/or informal coaching for a mix of peers, direct reports, subordinates, and senior leaders
- Executive Director tasked to lead USAF-wide efforts to forecast the future of USAF workforce development. Created the first USAF environmental assessment of the future learning environment and facilitated in-person discussions with more than a dozen two and three-star general officers and the AF’s senior enlisted member (Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force)
- Member of the Executive Steering Committee guiding and overseeing the implementation of a partnership agreement between Arizona State University and the US Air Force. Some of the key collaboration areas: shared technology platforms; instructional design, learning, and teaching methods; adaptive learning platforms; other advanced learning technologies
- Chief Learning Officer for Information Technology, providing advice and recommendations to senior leaders, facilitating integration of cross-functional efforts to modernize learning experience platforms
- HR manager for military (medical and administrative) personnel, morale, and welfare responsibilities at a 1,500-member human factors research laboratory
- Served as Commander of the USAF’s premier cyberspace training school, directing all personnel, faculty, instructional design, financial planning, facility, accreditation, and logistical efforts, ensuring ~85 instructors successfully taught 50 courses to ~500 students/day, 6,500 students/year
Representative Coaching Engagements:
- In five similar examples, female professionals/leaders I worked with requested coaching on career progression in a male-dominated workforce. We covered topics including self-awareness and personal mastery, career planning, interpersonal relationships, executive presence, and interview preparation. Grounded in the ICF competencies, I used a mix of assessment tools and appreciative inquiry approaches to help them clarify their goals and strategies and gain a deeper appreciation of their value as leaders, professionals, and team members. Five clients, five subsequent applications, five promotions.
- A first-time military commander leading a predominantly civilian unit asked for coaching to help navigate the demands of leading a training organization during reorganization and instructional technology upgrades. We focused on the mental preparation and cognitive agility necessary to address the fluid demands of a command role. We explored personal assessments, self-awareness exercises, reflection on interpersonal interactions, time management, and mental preparation for crises. Outcome: several months after meetings ended, he reached out to say our work was instrumental in helping him lead his unit through the reaction, healing, and recovery from a co-worker’s suicide.
Certifications and Trainings:
- Associate Certified Coach (ACC), International Coaching Federation
- Certified Group Coach, Team and Group Coach Academy
- Certified Information Systems Security Professional
Education:
- Doctor of Business Administration, specializing in Strategy & Innovation, Capella University, 2015
- Leadership Decision Making Program, JFK School of Government, Harvard University, 2022
- ICF/ACTP, Graduate Certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching, University of Texas (Dallas), 2017
- ICF-Level 1/ACTC Credentialing Program (24 hrs), Team and Group Coach Academy, 2022
- United States Air Force Basic Mediation Course, 2011
International Experience
- Dr. Coats has lived and worked in multiple U.S. states, Germany, South Korea, Canada, and Turkey, collaborating with international partners to achieve organizational goals. He served as a US military representative to international network security working groups with members from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany, and France.