#8 Linking – A coaching superpower for leading teams

Hi, we’re Helen Zink and Dr Cathryn Lloyd. As coaches who work alongside leaders and teams, we understand the challenges leaders face in today’s complex and fast-changing environment. To support you, we’re sharing a series of 10 coaching superpowers that can help you grow as a leader and make a lasting impact on your team and organisation.

We’ve divided the superpowers into two categories:

Mindset superpowers (1-5): How you think and approach challenges.

Behavioural superpowers (6-10): What you do and how you take action.

These superpowers often overlap, but each one plays a unique role in shaping effective leadership.

⭐ Superpower 8: linking

Great leaders link - building relationships and collaboration across teams. In today’s world, connection is more than maintaining good relationships. It’s about noticing and linking the dots, understanding the context and systems, embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging innovation, and helping people understand and adapt to change. Linking leaders help their teams navigate uncertainty, value collective intelligence, and create pathways that help others connect to a shared purpose and outcomes.

When leaders focus on links, and encourage others to link, the two help create a culture for collaboration and creative problem-solving, along with an environment where ideas flow freely, and everyone feels included in the process.

A few ways to strengthen links in your organisation:

💡 Knowledge sharing: organise presentations or informal exchanges to spread ideas.

💡 Diversity: build diverse teams and encourage varied perspectives.

💡 Cross-functional collaboration: set up inter-departmental projects or brainstorming sessions.

💡 Use technology: leverage collaboration platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

📌 Practical tip – link lab

When tackling a challenge, try a link lab by inviting people from different teams and departments to link up and brainstorm together. Ensure everyone has an equal voice, all ideas are valid, and there are no “bad” questions. Reflect on ideas that link people, challenges and topics, in new and different ways, to ultimately make better choices. 

This simple approach can strengthen links and uncover new ideas and connections.

We’d love to hear how you are experimenting and applying these ideas? 

Share your thoughts with us or get in touch we’d love to hear from you!

Image: Cathryn Lloyd