Leadership Coach (Volunteer)

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit serving children and youth (ages 5–18) experiencing housing instability. We deliver consistent, high-quality programming across mentorship, literacy, social-emotional learning, and creative expression in shelters, schools, and community spaces. Through signature experiences like The Imagination Studio, The Kitchen Table, The Sound Lab, and The Story Space, we nurture academic development, emotional well-being, and creative voice within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and accessibility-centered framework. Our work prioritizes dignity-protective storytelling, consent-driven engagement, and deep community partnership.

About the role

Mentor A Promise is seeking an experienced Leadership Coach to serve as a trusted developmental partner to leaders across the organization. Working within the Executive Team, the Leadership Coach will provide individual coaching, group coaching, leadership development, and practical guidance to MAP’s Chiefs, Directors, Managers, Team Leads, and emerging leaders. The goal is to help leaders become stronger in people leadership, team management, and organizational effectiveness through structured coaching, reflection, candid feedback, and practical development.

This is a senior volunteer leadership and advisory role with a commitment of approximately 5–10 hours per week and a minimum 6-month commitment. The role is remote with NYC-based collaboration as needed.

Responsibilities

• Leadership & Executive Coaching
  • Provide structured one-on-one coaching to leaders at different levels of the organization.
  • Establish individualized leadership-development goals and periodically assess progress.
  • Help leaders identify strengths, blind spots, leadership patterns, and opportunities for growth.
  • Coach leaders through real management challenges, difficult decisions, and organizational complexity.
  • Provide thoughtful, candid, and constructive feedback.
  • Help leaders translate reflection into specific behavioral changes and measurable action.
  • Build leaders’ capacity to solve problems independently rather than creating reliance on the coach.
• Strengthen People Leadership
  • Coach leaders in areas including delegation, accountability, communication, executive presence, feedback, difficult conversations, conflict management, decision-making, prioritization, performance management, volunteer leadership, team motivation, emotional intelligence, cross-functional collaboration, managing change, meeting effectiveness, and developing emerging leaders.
• Develop MAP’s Leadership Pipeline
  • Support new Chiefs, Directors, Managers, and Team Leads as they transition into leadership.
  • Help strong individual contributors develop the skills required to lead others.
  • Coach experienced leaders toward their next level of effectiveness.
  • Help leaders identify and develop talent within their own teams.
  • Support leadership readiness and succession-development efforts.
  • Reinforce the expectation that every MAP leader is responsible for developing the people they lead.
• Leadership Development & Learning
  • Identify recurring leadership-development needs across MAP.
  • Design and facilitate practical leadership workshops, discussions, exercises, and learning sessions.
  • Develop tools, frameworks, case studies, and resources leaders can apply in their daily work.
  • Use real organizational scenarios to strengthen leadership judgment and problem-solving.
  • Help establish a structured and scalable leadership-development framework for MAP.
  • Create opportunities for leaders to learn from one another across divisions and levels of responsibility.
• Executive Team Partnership
  • Work closely with the CEO and Executive Team to understand organizational leadership priorities.
  • Provide insight into broader leadership-development themes while protecting the confidentiality of individual coaching relationships.
  • Help distinguish individual coaching needs from broader organizational or management-system challenges.
  • Advise on opportunities to strengthen leadership culture, management practices, and organizational effectiveness.
  • Support special leadership-development priorities as MAP evolves.

Coaching Philosophy

The purpose of leadership coaching is not to provide every answer. It is to strengthen the person responsible for finding the answer. A strong coach:

• Listens deeply.
• Asks difficult questions.
• Challenges assumptions.
• Identifies blind spots.
• Creates accountability.
• Encourages reflection.
• Turns insight into action.

Success occurs when leaders become increasingly capable of navigating difficult situations with sound judgment, confidence, discipline, empathy, and independence.

Coaching Boundaries & Confidentiality

Trust is essential to effective coaching. The Leadership Coach will maintain appropriate professional discretion and establish clear expectations regarding confidentiality and its limitations at the beginning of coaching relationships. This role does not replace:

• Executive supervision
• Human Resources
• Legal counsel
• Safeguarding
• Clinical or mental-health services
• Formal investigations
• Organizational performance-management processes

Matters involving safeguarding, harassment, discrimination, serious misconduct, legal or ethical concerns, threats to safety, or other issues requiring organizational intervention must be escalated through MAP’s established procedures.

Requirements

We are seeking someone with substantial experience in one or more of the following:

• Executive or leadership coaching
• Senior organizational leadership
• Leadership development
• Organizational development
• Management consulting
• Human resources
• Learning and development
• Organizational psychology
• Nonprofit or corporate leadership
• People and culture development

The strongest candidates will demonstrate:

• Significant experience leading, coaching, or developing leaders
• Exceptional listening and questioning skills
• Strong understanding of organizational and team dynamics
• Ability to coach both senior and emerging leaders
• High emotional intelligence and mature judgment
• Ability to deliver candid feedback with respect
• Strong facilitation and communication skills
• Ability to navigate complex interpersonal and organizational situations
• High discretion, integrity, and professionalism
• Ability to maintain appropriate boundaries between coaching, supervision, HR, and counseling
• Commitment to accountability as well as empathy
• Alignment with MAP’s mission and dignity-centered values

Professional coaching credentials such as ICF certification are highly valued but not required when accompanied by substantial leadership and coaching experience.

What Success Looks Like

The Leadership Coach succeeds when MAP leaders become stronger, more capable, and more independent. Over time, leaders should:

• Communicate expectations more clearly.
• Delegate with greater confidence.
• Address problems earlier.
• Make stronger and more timely decisions.
• Navigate difficult conversations effectively.
• Give meaningful feedback.
• Hold themselves and others accountable.
• Develop stronger and more engaged teams.
• Collaborate more effectively across divisions.
• Follow through consistently.
• Recognize and develop future leaders.
• Learn from mistakes rather than repeat them.
• Understand how their behavior shapes organizational culture.
• Keep MAP’s mission at the center of leadership decisions.

Why This Role Matters

An organization can have an extraordinary mission, talented people, ambitious ideas, and strong programs—and still be limited by the quality of its leadership. Leadership determines whether expectations are clear, difficult conversations happen, people feel supported, accountability exists, problems are solved, talented people grow, commitments become results, and whether an organization can responsibly scale its impact. At MAP, strengthening leadership means strengthening every team those leaders touch—and ultimately strengthening our ability to serve children and families.

Commitment

• Approximately 5–10 hours per week
• Minimum 6-month commitment required
• Remote with NYC-based collaboration as needed
• Regular availability for individual and group coaching
• Participation in relevant leadership-development and Executive Team discussions as appropriate
• Consistent, professional communication and follow-through
• Completion of applicable MAP onboarding and organizational requirements

Benefits

• Opportunity to coach leaders across a growing multidisciplinary nonprofit
• Direct collaboration with the CEO and Executive Team
• Opportunity to help build MAP’s leadership-development infrastructure
• Experience supporting Chiefs, Directors, Managers, Team Leads, and emerging leaders
• Exposure to leadership challenges across programs, education, technology, operations, creative media, partnerships, finance, communications, and other functions
• Opportunity to design leadership-development systems with organization-wide impact
• Professional references and letters of recommendation
• Meaningful opportunity to strengthen the people responsible for carrying MAP’s mission forward