I have had the honor of knowing and working with Court Whitman for ten years in both the government and private sectors.  His ability to create and lead successful teams in the Special Operations community is matched by his skill adapting to new environments and diverse audiences in his coaching and human resources role.  He is a key part of building and sustaining the right culture for a high-performance organization.  I always knew that we could trust Court to lead or support the most sensitive and important missions at hand, while taking unequaled measures to care for and lead the team members around him.  I would take Court back on my team any day.

Court is a great listener, asks questions that are thoughtful and probing and always connected the conversation to a tangible point of action. With Court’s guidance, he helped peel back layers that targeted real issues that hindered real progress. At the conclusion of each session, not only had we addressed a nagging issue, but had developed a plan of action to address it. The coaching sessions helped reveal some subtle blind spots, that once exposed, provided fertile ground for personal growth. This is my first experience receiving one on one “coaching” and in my opinion, Court went above and beyond in his flexibility, punctuality, passion to help and desire for productive change. If I didn’t know, I would’ve assumed Court had been coaching clients for 15+ years.

I’ve felt more focused and disciplined since working with Court. I find myself continually evaluating my two main areas of weakness – lack of discipline and procrastination – and therefore positively impacting my productivity.

Learned different ways to structure my day/week. Really was able to talk through some ideas/struggles/ and move to an action plan for several areas of my life including time with my family and job/professional related. Court’s ability to bring different viewpoints, questions, and thoughts helped me learn a lot about myself. I think his curiosity has helped him have a great understanding of different tools/frameworks that makes it much more personable. This was my first coaching experience and the bar was set very high for any follow on. I could not have been more impressed with his professionalism and ability to create coaching sessions with empathy and understanding.

I think the most profound self-awareness area that I was surprised about was I perhaps resenting being in the shadows in my previous jobs. I realized I wanted to take pride or credit as the front leader or the decision maker. I want to be a senior executive. Court’s coaching and the assessments help provide this keen insight into what I really wanted in my next job.. Court also was very good at accountability and control measures. For example, at every session, he would go over the objectives of the session driven by my needs. At the end, we would recap and think through the next topic area. He would also follow-up with feedback or provide his analysis on my strengths and weaknesses. Very insightful.

I was stricken by Court’s gentle leadership style. He was humble and deferential always, yet still found a way to inject his confidence and knowledge into the conversation while making me feel like those were my own. I’ve never spoken to someone in that way, so it made me uncomfortable at first, but I quickly learned to appreciate it and hope to emulate that style for situations where it is appropriate in my life.