"Taming Abrasive Managers through Coaching"

Laurel Gordon - Organizational Ombuds

Federal government Agency
Laurel will discuss and review a leadership coaching methodology that helps managers struggling with negative perceptions of being abrasive turn their behavior around.

About the Speaker

Laurel Gordon has worked as an organizational ombuds with the federal government since 2016. As an ombuds, she provides conflict coaching, informal mediation, and other independent, confidential, impartial, informal conflict resolution assistance to employees and managers of her agency. Laurel is a certified Conflict Coach, Associate Certified Coach, Federal Internal Coach, Accredited Boss Whisperer (coach of leaders dealing with negative perceptions), and a certified mediator. Laurel joined the federal government as a Presidential Management Fellow in 2009. She has worked at the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Office of Personnel Management, and briefly at USAID-Afghanistan. Laurel holds a BA from Columbia University, an MS in Psychological Science from the University of Maryland, and an MA in Comparative Religion from the University of Washington. She has volunteered as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate for children in the foster care system in the District of Columbia and as a listener on a suicide support hotline in Northern Virginia. She is the mother of two amazing young children and lives in Seattle, Washington.