Joe Volker has been a coach for most of his life. He is exhilarated by the process of helping leaders sort out their priorities, find their growing edge, and push themselves to new achievements. Joe is an excellent listener, a quick study, and a master at giving constructive feedback to powerful people. Clients appreciate his tough-minded and resourceful approach and they often consider his advice to be the difference between success and failure in the development of their leaders.
Joe’s expertise in building and developing engaging leaders, strong teams, and organizations that are flexible to change have benefited numerous clients including Cargill, Polo Ralph Lauren, CenterPoint Energy, and Medtronic. In addition to his roles as a trusted confidant and a valuable resource to leaders, Joe also designs and delivers many of MDA’s powerful action learning programs focused on leadership skills critical to building and developing high performance organizations.
He joined the firm in 1992. He honed his coaching skills through private practice and post-doctoral training from the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland and the Twin Cities. In the early years, he was a college professor at the University of North Dakota working with graduate students on building their skills in counseling, facilitation, and communication methods. He earned a B.A. in Social Ecology from the University of California, Irvine, and then completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He currently serves as an adjunct instructor on the faculty of Augsburg College in the Master of Arts in Leadership program. He is a licensed psychologist in the state of Minnesota.
The real Joe Volker is a Disney devotee and quite the jokester. He has made numerous trips to the Magic Kingdom, and uses those experiences to enlighten his clients, friends, and family. He uses his musical talents singing in the church choir and playing the piano. And when the outdoors come calling, he dons fly fishing gear and marches off in pursuit of the elusive rainbow trout. Secretly, Joe would like to lounge around at home and write comedy for television and movies.
Favorite Work:
Developing leaders one by one with executive coaching
Phone: 612-259-4230
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Joseph
