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HOW TO BECOME A GREAT LEADER AND COACH

Guest post by: Roger Ingbretsen

Article Overview: Coaching by a leader may appear to be time consuming, but look at it as a smart investment. One of the beauties of coaching and cultivating high quality talent is that it creates the momentum required to take your organization from good to great because it plays off and exploits the natural and learned talents, strengths, and competencies of everyone involved.

HOW TO BECOME A GREAT LEADER AND COACH

To become a great leader/coach, the following practical steps require both introspective thought and proactive behavior.

1. Discover yourself — When you begin your own personal quest to discover your true self, from that point on, no one will ever know you better than you know yourself. The most powerful tool for personal growth and development is the discovery and recognition of one’s own strengths and consistencies. Until you know your strengths and consistencies, it is difficult to be successful enough to create significance for both yourself and others. When you know your strengths, you can better understand why you do what you do. You can then more effectively direct your actions with purpose. Also, the better knowledge base you have of yourself, the more effective you can be in coaching the development of others. Discovering yourself can be done through the use of personal assessment instruments, self-reflection, feedback from others, and dialogue with “your own personal coach.” Although you can quickly gain a fair assessment of self through a concentrated effort, you should consider self-discovery to be a life-long process. Once you have a good understanding of yourself, you are then better equipped to move into the role of a coaching leader and facilitate the coaching process with another person or team. A healthy approach is to view the coaching experience with your colleague as a partnership in discovery. When one teaches, two learn. You cultivate your coaching skills while your colleague is discovering and enhancing his or her strengths.

2. Retain, develop, and hire the best talent — To become a great leader/coach, you may have to change your assumptions about your role and about people. Start with the right assumptions, and everything else follows from them — how you select, measure, train, and develop your people — will be correct. Here are five right assumptions to use as a guide: (1) a person’s talents are enduring and unique; (2) a person’s greatest room for potential development and impact is in the areas of his or her greatest strength; (3) carefully look for the talent required in every role; (4) spend most of your time in quality dialogue with your best people; and (5) reward your very best and most talented people appropriately.

3. Select a colleague and begin the coaching process — Select a colleague to coach. Reflective coaching involves a process of “walking with” a colleague through a process of self-discovery. The coaching process requires you to stay in touch with your colleague. It also involves engaging the colleague in a dialogue from an assumption of mutual respect, in search of new basic frames of reference and assumptions that will benefit the individual and the organization. As a coach, it is important to realize that changing a colleague’s performance is not your job. Your responsibility is to effectively listen, challenge by asking powerful questions, observe results, and then provide insightful and honest feedback. The ability to skillfully ask good questions, listen to and watch the body language of your colleague as he or she answers the questions, and then make the connection between the answer and a possible path to a better solution, are among the most powerful tools a coach can have. Seeing the interconnectedness of where a person is and articulating how that person can best get where he or she wants to go is the essence of the “art of coaching.” The goal of the coach is to help others discover their strengths and talents and encourage them to implement a plan that will play off their greatest assets. The coach also needs to do whatever is required to develop trust. Trust is the glue that binds followers and leaders. By sharing your experience with your colleague you can help his or her professional foundation grow. However, the purpose of coaching is not to show or do for your colleagues, rather it is to inspire and provide both challenge and support, help them reflect, and to help them identify and take action that best applies their strengths to the business. Expect the best and encourage the heart. Individuals grow toward expectations, and value encouragement. In place of driving towards success, encourage your colleague to drive for significance, because that is where true leadership is exhibited.

Coaching by a leader may appear to be time consuming, but look at it as a smart investment. One of the beauties of coaching and cultivating high quality talent is that it creates the momentum required to take your organization from good to great because it plays off and exploits the natural and learned talents, strengths, and competencies of everyone involved.

The following coaching competencies, based on IFC (international coaching federation) guidelines, should always be present and visible in any coaching interaction.

· Be ethical and professional.

· Establish an honest and trusting relationship.

· Be fully present, conscious, and spontaneous.

· Express active listening.

· Be a direct communicator.

· Ask powerful questions.

· Create and raise the colleague’s awareness.

· Design and create action plans and action behaviors.

· Develop plans and establish goals with the colleague.

· Manage the colleague’s progress and hold the person responsible for action.

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Article Tags: coach, coaching, leadership, leadership coaching, quality talent



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