“Leaders or organizations with self-security can push power and authority downstream and develop centers of innovation and excellence at all levels of the organization.”
Peter F. Drucker, The Leader of the Future.
From my fifteen years of experience as an Executive Coach I have found that there are two types of situations in which leaders benefit greatly from Leadership Coaching.
The first is when a manager is promoted to a higher position or given greater responsibilities, the second when a manager is struggling to cope.
How Recently Promoted Leaders Benefit
As a leader climbs the managerial ladder his/her style of leadership has to change and their leadership abilities have to increase. The style of leadership that worked for a junior leader in his first managerial position is unlikely to prove effective for a senior manager.
Junior manager leadership is about managing relationships, production and timing; senior manager leadership is about strategy, profit and communication.
It is unlikely that a good junior manager will make the transition to a more senior management role without a radical change of emphasis in the way he manages. More senior roles require both new behaviour and new intellectual ability.
It is important for the newly promoted manager to have access to a coach who can help them create the self-security which will enable them to lead effectively. The creation of this self-security can only come when the manager has respect, trust and empathy with their coach.
A recently promoted manager is often aware of their short-comings in their new role, but loathe to expose their weakness for fear of undermining their new found authority. This situation requires that the coach has both sensitivity and experience. The right coach can quickly get the newly promoted manager up to scratch.
Leaders Who Are Struggling to Cope Also Benefit
When a leader is struggling to cope it is rarely a single issue that is creating the stress. It is more often a combination of two or more of the following:
a) lack of knowledge
b) poor leadership skills
c) the lack of a clear direction
d) poor strategies
e) lack of organisation
f) poor time management
g) lack of self-security
In order to successfully coach a struggling leader it is essential to quickly identify the issues that are making the leader ineffective and stressed. Note: these may not be the same issues that the leader is presenting as the causes of his difficulties. Because of the possibility of discrepancies between what the leader thinks is the problem and the actual problem, a good coach will “dig deeper” in order to be certain that the correct issues have been identified.
Once the “problems” are clear, the next step is to set goals, the achievement of which will alleviate the problems.
At this stage the wise coach will clarify the learning style of the leader to be coached so as to speed up the learning process.
Good coaches make the leader the centre of the coaching, but follow a leader development protocol rather than slavishly working their way through a rigid programme of events.
It is this ability, that coaching has, to cut the knowledge cloth to suit the individual leader that makes coaching such an effective method of developing leaders. A leader being well coached will learn exactly what he needs to know and have the opportunity, between coaching sessions, to try out leadership development strategies to make sure that they work for him. In this way his sense of self-security grows as he improves his performance.
More about Leadership Coaching…
