Leadership Coaching
My way of coaching help leaders hold and bear the tension between the forces pulling in different directions, providing a sounding board and a safe space in which the leader can reflect, learn and grow.
Why Leadership Coaching?
Leadership Coaching has become one of the most effective development tools with those individuals who have significant responsibility for the current and future success of an organisation. Now more than ever, leaders need a confidential and safe space, provided by the coaching relationship, to explore and integrate new leadership capabilities.
These new leadership capabilities will help them lead more effectively and create a team/organisational environment where others feel inspired and want to follow. Indeed, coaching has become more important and necessary than ever due to the ever-changing corporate landscape of the 21st Century – often described as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (or the acronym VUCA).
Research shows that 30-50% of senior leaders fail or have left within 18 months of a new appointment. And those making the transition from operational management to leadership roles will grapple with the shift from “the known”, within defined parameters, to “the unknown”, which focuses on the future (now described as VUCA).
Other challenges faced by leaders, and where Leadership Coaching makes a significant difference include:
- Changing or unfamiliar business cultures
- Shifting employment positions, roles and processes
- Unfamiliar business policies, practices and processes
- Conflicting business philosophies, perspectives and options
- Information overload
- Problem-solving fatigue and inertia
Benefits of Leadership Coaching
Leadership Coaching has evolved over the last couple of decades from a generic, one-size-fits all, to a highly-sophisticated approach to preparing leaders for the high demands of the organisational world. In fact, effective leaders with established track records attribute their success largely to their early and continued investment in a Leadership Coach.
Below are some examples (not an exhaustive list) of leadership capabilities addressed in our Leadership Coaching programs, depending on the need of the individual and the organisation.
What is Leadership Coaching?
Effective leaders are rare, mainly due to the myriad conflicting priorities (tension) they must balance daily. As I’ve already mentioned, this has become increasingly challenging in today’s VUCA world.
Hence, I believe that the leadership coach’s task is to add value to the leader’s job of balancing and optimising these tensions to improve leadership effectiveness. I will help the leader to hold and bear the tension between the forces pulling in different directions, providing a sounding board and a safe space in which the leader can reflect, learn and grow.
There are many leadership theories and models globally and, to date, there is no consensus on which is the best one. Furthermore, just like organisations have their unique cultures, so do the countries they are located at. I therefore believe that Leadership Coaching needs to be a highly sophisticated, tailored and multidimensional process that focuses on the leader’s needs within his/her unique organisational context.
Following my approach to coaching, I design tailored programs that take into consideration all aspects of the leader’s life, highly effective coaching processes are holistic and multifaceted, drawing from the most current leadership theory and practices, and are underpinned by evidence-based models in psychology and organisational behaviour.