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Be Coached to Coach
By John Grubbs
It is lonely at the top unless we have an executive coach to share the struggles and challenges we face as leaders. Gone are the days of the lonely executive with none among them to trust and confide the challenges and insecurities that exist in us all. In today’s medicated, Prozac era, more and more business leaders are finding (and sometimes being required to utilize) great success from the services of a business or executive coach. Past perceptions of the word “coaching” and the negative stigma associated with a last chance effort to save a faltering manager are fading fast. Today’s high-speed and information intoxicated business climate screams for more and more business coaches to listen to and offer advice for an overloaded, oversaturated and often overwhelmed executive. More common today, at the airport watering hole, are comments like “My coach says…” or “How long have you been with your coach?” type comments.
The business coach offers an individual so many advantages that never existed in the past. First, a confidential and competent sounding board that we can share ideas with can be very useful to anyone seeking to achieve excellence. Consider the political implications in your own organization today. It is the rare subordinate that will disagree with a superior and even rarer for the subordinate to not consider their own political interest in the decision that needs to be made.
Yes, a confidant that only has your interest and success in mind is difficult, if not impossible, to find in any typical organization. According to many studies, the most common fear among chief executives is the fear of being considered incompetent by their subordinates. This fear was often translated for subordinates in the form of tyranny and a dictatorial style of management. Executives were not allowed to admit they did not know and could not admit being overwhelmed by problems or situations. Not being allowed to simply “be human” created an unrealistic image that executives aspired for but could never truly attain.
Luckily, times have changed and the demand for business coaches is growing at a significant rate. Leaders understand that effective coaching provides a knowledge sequence chain that can be very effective in reducing the significant challenges created by the learning curve. The knowledge sequence chain works as a short cut to situational dynamics and the learning that accompanies it organically. In other words, a business coach may have seen or helped another client deal with the same challenging issue and can quickly adapt the learning curve from one individual to another. A client gets not only the wisdom from the business coach but they also get the wisdom from every other leader the coach has worked with in the past.
This natural transfer may not seem significant at first glance, but imagine the amount of time it takes one individual to learn through success and failure in an environment that will not deliver honest feedback. The leader makes bad decisions that are often compounded over time because the information used to make these decisions are only versions of the truth rather that the truth itself.
Additionally, learning from a coach teaches the same executive to be a better coach for those they are fortunate enough to lead. The leaders learn techniques to help other members of the team better resolve issues while also becoming a better listener for their subordinates. This natural learning is very subtle and usually is a byproduct of the direct objectives learned in the individual coaching sessions. It is very difficult for someone to not attempt something they determine contains inherent value. The replication of coaching practice methodology is more organic and is better retained over longer periods of time.
Making better leaders is no more challenging to understand than our children being similar to crowd they choose to associate with. As humans and social beings, it is difficult to be in an environment and not be affected by our surroundings. Placing managers in the company of those that associate with leaders will only make them better, while isolating managers from other leaders will make them a product of the very same environment. If more of the same is your desire, do not employ a business coach for your leaders. If you want to shake the “snow globe” with your team, select and hire a seasoned business or executive coach and watch the leadership grow for your organization.
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