Printer Friendly VersionAbout Coaching: For Leaders
You are successful in your career and you know there are always opportunities for improvement. You realize the future might call you to be a leader in different ways. Do any of these ring true for you?
- As I look toward the next step in my career, I wonder how I should develop myself to be ready.
- I have some real strengths that have brought me this far. Now I notice that those strengths don¡¯t seem to produce the same results as they did in the past.
- I want to broaden my perspective on who I am and how I contribute to my organization, to my community, and to the world.
- Now that I have moved into a new role or a new organization, things aren¡¯t going as well as I had hoped. There¡¯s a lack of fit. I want to do something about it.
- I¡¯m committed to playing at the top of my game. I¡¯m ready to take on the next challenge. I want to tap into all of my potential.
- I want to have a more positive impact on my team and the organization.
If any of these ring true for you, then you are ready for personal change. The path of personal change is exciting and rewarding, and it also can be complicated, confusing, and frustrating. The stakes are high and the way is difficult. Your coach is your partner, your supporter, your guide. Your coach is the one person whose only agenda is your success.
How Leadership Coaching Works
Coaching is both a relationship and a process.
As a relationship between you and your coach, it has these characteristics:
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As a relationship between you and your coach, it has these characteristics:
- Focuses on you, your needs, and your goals. You are a unique human being. Coaching draws on your innate wisdom, creativity, resourcefulness, and energy to reach the goals you have chosen.
- Results-oriented. Early in the process, you will decide what results you want to achieve. The coaching program will be designed to support you in achieving those results.
- A journey of self-reflection, experimentation, growth, and change. It takes a while. There will be barriers, setbacks, and frustrations along the way. The coach’s role is to ask tough questions and demand more of you than you demand of yourself, which will enable you to stay in action, get past the setbacks, and achieve the goal you have selected.
- Action-oriented. Learning occurs when you take action and observe the results your actions produce. Your coach will assist in designing actions for you to take that will help you learn, move forward, and reach your goals.
- Requires commitment, accountability, and willingness to accept feedback. For the coaching process to be successful, you must be willing to set goals to which you are committed, take action in a disciplined way, accept feedback and be held accountable.
- Builds a foundation for continuous and sustained change. By drawing on who you are (and not trying to imitate someone else), the process creates a stable foundation for future growth and change.
As a process, coaching has four stages:
- Exploring. In this stage, you and your coach work together (often using assessment instruments and surveys) to get a clear understanding of your current situation and desired future state, including the capabilities the organization requires for leaders in your position.
- Commitment. In this stage, you choose goals for the coaching program and make a commitment to achieve those goals
- Action. During the program, you will take actions to achieve your goals. Your coach will support you through regular conversations to design the actions, discuss the results, and provide feedback.
- Sustaining. The value of coaching lasts long after the conclusion of the formal program. By that time, you will have developed powers of self-observation and self-awareness that you can call upon to meet new opportunities and challenges as they arise.
Coaching adds the most value when certain organizational stakeholders (typically, your manager, peers, and direct reports) are actively involved in the process. The coach will work with you and the organization to design the most effective ways for these stakeholders to support you during each stage of the coaching process.
Ready to get started? Or do you want more information?
Contact Ann Kruse at 425-391-1882 or click here to send an email. We’ll discuss your situation and how to design the coaching program that will add the most value. There is no charge for this consultation.
To provide information to your manager or to your Human Resources, Organization Development, or Leadership Development Department, direct them to About Coaching: For Organizations and Coaching FAQs.