Leadership Coaching

Before discussing “leadership coaching”, it is probably best to define leadership and understand how it differs from management.

In the dictionary, a leader is defined as one who guides or inspires others, whereas a manager is a person who manages an organisation or business, where to manage means to be in charge of, or to administer.

Management is about control; leadership about inspiration.  Managers make things happen, get things done; leaders inspire others to make things happen.  Leaders are able to create an environment where the people around them feel confident and empowered to make their own decisions and take appropriate action, even in situations that they have not experienced before. 

For an individual to succeed in today’s organisations to manage is no longer enough; leaders are required to take a business to the next level.  For organisations, investing in a leadership culture, rather than a management culture, makes a significant impact on the bottom line.

Leadership coaching is a key component in the creation of a leadership culture within an organisation, and of equipping individuals with leadership skills.  Leadership coaching is a process of identifying, understanding and overcoming the obstacles that are in the way of an individual being a great leader.  It instils behaviours and habits that the leader will use every day in his or her role and challenges participants to examine their own leadership style. 

All senior managers and executives can benefit from leadership coaching.  No matter how experienced or in what type of company they are employed, leadership coaching can have a positive and lasting effect on performance, benefiting both the individual and the organisation.

Typically a coach will work one-to-one with a client, focussing on the issues that are important to that individual within the context of the organisation in which they operate.  Leadership coaching is NOT training; its purpose is not to “teach” individuals to be leaders, but to develop their skills, attitudes and behaviours in such a way that they become better leaders, better able to inspire and guide the people around them and achieve the results they need.  Leadership coaching deals with real situations, questioning and challenging the different ways of dealing with them and working out the most appropriate.  It is not a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with workplace issues, but a highly personalised development program.

In the same way that top sports people retain performance coaches to stay on top of their game, so do industry’s top leaders and executives engage in leadership coaching on a continuing basis, so that they, too, can remain at the top of the tree.