The Role of Leadership Coaching In Organisational Success and Personal Career Advancement
The current global market is incessantly transforming at a pace traditional, hierarchical leadership can hardly keep pace with. Executives are under great pressure to be not only at par with modern-day realities, but also to keep their companies on the competitive edge. This requires them to be highly innovative in satisfying the market’s transforming and ever-increasing demands. This trend has changed the industry’s structure from compartmentalisation and rigidity to flexibility and networking. This necessitates the shift of leadership style from command and control to one that inspires, develops, persuades and upholds.
Leadership coaching is essentially about this kind of leadership. It helps organisations evolve successfully with the changing marketplace by helping their employees cope with the fast-changing and highly demanding work environment. This is a highly significant role even with the advent of modern-day technology for at the heart of an organisation’s evolution is the adaptability to adapt to changes. Leadership coaching is now hailed as the most workable and practical option for business sectors and organisations seeking to optimize their performance.
Unlike most organisational trainings and workshops, where everyone learns from generic material, leadership coaching is tailored for each individual. Its objective is to highlight inherent talents, to hone abilities and to tap potentials as it encourages the openness to change, the willingness to step-up, and the consciousness to be more responsible parts of the corporate body.
Professor Bernd Vogel, in a corporate Learning Survey in 2014 by Henley Business School, expressed the result of their studies in saying that:
“Organizations clearly feel that this investment [in leadership coaching] is essential, and are confident that this will reap rewards. Interestingly we found that this is true for both the smallest organizations and for the largest.”
Similar surveys indicate that organisations that perform well despite current market challenges are those that put high value on leadership coaching.
If you’re in a management position, no matter the nature of the industry you’re in, you are a leader. The performance of those under you will largely depend on how you encourage and inspire them. Your leadership serves as the cornerstone on which their teamwork and collaboration are built. This is key to establishing strong and committed relationships between the leadership and the workforce. Specifically, leadership coaching enables you to:
• Assess performance in a positive and constructive way. You inspire people to be more engaged and to perform better when you recognise their contributions as significant parts of the bigger picture. Consequently, this inspirational leadership style will transform and influence others in the workplace to achieve individual, team and organisational goals.
• Address personal issues and other areas in life which may have been holding a person back from being an achiever. Although leadership coaching is different from life coaching, the two overlap, for obviously, personal values and issues affect work performance. This is why leadership coaching includes raising a person’s self-awareness as it serves as a fresh perspective from which to evaluate self and to provide feedback on work approach. This helps a lot in identifying strengths and weaknesses and how these affect the achievement of organisational objectives.
Leadership coaching also empowers workers to juggle work, family and social obligations with apparent ease. This is so because it ushers in sustainable behavioural changes that positively transform a person’s life — publicly and privately.
• Train other leaders to be coaches. As others look to you with admiration and respect and follow you with confidence, your values as a leader are absorbed by them. Coaching then becomes an organisational culture as your leadership example trickles down the ranks.
“Without a coach, people will never reach their maximum capabilities.” – Bob Nardelli
Personally, leadership coaching can take your career to greater heights. Enhancing your skills as a leader attracts promotion opportunities that will boost your career prospects.
Since the process of coaching enables you to come face-to-face with your strengths and weaknesses, you can confidently identify your talent. Knowing where and what you are good at will direct you to a career path that is perfect for you. When you are where you’re best suited, you can perform at your best, maximize your potential, and boost your productivity. The people you are leading will have more confidence in your leadership because they are convinced that you know what you are doing.
Having the capacity to identify where you are weak and strong also enables you to pinpoint which area you need to improve on. As you develop in that area, it becomes one of your strengths that can be added to your resume`. Broadening your skillset will enable you to cope with the new challenges that may come with your job or with the new role you will face as you take on a new job. You cannot progress in a career if you stagnate or don’t evolve along the way.
Going through leadership coaching will give you a deeper understanding of emotional intelligence (EI). Daniel Goleman, author of the best seller, “Emotional Intelligence,” describes it as: “understanding and managing your own emotions and influencing the emotions of others.” EI is an essential life skill, especially for leaders. Having the ability to control your emotions and to get along well with people underpin your success in winning people to your side as a leader. If you are not respected as a leader, you can’t expect to achieve success in your workplace. EI also matters a lot in facing new situations like embarking on a new career. Having the ability to get along well with different kinds of people, especially with a new boss or a team, can get you an easy and good start to success.
The road to career advancement is strewn with challenges that can make you stumble or even retreat along the way. But through leadership coaching, you can acquire problem-solving skills and learn to focus on the essentials. You can also tap into your emotional intelligence for resilience, flexibility, optimism, and other life skills to help you surpass even the toughest career and personal challenges.
One of the things you will realise in leadership coaching is that networking plays a significant role in career advancement. Your coach can be your first access as he or she allows you to be part their personal web of connections. The more people you are connected with in different industries, the more information you will have on marketplace needs such as job vacancies and in-demand skills. You will also gain connection with influential industry stakeholders whose recommendations can give you the advantage over other applicants.
Through leadership coaching, you develop as a leader and as a person. It brings you to a deeper self-awareness of who you are as a person and how this affects you as a leader. It taps into your potential to enhance your operational abilities and maximize your contribution to your organisation’s success.
But leadership coaching is not just about organisational success; it’s also about personal career advancement. It will help you visualise the direction you want your life to take and push you to follow that path. In the process, you will gain leadership qualities that will make a star in your job.
Leadership coaching has its own set of challenges for leadership is not an easy role to play. If you want to make the most of it, you have to prepare yourself for a process of commitment and resilience — for this is what leadership is all about.
