Leadership Coaching

Dr. Patrick Williams, an ICF Master Certified Coach, psychologist and author, says in his book Becoming a Professional Life Coach:

No matter what kind of subspecialty a coach might have, life coaching is the basic operating system: a whole-person, client-centered approach. Coaching the client's whole life is the operating system working in the background. A client may seek creative or business coaching, leadership development, or a more balanced life, but all coaching is life coaching.

It is impossible to live compartmentalized and effective lives, as much as people try to do so. Life has a peculiar way of always seeking integrity, and despite the best efforts to the contrary, what happens in one part of a person's life affects all the other parts.

And, in a very real way, all coaching is also leadership coaching, because the object of coaching is to assist the client in "taking charge" of not only their own personal life, but also in developing skills and making decisions to take specific action while embracing the responsibility for the decisions and actions (and the results) that they project into all areas of life. This is especially true for those with leadership responsibilities in the workplace, and anyone with responsibility for the performance of others has leadership responsibility. It is with this perspective that I coach.

The coaching conversation creates a safe environment which allows the leader the opportunity to explore current reality honestly and to test and try out new ways of thinking and doing that will better serve them in reaching their personal and organizational goals. It is my job to help my clients see clearly what is and to then decide how they want it to be. We then work together to determine pathways so that how they want it to be (their vision for the organization) becomes what is. As a leadership coach, I help the leader develop and exercise leadership competency and capacity in every area of their own life, and express that leadership with integrity in their work behavior and relationships.

Coaching is not always a comfortable process; good leadership requires courage and a willingness to change. Change and growth always require work; the payoff comes as habitual but ineffective patterns are replaced with ones that will better serve the leader in achieving their goals. And the results of even small changes can make a significant difference in both personal satisfaction and professional leadership performance.

"The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born." ~Warren G. Bennis