Unit 1: Introduction to Leadership Coaching

Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It is about laying the groundwork for others' success, and then
standing back and letting them shine.
Chris Hadfield

Think about the great leaders you've met throughout your life—or learned about throughout history. How would you describe them? What sets these individuals apart? And what is that special something that draws others to them? How do you think coaching would be beneficial in developing your leadership foundation?

Lesson Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Define coaching and why it's important
Describe the styles of coaching
Review coaching benefits and myths
Critique scenarios to determine which style of coaching applies
Differentiate among five types of leadership styles

Introduction

Leadership coaching is an influential management training device to help business leaders at all levels grow their leadership skills within themselves to make the most of their performance. Leadership Coaching helps you increase consciousness through preparation and candid feedback. In this course, you will hone your inherent leadership skills to better motivate teams and deliver specific personal, professional, and organizational goals.

Leadership Coaching Facts and Myths

Leadership Coaching Facts

Leadership coaching develops self-awareness, provides critical challenges and support and helps focus transformation.
Leadership coaching offers an impartial and honest observation that helps you develop your own leadership style, strengths, and weaknesses.
Some people are more naturally charismatic than others and people tend to follow charismatic leaders. We all have a unique set of skills within them that can be put into action to make us better leaders.
Leadership coaching will help you gain mindfulness of your inner leadership skills, your weak points, and your leadership goals.
When you need to take a fresh approach to an old problem, leadership coaching can help you increase awareness.
At various points in your career, you can access, and use the right skills to confront a particular challenge with the help of leadership coaching.

Leadership Coaching Myths

Leadership coaching is not a magic bullet. The list of items below are myths about leadership coaching.
Leadership coaching teaches a set of techniques, styles, and mannerisms that you can replicate and apply once you’ve learned how to do them.
People are born leaders or they’re not.
Leadership coaching is okay for beginners, but experienced professionals don’t need it.

Key Definitions

Leadership Coaching Defined

Leadership coaching is a developing field. As such, its definition is still the subject of discussion and debate among practitioners, researchers, and consumers. Leadership coaching involves an executive, a coach, and the organizational context.

Leadership coaching is a one-on-one individualized process that benefits a leader and his/her organization. A qualified and trusted coach uses various coaching methods and feedback data to develop the leader’s capacity for current and future leadership. This coaching is guided by a coaching partnership to achieve maximum impact and the highest level of learning.

Select each image to learn more about the different types of coaches.

Individualized Coaching

The goals and specific activities are tailored to the unique aspects of the individual(s) and the organizational system. "Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen, despite the obstacles."
—John Kotter

Leader

Any individual(s) who have the potential of making a significant contribution to the mission and purpose of the organization.

Who do you define as a leader?

One-on-one Coaching

The primary coaching activities take place between the individual leader(s) and the coach.
"A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there." —David R. Gergen

Capacity Building

The process of developing new ways of thinking, feeling, acting, learning, leading, and relating to others builds individual and organizational effectiveness. "The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths so strong that it makes the system's weaknesses irrelevant." —Peter Drucker

Feedback Data

Data collected from the appropriate use of interviews and standardized instruments assure the accuracy and validity of data gathered from people representing a range of perspectives within the organization.

"Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them."—Stephen Covey

Qualified Coach

It is important that the organization and executive are protected by knowing what competencies are required at basic and advanced levels for the coaching to be successful.

"Why is culture so important to a business? Here is a simple way to frame it. The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing.”— Brian Chesky

Trusted Coach

A coach earns trust with an executive and an organization by the use of ethical practices and confidentiality. A coach is not a substitute for a counselor or mental health professional.

Coaching Partnership

The coaching partnership is a win-win systems approach in which all partners in the effort plan the process together, communicate openly, and work cooperatively toward the ultimate accomplishment of overarching organizational objectives.

Leadership Coaching Summary

See the executive, his position, and the organization through multiple lenses and perspectives.
Maintain an objective and impartial perspective by resisting collusion with the executive or the organization.
Recognize and appreciate the complexity of the organizational structure in which the executive functions.
Encourage leaders to explore both long- and short-term views.
Recognize the interaction of all parts in the whole, especially how the change in one of the leader’s behaviors may affect other behaviors and other people.
Helps the leader distinguish between high- and low-leverage changes. Encourage commitment to the highest-leverage actions to achieve results.

The following article was curated from Harvard Business Review. Ibarra, H., & Scoular, A. (2021, November 17). The leader as coach. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved September 22, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-leader-as-coach The article focuses on the coaching relationship and different styles of coaching. According to Ibarra and Scouler (2021), there are four styles of coaching.

The 5 Types of Leadership Styles

Culture is created by an organization’s values, strategic vision, and mission. It sets the tone for relationships between people in an organization. Leadership is one of the biggest influencers of organizational culture. Take a look at the Accordion interaction below to learn about the five types of leadership.

Learn more from this curated content.

Fagaly, M. (2019, September 30). The 5 types of leadership styles that can define your organization's culture. Berrett-Koehler Publishers Blog. https://ideas.bkconnection.com/the-5-types-of-leadership-styles-that-can-define-your-organizations-culture

Directive Leadership

Directive leadership utilizes a pyramid structure, with power flowing from the top down. Those at the top give those at the bottom specific instructions and tasks. Directive leadership creates class distinctions based on each person’s position in the organizational hierarchy. Directive leadership is known for consistency. Leaders establish specific values and behavioral patterns, and others are expected to follow.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leaders begin by bringing team members together to provide honest feedback. The overall goal is to inspire transformational tendencies in employees by reflecting on their personal goals and values. Transformational leadership motivates team members by ensuring that they are working for a purpose bigger than themselves.

Servant Leadership

Servant leadership flips the organizational pyramid, creating an atmosphere where everyone serves as a leader. Servant leaders focus on serving organizational stakeholders—and the larger community. This service component is what distinguishes servant leadership from other leadership styles.

Participative Leadership

Participative leadership works to build consensus among team members. Participative leadership earns trust and commitment to achieve whole-system change. Leaders make the final decision, but they do so through a process of compromise, collaboration, and consensus building that engages all team members. Through open dialogue and communication and shared values, participative leadership fosters a culture of empathy that’s required for innovation to flourish.

Authoritative Leadership

Authoritative leaders set the visionary direction of organizations and clearly explain the roles that individual employees will play in that long-term vision. Authoritative leadership and directive leadership share a number of traits. The biggest difference, however, is that power can be more distributed under directive leadership.

Offline Activity - Please complete Exercise 1 in your workbook.

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