Can Good Coaching Take Your Life to the Next Level?

Do I think coaching really works? Why does coaching work? What’s the biggest advantage of having a coach with whom to work? I have spent the past 30 years coaching leaders and managers from around the world. I’ve coached global Fortune 100 CXOs, Managing Directors, and startup entrepreneurs, brought in by their venture capital partners to help them build their teams. Many of these people are highly effective leaders. Coaching helped them become stronger, more connected leaders.

The organizations I’ve worked with found coaching to be a great way to help accelerate the development and growth of their people. When done right, coaching can provide you an edge over others with similar strengths and gifts. I have built my success on providing clients an edge in their markets. Coaching has provided many businesses this edge.

I thought I’d share what makes coaching such a great tool for entrepreneurs. Good coaching helps individuals become more aware of how they impact others. In my experience, most leaders fail to realize the impact they have on others and miss the signs they need to successfully lead others. It is not all their fault.  When serving as a senior leader it’s not so easy to get others to tell you the truth. I have found that many times the people who share honest feedback get penalized for being honest. Many leaders prefer the half-truth to the whole truth. Many of their decisions are flawed because they may not have all the information required to make the right decisions. Coaches can provide honest feedback to their clients even when it’s painful.

Good coaching is an easily transferable skill.  When I take my more senior clients on, I insist they begin coaching their teams. I find that it can be incredibly empowering for both leader and follower if coaching is applied to a team.  If you’re coaching others you begin to help them gain from the coaching activity. This allows leaders to get results easier than they thought possible. Coaching others can give a leader significant leverage in building a stronger team.

I believe as the rate of change continues to accelerate, coaching can provide organizations an opportunity to move authority and responsibility further into the organization. Coaching allows a better connection between leader and team. It also helps everyone involved to become a stronger leader. An additional byproduct of good coaching is that it helps managers engage their employees’ unique strengths, gifts, and life experiences. Engaged employees make a more positive contribution to their organization, family and community.

Good coaching provides leaders an opportunity to develop new skills among their team members. Many great managers could accelerate their development by having a coach work with them on key skills they need to move to the next level. In the past we would assign mentors to our best people to help them grow. In a constantly changing world, coaching can help facilitate faster skill development.  Coaching allows team members an opportunity to grow while helping others grow. I see coaching as great double win for all parties involved.

If you’re building a more flexible team, an individual can gain from many others strengths in a shorter time through coaching. Once you teach people who excel at a specific skill how to teach and coach it, you increasing your training and development opportunities exponentially. People who are receiving coaching form a number of people feel more connected to their organizations. Not to mention the fact their feel empowered to get the best help available to do a good job.  These informal networks significantly increase the organization’s capabilities for growth. We will share more information on this over the coming weeks.

Now we’ve talked about what good coaching can do for your organization. Next week I’ll share what great coaching can do for your life. See you next week.