LEADERSHIP COACHING – WHY BOTHER ?
You are already a leader.. or you are well on the way, rising through the ranks, impressing your organisation with your capability and potential, delivering great results and marking yourself out for the next step on the ladder… why would you need coaching ?
Isn’t this for the weak?, those who have lost their way or those who need an ego boost?
At some point you will not be recognised by what you alone do or achieve, you will be increasingly assessed and rewarded on how well you impart vision, support and develop others.
A good coach will improve your leadership skills directly by developing ways of working that can become inherent in your leadership style and be an asset for the rest of your career.
They give a safe sounding board for your ideas, thoughts and concerns and give you the space to think through your challenges. They don’t judge, they listen, they support, occasionally advise and yes, they challenge.
WHAT DOES A LEADERSHIP COACH DO ?
Well in many respects, not very much…
Firstly they listen and seek to understand you, your challenges and your environment. Time is taken to establish the areas you want to address, clarify these and understand their scale and impact on your long term goals.
Your coach will know every situation is different and solutions are best identified by the person being coached as this reinforces the ownership and sustainability of the outcomes.
You should expect questions such as what is important to you?, what areas do you want to address? and more challenging questions such as what are you not facing up to ?
They will then work with you to establish the actions you will need to take to address the challenges, ensuring they goals you set are realistic and aligned with your career and personal development.
The coach will want to know what you want to achieve and what you want to happen and explore the reality of this ambition in your current context.
The challenge you will receive in terms of your actions will ensure you are well positioned to address any obstacles to implementation and give you the safe space to rehearse your approach.
Ongoing coaching sessions will review the success of actions taken, positively reinforcing the steps you have taken and refocusing you for the next steps.
Coaching should ideally be focused on known challenges and areas to address. As such it should not be an ongoing relationship and you would normally expect no more than six sessions to get you from where you are to where you need to be.
If your time with a coach has been valuable you will not only achieve the outcomes set for the coaching itself but will have had positive reinforcement of the strengths you undoubtedly have and the opportunity to build your confidence to take on future and as yet unknown challenges.
Paul Hulme
Paul Hulme has worked in leadership roles with high profile organisations across multiple sectors. Paul qualified as an Executive Coach in 2006 and this has enabled him to act as a trusted advisor to a wide range of Chief Executives, Managing Directors and their teams.
A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, his career has included roles in organisation strategy & development, business change and transformation, human resources, corporate services and commercial management. He finds this wide ranging experience assists in being able to quickly understand a new challenge and the issues faced and to convert this into
Previously Paul has worked with leading edge organisations in health care, health analytics, aviation, manufacturing and social housing sectors.
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