Powerful Leadership Through Coaching

Principles, Practices, and Tools for Leaders and Managers at Every Level

Michael K. Simpson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781119529026
• eBook ISBN: 9781119529040
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

On-going coaching and development that can be a "game changer" for all employees!

All great coaches know how to ask good open-ended questions and how to give effective feedback. They keep a balanced and honest perspective that separates the person from the problem or issue; coaching to leverage their unique strengths and helping them improve weaknesses with a mindset focused on continuous improvement.

This ongoing coaching and development can be a "game changer" for all people and teams with access to it. But what about the teams and players that aren't empowered—or even allowed—to expand their roles? Or the team members whose careers don't inspire or play to their natural gifts, talents, and strengths? It's painful for any organization or manager when people on their team aren't given the tools to succeed; and more painful still when the team member doesn't yet realize it. But by coaching through leadership, any manager of any organization can create a supportive structure that helps assign the right roles, resources, tools, and career opportunities that will best leverage their strengths.

• Determines coachability and readiness for employee change and improvement
• Builds awareness to deal with the right issues, challenges, and opportunities
• Offers leaders/managers the tools to help a performer leverage their greatest gifts, talents, and strengths
• Allows for dialogue and tactics to close gaps in experience, communication styles, and personality
• Guides managers in how to have dialogue around difficult and important issues with their employees
• Includes coaching principles, practices, and tools with practical, real-world examples
• Offers strategies and tools to help employees become more motivated for effective change, action, and accountability

Each chapter includes a series of powerful and provocative coaching questions for any leader or manager to use immediately in the workplace.

I
The Realities of Being a Great Coach

• Chapter 1 Why Every Leader and Manager Should Be a Great Coach
• Chapter 2 The Simpson 3Ds Coaching Model: The “How to” of Coaching
• Chapter 3 Coaching from the Inside-Out
• Chapter 4 Coaching with a Mindset of Abundance
• Chapter 5 Coaching with Authenticity

1
Why Every Leader and Manager Should Be a Great Coach

Fulfillment is a right and not a privilege. Every single one of us is entitled to feel fulfilled by the work we do, to wake up feeling inspired to go to work, to feel safe when we’re there and to return home with a sense that we contributed to something larger than ourselves.

—Simon Sinek, British American author,
keynote speaker, and organizational consultant

What’s the difference between a good leader and a great leader?

All leaders are expected to improve performance and achieve great business results. Some leaders are lucky and succeed in spite of themselves. Some get mediocre results. Others succeed in the short term but in ways that don’t build trust or sustain results.

I submit that the difference between good and great leaders is the ability to coach and develop people.

Damon was a vice president of operations within his organization, a firm plagued by low levels of trust. He knew that to move forward in this firm, he should make a serious effort to build trust with his boss and colleagues. I was asked to coach him.

But I found that Damon was unwilling to put in the work to actualize that goal. He was disorganized, an inefficient planner, and poor at prioritizing tasks. Though he worked very hard and was quite brilliant, he was also a chronic micromanager and often got lost in the weeds, taking his team with him. Essentially, Damon “got a lot done,” but he was a horrible leader. He failed to define a clear strategy, set focused goals, and empower and engage his team around those goals.

Furthermore, Damon was less a leader than a cop. A favorite pastime was to catch his team members doing things wrong—“gotcha!” games. He tried to make up for his lack of performance by blaming his team. When the time came for Damon’s boss to move on, he naturally expected to get the open job. Neither his peers nor his team trusted him to do the job that needed to be done, so it went to someone else.

“Quit and Leave” or “Quit and Stay” Syndrome

There might have been a time when aggressive behaviors paid off for leaders like Damon, but that time is about over. Faced with untrustworthy managers, employees take one of two actions: they quit and leave or they quit and stay.

We all know what it means to quit and leave, but what does it look like to “quit and stay”?

Consider Scott Adams, who created the cartoon Dilbert. Adams began cartooning while he was working at an unmotivating job for managers who were utterly uninterested in him. How could he do a full-time job and still produce his famous workplace cartoons? He basically quit and stayed. He explained it himself: “The day you realize that your efforts and rewards are not related, it really frees up your calendar. . . . I had time for hobbies.” His day job gave him plenty of practical and fun material to work with.

Leaders who try to drive, insult, or micromanage people will end up with team members who quit and leave or quit and stay. It’s a natural consequence. The inevitable result is mediocre business performance or worse.

Coaching—the right kind of coaching—is the antidote to poor leadership.

Coaching by Definition

If you want to lead, not drive or micromanage, you need to become a coach!

According to the International Coach Federation, the body that sets standards for professional coaching worldwide, coaching is “a partnership that is formed to inspire others to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

That’s powerful. It means that a leader-coach honors team members as experts on their own lives. “The person who is currently doing a job is in the best position to know how to do it better,” Dr. Ben Nelson observes. Coaches honor this expertise. They believe in the team and the employee. They know that the people they lead are creative, resourceful, and whole. They take responsibility to discover, clarify, and align each person’s goals with the goals of the organization, producing a “win” for everyone. Coaching is the practice of getting people from where they are now to where they really want to be.

How does coaching work? Coaches listen, observe, and adjust their influence based on the needs, talents, and strengths of the team and the individual employee. By asking powerful coaching questions, the coach elicits solutions and strategies directly from the employee to help achieve the aims of the organization as well as those of the individual. Thus, coaching is also the art of building an effective culture and work environment.

Obviously, coaching executives and coaching athletes are alike in some ways, and the two kinds of coaches can learn from each other. One of the greatest coaches I have ever had, whether in a sports or corporate arena, was my sophomore high school basketball coach, Ron Burnside.

Coach Burnside was a short guard with a peculiar appearance and a distinct, high-pitched speaking voice. But he knew people, cared about his players, and had a strong commitment to coaching. He built into 16 boys a team mindset so we learned to care about each other, play for each other, and play to win. He understood purpose, vision, values, and high-performance expectations. He coached from the bottom up—through fundamentals and hard work to skill development. Although he was known for his challenging practice sessions, he kept things fun and entertaining. We knew he cared about each one of us as individuals first and players second. He showed trust and respect with each of us.

Under Coach Burnside’s leadership, our team won 16 of 20 games, beating teams with far superior athletic talent and size. We did this because our coach believed in us as individuals, challenged us to be our best as a team, and set high expectations in our practices and game performance. He would often say, “You will play in games the same way you play in practice.”

So you’ve never been a “coach” before? It doesn’t matter. Coach Burnside was young. He had played college basketball but had very little coaching experience. As I’ve reflected over the years why Coach Burnside was such an inspiring and motivating coach, these qualities come to mind:

• He inspired us with a clear vision, purpose, and values.
• He put each of us in positions to play to our unique gifts, strengths, and talents. We were very clear on our individual roles, but we were trusted and empowered to shoot the ball when open.
• He was demanding but never demeaning, disrespectful, or abusive. He treated all of us with respect, honesty, and loyalty.
• He understood how to build both a player’s skills and basketball IQ and knew how to unleash the potential in each of his players.
• He demanded that each player achieve personal mastery though hard work and discipline.
• He communicated very well and connected personally with each player.
• He helped us form great relationships and build our confidence in each other.
• He put in the time needed to prepare his players well for every game.
• We had fun!

Coach Burnside took us from being young, immature kids to being confident, focused, and skilled champions.

Can you re-create that in your life and in your business? Can you create a great team by discovering individual strengths and potential, communicating effectively, actively forming relationships of trust, and putting in the time necessary to help develop the talents, skills, and capabilities of those around you?

If you cannot say, “Yes!” to this now, you will be able to by the end of this book. You’ll be prepared to lead and effectively influence others around you. Fortunately, if you’re amazing to work with and for, the consequence is natural: people will stay and give you their best work. You will retain and fully engage your talent, you will build up new leaders, and you will continue to grow in your career and in life.

Unfortunately, in too many organizations, the exact opposite is happening.

A business executive told me recently that in the next five years, 65% of his employees not only could but would retire. The statistics were devastating to him. “Michael,” he explained, “I don’t have anyone in-house to replace them. We have not developed the next generation of talented leaders that are prepared to take over. We have a huge talent gap!”

This ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction: A Coach’s Journey
• Part I The Realities of Being a Great Coach
• Part II Coaching the Individual and Teams
• Part III Coaching the Organization
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Index
• End User License Agreement