Leaders as Coaches

A good leader manage, but not manipulate; participate, but not micromanage; delegate, but also guide through.

Substantially, leadership is all about future and change; direction and dedication; influence and innovation; methodically, there are authoritarian, delegation, and participation leadership styles. With organizations are transforming from mechanical industrial mode to organic digital mode, the command, and control authoritarian leadership style is less effective to manage today’s multi-generational, multicultural, and multi-devicing workforce. And leaders today are not the one who always have all the answers due to the information overloading and shortened knowledge life cycle, but often they need to participate in framing good questions and encourage teams to find more than one answers, and always discover a better way to do things. The coach leads by asking: "How would you like to do it"? "Are there any other ways of doing it"? "Can you compare them"? "Which is best”? also, continue to update her/his own knowledge, coach and learn at the same time.

Both coaching and mentoring are going to be increasingly important now. Mentoring has always been a very integral part of an organization’s success. In the past the key was for the younger workers without experience to come into a company or organization with new ways of doing things and be attached to more experienced workers to be trained on how the company actually work and over time the younger workers would see a better way to do things and the older workers would benefit by being shown new ways of doing things so that the company could remain sustainable. In the past, the share and spread of knowledge and skills could survive in isolation. However, in the new age, the faster the dissemination, the better the response. Some of this teaching have to be culturally driven by the leaders and not just limited to discretionary skill. The philosophy to build a winning team and develop other leaders is to encourage the creation of an environment in which all feel the need to demonstrate leadership, to take responsibility for the results, to unlock the teaching potential of your company's best and brightest.

The benefit of Coaching: A good leader welcomes new potential leaders, encouraging and bringing out the potential of leading the others. It is developing the employees, in terms to make them real performers. The coach/mentor can show the team how to explore their own natural skill sets, talents, and strong sides, take into account their own objectives in line with working needs. Additionally, to show them that there is always a way to earn what they dream of - if they are willing to spend the time and energy in self-development. The titles and qualifications, if well managed, are needed in every society: ensuring respect for the person who has that title, reflect the degree of responsibility, they are synonymous with order and efficiency. But imagine what would be the performance of a company that spreads the leadership at all levels of the organization! Imagine if all employees feel like leaders in their work, that is competent and responsible for productivity, the quotient of innovation, teamwork and the degree of customer satisfaction. Any organization that forms the leaders at all levels would cross change easily caused by these times of uncertainty.

Humans always need to develop, grow, and practice skills. Coaching doesn't mean micro-managing: It means to encourage the team to always embrace the other point of view, and help glue a clear and more colorful picture for business growth, and cultivate the culture of learning and be agile to adapt to the changes. Often leaders provide internal and regularly scheduled workshops around their business that employees can attend. One would simply make sure that it is not a forced initiative but a fluid one that a leader or potential can develop his/her own skill sets.

People have been asking if there is something "magical" or "special" about being a leader since time began. Leadership is methodical, but there is some magic in there. Effective leadership is methodical, it takes hard work and endurance, the substance of leadership never changes, but it has to shift the styles to adapt to the changes. Learning, coaching, and practicing leadership are methodical processes that are improved by constant learning and practice. A good leader never stops learning. A good leader manages, but not manipulates; participates, but not micromanages; delegates, but also guides through; to make leadership both art and science, look magical.

Posted in: Future of Leadership