How to develop leadership skills
There was no dearth of applications when one of the senior Vice President (for organizational development) at one of the leading banks began looking for Executive Coaches to coach some of the senior leaders in the organization, with a mission to find solution to the answer, ‘How to develop leadership skills of current leaders and future leaders?’. Undoubtedly, executive coaching is on the rise because of the positive outcome that companies have noticed. However, most of the Certified Executive Coaching programs have divergent views and many of the coaches have their own unique approach towards coaching, and coaching methodology, and also not a clear direction about how coaching will fit into the broad spectrum of ‘How to develop leadership skills’. While a lot of coaching programs are successful, and are able to bring in participants for the programs through word-of-mouth marketing, great testimonials, social media marketing campaigns, and international accreditation/approvals, some of them may not be worth the time and investment, because the programs are not focusing on the application of Coaching in real situations: Personal and Professional Coaching (Life Coaching, Executive Coaching, Leadership development Coaching, Career Coaching, Sports Coaching etc). The quality of coaching usually depends on the abilities of the coach and their approach to executive coaching, using well proven Coaching methodologies.
The corporate world was primarily oblivious of executive coaching and its effects until the 1980s. Since then, executive coaching and executive coaches began to rise and now the growing popularity of executive coaching is a response to one of the most compelling needs (How to develop leadership skills of current leaders and future leaders?) of companies. There are lot of reasons why executive coaching for leadership development is on the rise. Let us look at the ways in which executive coaching helps leaders and organizations achieve their goals, and how to develop leadership skills and future leaders.
There are different ways in which executive coaching is approached by the coaches, but all of them generally ensure engagement of the people in a collaborative way. This helps the leaders (executive coaching clients) make the most of their abilities and helps in developing their abilities in a better way making them more efficient, and perform better. By exploring different ways in which they can engage the leaders, coaches are able to facilitate the growth of a leader, by allowing them to tap into their own resources in a more easy way.
The aspects of executive coaching are a lot wider than the usual coaching. This makes it a lot more advanced than other forms of coaching. It imbibes the features to deal with daily issues of life at both personal and professional level (Life Coaching, Career coaching, Peak performance, Business Coaching, and Wellness coaching) for the executives. All of it makes executive coaching better and adds more value to the senior leaders in the organization. It is meant to achieve business goals and it is very different from psychotherapy which is often misinterpreted as one of the forms of executive coaching.
The viewpoint of psychotherapy is very different from coaching which means that people who may need therapy for leading others can hardly be the kind of leaders the company expects them to be. But that does not mean that psychology (organizational psychology) is not an important aspect of executive coaching. It still holds importance and is equivalent to other disciplines like management, consulting and organizational development which aid in holistic executive coaching, & leadership development and has it place to find answers for how to develop leadership skills and leaders in organizations.
Very often we come across leaders who are smart and responsible but who lack the ability to reflect deeply enough to address their own shortcomings. They may have the ability to be powerful leaders and they may even do very well as leaders, but even though they have made it to the top ranks, they require coaching so that they can gain awareness regarding their limitations, accept them, work on them, develop behaviour flexibility, and take their leadership skills to next level. In this way, coaching helps them to take up the responsibility to develop themselves further, make leaders find innovative solutions create an impact on the business and the development of other employees, and that they participate in organizational level programs like ‘how to develop leadership skills using executive coaching’ on a regular basis.
An effective executive coaching methodology fluidly blends personal development with the organizational goals, so that the leaders achieve both successfully. It assists leaders in taking up new responsibilities, own up their career, and ensures that it empowers them to reduce destructive behaviours, which are not working for them and for the organization. A well-structured coaching methodology can give organizations the chance to deepen relationships between leaders and the employees so that the organization can achieve their goals more effectively and easily, and ensure that the organization runs like a well-oiled machine.
The purpose of an effective executive coaching for leaders is to provide the leaders a platform to explore their inner potential, facilitate them to perform better, and ensure that they are continuously motivated towards the larger organization goals and outcomes, while they are satisfied with their personal life as well. There is a strong bonding that must be created between the coaches, the leaders, and as well as with the stakeholders in the organization, so that the effects of the coaching are directly felt by the organization. This helps in fostering success easily and ensuring that the organization that pays the bills is able to experience the benefits of the executive coaching. A successful executive coaching program ensures that the combined interests of the leaders, and the stakeholders within the organization are met in an effective way.
Successful management within an organization relies on executive coaching because of the manner in which it showcases the abilities and problems of an executive so that the executive(s) can emerge as a stronger and a more abled management personnel who can make better decisions, perform better, motivate people towards organizational goals. Coaching methods have to be diverse because the coach has to focus on the personal abilities of an executive to ensure that they are able to do well. Focused coaching efforts that are not generic for every person, but ones that are personalized (as each person is unique) for the leaders is what makes executive coaching powerful tool, and more successful than other leadership development methodologies and tools.
The huge number of executive coaches available for organizations today makes it difficult to make the right choice when it comes to executive coaching or ‘how to develop leadership skills for leaders’. Where a strong coach can help an organization meet their goals, a poor coaching effort can pull them down and also leave a bad taste for the person who was being coached. To make sure this does not happen, companies should communicate their goals clearly with the coach and they must ensure that their goals can be met by the coach depending on the qualifications and previous experience of the coach.
Good coaches are able to find out the underlying weaknesses of the person being coached and the organization as well, so that they can work effectively keeping in mind the larger goal of the organization, while ensuring well-being of the person being coached. The secret path to successful management in-arguably lies in executive coaching because of the ways in which it empowers organizations to move ahead and meet their goals effectively with the help of strong leaders at the vanguard. More and more organizations are starting to realize the potential of executive coaching as they reach a new perch higher than where they were before simply because their leaders have been able to work in a more responsible and effective manner.
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