FIVE KEYS FOR COACHING YOURSELF TO LEADERSHIP

FIVE KEYS FOR COACHING YOURSELF TO LEADERSHIP

Volume #38 - August 2004

Since my book is in the wings waiting for the publisher I thought I share its key elements with you. These keys are the foundation of my approach to helping people develop their leadership and their careers. I’ve written about each step in past newsletters, but I’ve never put them all together. So, here’s a summary.

The first key is authenticity. As a leader, you need to know your core values. They will serve as your anchors when you are confronted with difficult situations or when you are trying to figure out if you are on the path. Operating in alignment with your core values keeps you grounded. In addition, when you are disconnected from your core values, when they are not being honored by you, by others, or by your work environment, you will find yourself, dissatisfied, unhappy, unfulfilled and lacking energy. You need to have your values fulfilled.

Therefore, identify two or three core values that are the most important to you and describe them in your own words. For instance, if you value accomplishment, describe what accomplishment means to you and how you want it to show up. For instance, I value acknowledgment. For me that means being acknowledged for my intelligence and having my voice heard. I need to work in an environment that recognizes and rewards intelligence but one that also enables me to set my own direction while influencing others. Acknowledgment, however, might mean something else to someone else. You need to articulate your core values in a way that has deep meaning for you. Continually check to see if your values are being honored and your needs are being met.

While this first key grounds you, the second key — vision — moves you forward. Developing a vision for yourself helps you to see where you are going and what you need to do to get there. Vision includes creating long-term, short-term and annual goals. With a vision to work towards, you’ll be able to look more accurately at your own skills and talents and at the skills and talents of your team. What skills do you and your team now possess and what skills will you need to develop to achieve your vision? By revisiting your vision each year and going through a process of analyzing your goals, you will stay on top of leveraging and developing the appropriate skills.

The more you can articulate your strengths, the better you will be at advocating for yourself. The more you know about your weaknesses, the more focused you can be about developing the areas that are important to your success. With a clear vision, you’ll be able to see yourself better and to see if you’re on track with your goals. If you’re off track it might indicate that you need to revisit your vision and see if it’s still for you or you might need to revamp your strategies and find out what’s causing you to get off track. Remember, too, that vision requires thinking about possibilities. Truly effective leaders have a positive mindset. As a leader, you must believe that you can make things happen.

The third key serves as a bridge between you and the rest of the world. It calls for you to develop your emotional intelligence (EQ), to develop your capacity to know yourself so well that you know what motivates you and what triggers you. With emotional intelligence you have a deep understanding of your own emotions and how to control them. And you have an understanding of those around you — what motivates them and what triggers them. With emotional intelligence, you have the ability to manage the emotions of others, knowing how to influence and motivate them and how to channel and react appropriately to their emotions. Teambuilding requires high EQ.

I coach a lot around emotional intelligence. It’s a critical skill that most people need to hone. Without it, you can’t be an effective leader. Many people allow their emotions to rule them rather than using their emotions to inform them and guide them. Emotional intelligence enables you to create good psychological boundaries. Without it, you can trip over emotions — yours and others — and create hurtful, difficult situations that take effort to mend. Interactions that lack emotional intelligence drain the energies of the people involved, take more time, and are far less productive than interactions between emotionally smart people. If you feel your EQ isn’t what is should be, it’s best to work with someone — a coach, a mentor or another trusted colleague — who can give you feedback and help you to see when you get emotionally hooked and support you in devising techniques to change your mindset and your behaviors.

The fourth key — knowing how to communicate assertively with a wide variety of people — is essential. The ability to be articulate, concise, clear, consistent, honest and direct is a crucial for leaders. Assertive communicators believe they are entitled to respect and in turn respect others. They know how to ask for what they need, how to ask the questions, and how to articulate their ideas and emotions rationally and clearly. People who communicate assertively operate from a place of grounded confidence. Their effectiveness as a communicator stems from their emotional intelligence. They are able to listen to others, are aware of how others listen, and convey messages that can be heard and understood. Being able to communicate assertively is an absolute necessity for people who want to motivate and influence others. If you feel you are not grounded and become aggressive, passive, or passive aggressive in your communications with others, you need to uncover the barriers and beliefs that are keeping you from being assertive. What are you afraid of? Then, practice techniques for holding skillful conversations — learn how to advocate for yourself and to ask powerful questions that will help you learn about others’ points of view. Assertive communicators can handle conflict and know how to hold difficult conversations, all of which are a part of everyday life in organizations. As a leader, your team will expect this of you.

The fifth and final key is to understand on a deep level that in order to succeed you need other people. A leader is someone who interacts with others and influences them to act in certain ways. You can’t be successful or be an effective leader without the relationships. You must develop and nurture relationships and build alliances that are strategically important to your growth and development and to the advancement of your team and your leadership. Relationship building requires trust, so it’s essential for you to operate with integrity and with a mentality of reciprocity. Relationships require give and take. Think about what you have to offer people and understand the ways in which a relationship with others would benefit you. Some people shy away from "networking," which has become an overused word. And some people find office politics offensive. But it’s critical for you to be strategic and reach out to the people. Remember that you can succeed on your own terms, but you can’t succeed alone.

COACHING QUESTIONS

How fulfilled are you at your present job?
What are your core values? How are you honoring them?
How well do you know yourself? What are your strengths and your weaknesses?
How do you leverage your strengths as a leader? How do you compensate for your weaknesses?
What is your vision for yourself? What is your vision for your team?
How successful have you been at achieving your annual goals? If you haven’t been as successful as you would like, what’s gotten in your way?
How emotionally intelligent are you? What triggers you? How do you control your triggers?
How well do you manage others? What do you need to do to improve your ability to understand and influence others?
How well do you communicate?
How assertive are you? What do you need to do to be more assertive?
How effective is your network? What steps do you need to take to expand it to include people who are strategically important to you and your team?
How effective are you at finding mentors? How well do you mentor others?

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