Leadership Coaching: How it Can Help

Being a leader is both a privilege and a responsibility as not everyone is called to lead. So whether a leader is in school, the government, the private sector, or church, it is important to do justice to the position, knowing that others are counting on them to affect the community in a positive way.

Being in charge, however, is not an easy task. Many factors may prevent goals from being achieved. One of these is an unhealthy work culture within the group, stemming from a clueless or unmotivated leader. This is why it is important for every leader to set the tone by having and following personal leadership goals.

How Leadership Coaching Can Help

The following are some key factors for leadership gathered from leadership coach and author, Stephen Blandino, and leadership researchers and authors, James Kouzes and Barry Posner, which can make a positive impact in an organization or team (as even subgroups within a bigger organization need to be led well).

Vision

Every organization or team needs a clear vision of what it wants to become and what it wants to achieve. It gives everyone a clear sense of purpose as they know what the group is supposed to accomplish. Without vision, it is easy to become distracted or diverted towards meaningless objectives, which just adds to unnecessary stress and confusion.

Values

Every organization or team must adhere to a set of values that defines the group. These basically tell everyone within, and even without, “Why we do the things that we do.” When a group’s core values (e.g. integrity, speed of service, quality) are known, it becomes easier to strive for them daily, despite difficulties. Members can even remind one another at times of momentary lapses to commit themselves again to the team’s values.

Aligned Behaviors

Though it is essential to have a well-defined vision and values, it is equally important that the leader aligns their behavior accordingly so that members will follow suit. It has been said that if one cannot “walk the talk” then nobody will listen or obey. This is doubly so in leadership. If members cannot see their leader “walking the talk,” then chances are the team will become disillusioned, causing them to give minimal effort, constantly challenge authority, or quit.

Humility

Nobody wants to follow or deal with arrogance. This is why a leader who is humble yet empowering can inspire others to become more effective and impactful on the group’s mission. This is very crucial not just in the short term, but most especially for developing the next set of leaders who will be committed to the organization’s or team’s vision and values.

Without such humility, petty as it may seem, the next set of leaders may opt to oppose said vision and values just to spite the outgoing leader, even if the group itself was doing reasonably well.

Established Community

Everybody wants to feel that they are welcome and that they belong. This begins from the top. The leader, who is in charge of everything, must ensure that their community is open and real. Rights and opinions must be respected so that innovative thoughts can be shared and members can be reproached in the proper way. In such an atmosphere, great things may be accomplished.

Practices of an Ideal Leader

In their book, The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations, Kouzes and Posner introduced five practices to help a person become a model leader.

1. Modeling the Way

As earlier mentioned, a good team culture requires the leader to model the vision and values of the organization or team. Once the leader’s behavior is aligned, it becomes easier for people to follow.

But before a leader can do this, the leader must understand themself first. This means personal introspection to ensure that personal values and personal actions are aligned. Once the leader has confidence in themself and is able to walk their own talk at the personal level, they can then proceed to lead others to commit to the organization’s or team’s values.

People today are very discerning. If members doubt their leader’s personal convictions and actions, it will be difficult for them to follow as nobody wants to follow a phony, even if what is being espoused is for the benefit of the team. It is authentic leadership that people trust.

2. Inspiring a Shared Vision

Despite the existence of an organization’s or a team’s overall vision, the leader needs to continually make things happen by sharing a goal for the group’s future and then inspiring others to help achieve it. The leader must be able to clearly communicate how everyone in the group can work together and help one another for this common goal.

When members feel that they are part of the process, they will strive hard and give their best to realize the group’s goals. If not, they may just sit back and let the leader do all the work (which happens often).

Being able to paint a picture of the group’s direction and how everyone fits in may also inspire others to come up with innovative ideas to help achieve what needs to be done. Work becomes easier when everyone is excited about what is taking place.

3. Challenging the Process

Stagnation is always a problem regardless of where you go. Many great companies and people have dropped from “great” to “mediocre” because they grew tired of the daily grind. The ideal leader fights this by finding ways to improve the group’s system and the members themselves.

Most of the world’s top organizations always try to introduce something different – to make things more efficient, to improve service, or to reach out to more people. A model leader must do the same for the organization or team. Though risks are involved, new and different challenges spur people to keep doing their best and not settle for mediocrity.

4. Enabling Others to Act

In order for a team to become a “team,” everybody must be meaningfully involved. Vision sharing is great, but if members are not asked to participate, true cooperation and teamwork will not occur.

Leaders must invest time to develop strong relationships with the members, empowering them to trust in themselves and in one another’s abilities. But this can only be done if the leader humbly and freely mixes in with everyone else and does not delegate from some lofty position.

When such relationships can be developed and when the work community is positive and safe, the organization or team will be able to accomplish so much more than if the leader had to personally take charge of every little aspect of every project.

5. Encouraging the Heart

Climbing the ladder of excellence is never easy. Many members readily lose heart when goals are not met or difficulties are encountered, especially when they are asked to do something unfamiliar. Great leaders must recognize that these moments will occur and motivate their people to push forward with positivity and hope.

But said encouragement must be authentic and this can only be done when there are established relationships within. This requires healthy communication and interaction that is facilitated and supported by the one in charge.

Model leaders also find ways to acknowledge the small victories within the group – through public acknowledgment, personal praise, or even a simple smile and pat on the shoulder to say that the job was well done. All of these can boost the heart and inspire members to keep moving forward.

Leadership Help through Christian Counseling

As a great privilege and responsibility, it is important for leaders to get their act together soon so they can lead the people under them. While many leaders are able to do so, many more struggle as they may be overwhelmed with their tasks or they may have been pushed into an unwanted, leadership role.

In such cases, one should seek professional help from a Christian counselor to clarify leadership goals for the sake of everyone involved. This is particularly crucial if the alignment of personal beliefs and actions is a problem or if there is difficulty adhering to the vision and values of the organization or team.

But more importantly, the Christian counselor will help strengthen the leader’s connection with God. Leadership requires much wisdom and grace to handle people of differing backgrounds and opinions, which is why God’s help is needed.

Though being a leader is not an easy task, it is still a great privilege to be able to inspire people to work towards something positive and helpful. If you or a friend is struggling in a position of leadership, seek help soon.