Tag Archive for: Immunity to Change

Developing as a Leader – How to Use a Coach for Best Results!

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leadership coachCoaching can change your leadership abilities; it can literally make you a better version of yourself as an executive and a person- it can yield tangible results as well as provide support and a thought partnership. Getting a coach is also the fastest way to help you to advance because coaching offers a personalized and tailored approach to your leadership development. Unlike training programs, coaching focuses on each individual leaders’ unique strengths, challenges, and goals. Through one-on-one sessions, coaches help leaders identify areas for improvement and create actionable plans for growth that align with their specific leadership style and aspirations.

Are You Ready for a Coach?

Some leaders come to coaching with very specific goals or outcomes that they want to achieve. A good coach can help with furthering your objectives and goals by evoking your highest thinking around how to figure out the exact pathways to get there. Coaches can also help you to sanity check your goals, to help refine and define and sometimes tweak the goals. It can be daunting to specifically articulate your desired future state to work towards so gaining clarity in goal setting is very much part of the process as it is through deep conversations with a coach, executives can identify their strengths, values, and areas for growth. This clarity enables you to set ambitious, yet achievable career objectives aligned with your long-term vision. Previous articles here on theglasshammer.com have addressed transformative ways to improve your professional life and specifically coaching is recommended as the fastest, most effective way to not only grow, but get tangible results. Evidence based research shows that coaching female leaders still reaps massive benefits for the coachee and the organization at large; I believe coaching men in conjunction with organizational development of structures, systems and behaviors is the most effective way to ensure the effects of coaching women are amplified.

What Does Coaching Help all Executives and Leaders do Better Exactly?

1. Develop Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence:

Effective leadership begins with self-awareness and emotional intelligence. It has been claimed via research that women demonstrate more EQ naturally then men, but honestly, I believe everyone regardless of gender has a varying amount of self-regulation which is formed over their entire life experience and arguably yes some amount is intrinsic. Coaches work with leaders to deepen their understanding of their own emotions, behaviors, and impact on others and by enhancing self-awareness, leaders can better manage their emotions, build stronger relationships, and make more informed decisions.

It is obvious then that improved communication skills enable leaders to build trust, motivate others, and foster collaboration within their organizations. As leaders become more self-assured and adaptable, they can lead with greater personal conviction and inspire confidence in their teams. A very specific extra skill you should look for in a coach is the ability to help you clear any hidden competing commitments that are lurking in your subconscious preventing you from doing the actions you need to do to actually obtain your goals. It is removing any “immunity to change” that will make the more elusive goals that perhaps you have struggled with for a while, become reachable because we address our inner critic and pour cold water on paradigms that we have been holding for a long time on the “way it is”. Most of us have hidden fears, or even a sense of shame or lack of worthiness and this can be addressed with the right coach who knows how to use a mix of developmental and cognitive theory together to remove any constructs that cause psychological barriers to success. Leadership can be challenging, often requiring confidence to navigate uncertainties and setbacks.

2. Be Better at Strategic Thinking and Decision-Making

Coaching cultivates strategic thinking and decision-making skills among leaders. Coaches encourage leaders to think critically, analyze complex situations, and anticipate future challenges trends. Through guided reflection and exploration, leaders gain the ability to make well-informed decisions that drive individual, team, and ultimately organizational success. Navigating the systemic issues that belong to the company around ways of working is really fundamental. A coach with a background in organizational psychology can enable you to parse what is your development versus what belongs to the organization and the company’s own work for development can feel like a burden is lifted from you and you can focus on what is truly your own work to do.

3. Get Comfortable with your Leadership Style

Coaching encourages leaders to adopt empowering leadership styles that foster growth and development within their teams. Coaches assist leaders in delegating effectively, empowering team members, and nurturing talent. Flexing style is also a key component to being a leader and a coach can privately help any leader learn how to lead in various ways as most of us have a preferred style when it comes to communication, thinking, doing, and even learning. Leadership development through coaching promotes a mindset of continuous learning and adaptability. We know that female leaders walk a fine line in style, especially when gender issues are present (most companies!).  Sometimes it is a matter of flexing a communication style and other times it is truly about changing your entire lens on the world to move into a learner mindset and change the questions you ask.

Coaches encourage leaders to seek feedback, embrace new challenges, and embrace lifelong learning. This commitment to growth enables leaders to stay agile and responsive in dynamic business environments.

4. Have Deeper Alignment with Organizational Goals

Coaching is aligned with organizational goals and priorities. Coaches work collaboratively with leaders to ensure that their development efforts support the organization’s vision, values, and strategic objectives. By cultivating leadership skills that directly contribute to organizational success, coaching becomes an integral part of driving performance and achieving results. Team coaching is also an increasingly popular way to connect a senior management team to the culture, strategy and to what is happening in the trenches of their own teams and those of their peers. The “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” by Pat Lencioni is a great way to approach team performance challenges as it all starts with trust!

Coaching plays a vital role in developing a pipeline of future leaders within organizations. By investing in coaching for current leaders, organizations groom high-potential individuals for future leadership roles.

Get Started with Executive Coaching Today!

To embark on a transformative leadership journey, consider engaging with a professional coach like Nicki Gilmour, Founder of theglasshammer.com. With a background in social-organizational psychology and a team of experienced associates, Nicki offers tailored coaching programs designed to accelerate career growth and leadership development.

For a comprehensive coaching experience over 6 sessions spanning 12-18 months, book an exploratory session with Nicki or one of her endorsed coaches. Take the first step towards realizing your leadership potential and achieving unprecedented success in your career. Click here for a complimentary 1st mini session (30 minutes long chemistry and goal setting meeting). * Cost of 6 full sessions (a pack) is $2999 or 10 sessions for $4799 – sessions are 90 minutes long. Or bring us in to work with your team – we design and deliver offsites and programs! Check out testimonials on LinkedIn.

By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com

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Imposter Syndrome? Stop Being an Insecure Overachiever

 

imposter syndrome insecure overachieverMy bet is that if you are reading this column you have either googled the words “imposter syndrome” or “insecure overachiever” at least once.

Maybe more than 50% of readers today might identify with all or some of the traits and behaviors that apply to insecure overachievers since people who read theglasshammer are seeking career advice, information or inspiration of some kind.

I can tell you that most of us are driven by something.

Fear of failure comes up a lot amongst highly successful executives and how could it not? The stakes are high and what got you to where you are is an individual mix of skills and behaviors purely contextual to your lived experiences in your organization. The culture that each firm and team embodies varies and evolves moment to moment and person to person but is very relevant to norming overwork as a good thing. But imagine what your life would be like if failure large or small was seen as a learning experience and not a devastating event?

Driven people are driven by something and it is not usually ambition for ambition’s sake, if you think for a second about that. Motivations behind all behaviors can be somewhat simplified by categorizing them into three summarized buckets that Socrates and then Plato spoke of much less concisely in The Republic:

1) Gain, or what’s in it for me?

2) Honor, such as high altruism traits or desire to leave a legacy work

3) Fear, or what will happen if I fail or do not do this

Many successful people in the world are insecure overachievers because always wanting better has given us great products and services and achievements as humans. No matter how you cut it, subjective judgment, and in this case your subjective judgment against yourself to believe there is a better product or version that you can produce next time, fuels innovation.

However, where hardworking, smart people fall under the insecure overachiever definition is when fear is extreme, almost all-consuming, and underlined by a feeling of permanent inadequacy despite having a range of actual significant achievements. “Work harder” is what people who suffer from this implicitly tell themselves. And in a world of more is more for work in many industries the norm is to put in long hours and show commitment, so discovering this issue may be harder than for people who work in very balanced, life- and family-centric societies.

Imposter syndrome fits here too when fear includes a feeling of secret shame of not being good enough and shows up as fear of being found out as a fraud. Usually, this comes with a feeling of needed external validation as the person cannot validate themselves. The person can feel anxious and unhappy no matter how many advanced degrees completed with honors and jobs they have excelled at. No matter how much money they earn or amazing projects they have completed, they can only see the future challenge in future time and cannot enjoy their past achievements or present successes.

If any of this sounds familiar, it is entirely important to get to the root cause of why you feel how you feel. It is usually sitting in your subconscious as a construct or several constructs that have formed into a belief.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Decide if you want to change from a stressed-out, unhappy ?insecure overachiever? or someone who doesn?t belong or deserve their success.

2) Get a goal, such as ?be more content with my work achievements? or ?look at balance of my entire life, not just work? or ?get healthy mentally and physically in 2020.?

3) Work on awareness and making explicit to yourself what you tell yourself when you indulge in some self-deprecation (and not the modest, historically British kind).

4) Read ?Immunity to Change? which provides a great model for practical use around seeing what hidden competing agendas you might be carrying around that are thwarting your goal of being more sustainable and satisfied.

5) Call me and sign up for a coaching pack of 5 sessions to support and facilitate this work. As a coach who has written a paper at Columbia University on how goal setting is derailed by the subconscious, I can help you.

Ready to start? Book your first coaching session here for 90 minutes (pay online) and get started on the mental debris so that you enter 2020 in a new mindset with a real plan.

Or book a free 15-minute exploratory call here to see if this is for you.

 

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