When I listen to organizational sponsors express their needs for leadership development, it can be framed as a need to shift people from almost ready to ready NOW. Coaching is a significant way to develop high potentials into emerging leaders. Here are three ways a coach can help:
- Identifying strengths. Coaches can assist leaders in identifying and understanding how to leverage their unique gifts.
- Practicing new skills. Coaching creates an environment in which leaders can discuss and practice new skills and behaviors.
- Developing more advanced skills. Coaching causes leaders to mature and move past problem solving toward an increased ability to manage paradoxical situations.
Coaching provides a process for helping leaders deliver on their best intentions. Supporting a high potential manager with a coach creates a double impact: as the coach draws out information, ideas, solutions, and high level thinking from the emerging leader, the leader can, in turn, draw out information, ideas and higher level thinking from their people. Thus, the emerging leader encourages self-reliance and ownership of the work that’s being done by their direct reports.
Coaching has the potential to create an organizational cultural shift where future leaders continually develop future leaders.
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