GCG Leadership Development Team
What makes a coaching process effective?
When leaders at the top of their organization attempt to change publicly, they become an important role model in personal development for the whole organization. Simply put, to help others develop, you must start with yourself.
How can you, as an executive coach, support this behavioral change? In this article, we will outline the process that is being used by successful coaches around the world and one that you can leverage right now to help your clients achieve positive, measurable results in leadership effectiveness.
Facilitating Behavioral Change
1. Determine the desired behavior in leadership
The first step is to help the leader reach an understanding of what their desired behavior looks like and the outcome once this desired behavior is reached.
2. Determine the key coworkers
Have your client agree on the key coworkers that are most affected by his or her behavior. This is how you ensure buy-in into the process and prevent the leader from questioning the validity of the feedback later on.
3. Collect feedback
Interview the key coworkers or use a 360° feedback tool to get a baseline of the leader’s behavior as perceived by the people around him or her.
4. Commit to 1-2 key behaviors for change
Based on the feedback, have your client acknowledge and commit to one or two key behaviors that he or she will work on.
5. Ongoing interaction between leader and coworkers
Encourage your client to actively seek out additional input from his or her coworkers how to improve on the key behaviors. The leader should listen to the suggestions without judgment or retort and simply say ‘thank you.’
6. Develop an action plan
The leader has now received suggestions from their coworkers, and it is time to develop a plan of action. While you can help provide the action plan structure and support the leader during the process, this plan ultimately needs to come from your client.
7. Implement an ongoing follow-up process
Your client can use questions like “Based upon my behavior last month, what ideas do you have for me for the next month?” to follow up with his or her key coworkers. Within six months, you can also conduct mini-surveys to ask coworkers if the leader has become more or less effective in the identified areas for improvement.
Next Steps
By now, coworkers should report improvements if the leader has taken this process seriously. You can build on this first success by repeating the process with another set of behaviors for change.
Executives appreciate this simple, straightforward process because it doesn’t involve complicated techniques and creates a clear roadmap towards success. Armed with this effective guide, you will be able to facilitate long term behavioral change that is measurable and, most importantly, acknowledged by the leader’s coworkers .
Global Coach Group’s (GCG) coaching process is proven to give measurable results, creating positive leadership change. Become a GCG Coach to use a process leaders trust.
GCG Leadership Development Team
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