What is Leadership Coaching and How is it Beneficial?

An organization is known just as much by its leaders as it is known by its name and quality of service. That good leaders are great leaders is a fact widely accepted.

They play a pivotal role in the evolution of the organization they’re affiliated with. Other employees imbibe in themselves the same spirit as that of their leader. It is for this reason that most organizations today look for individuals, without being restricted to a certain discipline, with leading potential. This is where Leadership Coaching steps in.

Leadership Coaching – What is it?

We’ve often heard and also used the phrase ‘born leaders’. Most of us use the term to refer to remarkable individuals who have made a name for themselves in their field, for all the good reasons. But we’re here to tell you that this is not the case. There is no such thing as a ‘born leader’. Leadership isn’t something that a newborn is concerned with. It is a nurtured skill that can be learned, just how we learn to read and write.

Leadership coaching is the process of learning and applying skills and talents that make an individual a more competent leader. This generally includes developing a variety of individual and professional skills with the assistance of a ‘coach’. Leadership coaching is executive coaching but for everyone.

It’s fair to think that you can become a great leader on your own. It’s a testament to your self-confidence, which is a fundamental block of being a leader. However, having a coach might actually speed up the process and with better results. Why? You’ll have an expert opinion, and anyone in a professional environment knows its importance. It’s exactly like an athlete having a coach. Athletes can learn the basics and hone their skills on their own, but it is the coach that helps them truly shine.

Benefits of Leadership Coaching

In addition to the personal benefits that you will reap, your leadership coaching will also help those around you in your organization. Here’s how:

Personal Development

Every coaching exercise, to some extent, focuses on developing who we are at the individual level. We also tend to choose professional roles that we think would be conducive to our personal growth.

Self-Confidence 

As we discussed above, being confident in your own talents is what will push you on the path of becoming a leader. It is this self-assured nature of the leader that gravitates all subordinates towards them and makes them trust and work harder for their leader. More often than not, people cross the thin line between being self-confident and being overly confident in the name of being a leader. A coach will catch you when you’re tip-toeing the line.

Self-Awareness 

To be confident in yourself, you need to be aware of your positive traits. This also means that self-awareness will keep you from becoming overconfident and appearing arrogant to your colleagues. As long as you’re self-aware, you know what areas need work and what your redeeming qualities are.

Professional Development

Excelling at the office is easier than it sounds, especially when you’ve got the support system, namely a coach, to help you. As you develop professionally, you are bound to gain recognition in your office, which is always an incentive to do better. This results in leadership development as well.

Communication Skills 

Your skill in communication doesn’t mean how well you’ve applied the words you read in the thesaurus to your office speak. It’s quite the opposite. For example- A good leader will explain the most complex of projects in the simplest terms possible. Why? Because they know that every employee is different, and they cater to each individual’s aptitude in one fell sweep. It saves everyone’s time when people don’t have to individually go up to their respective leaders to clarify a doubt again and again.

Smooth communication also leaves no room for misinterpretation, thereby preventing possible maladies or resulting resentment in the office.

Better Performance 

The leader’s personal performance is reflective of their team’s aggregate performance. If you’re performing well, it reflects well on your team and vice versa. It is a symbiotic relationship where both parties can count on the other for support.

However, to become a leader or if you already are one, your individual performance should be good enough to keep your team members motivated and the higher-ups impressed. Leadership coaching also focuses on assimilating qualities that help you recognize faults and efficiently correct them.

Upliftment of Others 

As the ‘boss vs. leader’ spiel rages on in the professional world, it teaches us a thing of value. A boss is someone who is concerned with his position and how those ‘under him’ are working. A leader is someone who feels responsible for every single colleague and their professional development.

As it stands, most in the corporate world come with a default ‘boss’ setting. It takes some work to get out of that mindset once we reach a position of authority and leadership coaching helps.

Visionary Perspective 

Great leaders in history have one common trait, they were visionaries. They lived in a certain time, but they were also conscious of how their actions would affect the future. Having a vision that helps us look at a proposed solution from a future perspective can be very helpful in decision-making. Leaders make lasting decisions – as in decisions that will have the ability to be flexible and mold themselves according to any situation.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, we value tangible and visible results – those that are visible to those who are around us, but most importantly to ourselves. Leadership coaching will help you get here.

You’re a leader in the rough who’s just a click away from becoming a great leader. For more information on our flexible courses as well as a 30-day free trial, you can download our brochure.

If you think coaching is something you want to pursue, or are already pursuing, our coaching certification programs are something you should definitely check out. Please refer to the brochure for more details.