Back to business. How many of you have been, or experienced, the person who was promoted to a management position – and then realized you or he or she didn’t know what to do. There is a distinct difference between managing (making sure that resources are aligned in some way to get a job done – taking care of all the tactical aspects along the way) – and leading. And leading is where we can make a real difference. As leaders, if we are astute enough to listen and understand the dominant tribal culture of our teams, we can make a difference.

The role of coaching

Are leaders born…or made? I’m going to jump into the “they are made” camp. Nearly every account I’ve read or heard of a leader’s journey starts with a story about a failure. And what they had to learn, how they had to grow – and a description of the moment they realized that they were willing to lead. Coaches can play a significant role in a leader’s development.

The International Coach Federation (the leading global accreditation body) describes coaching as a professional relationship between coach and client that honors the client as the expert in his/her life and work and believes that every client is creative, resourceful and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach’s responsibility is to:

In practice, this means that the coach does not mentor, teach, or preach. He is not a therapist.

She demonstrates:

In coaching – we make the assumption that the client has the answers. As coaches, it is our objective to help our clients discover them.

Coaching Leaders

Let’s assume that most of the leaders we hope to coach demonstrate at least Stage Three tribal behaviors. They are competent and have demonstrated success. From there, it will be helpful to discern whether they are at Stage Three, Four, or Five.

Coaching Stage Three Leaders

Stage Three behavior includes “I” language. This person’s language is rarely outward focused – it’s not about how the “team” did something great or how “we” reached our stated goals. They may refer to the team as supporters or helpers in achieving the client’s goals and objectives. And they often denigrate others’ intelligence or competence. After all, Stage Three people need Stage Two people to “beat.”

As stated before, moving from Stage Three to Four is a huge leap. Here’s how the coach can help.

What managers often do – particularly those who are inexperienced or inefficient – is to attempt to be the super individual contributor who does the hard work for the team. You often see this in sales situations. Instead of raising the team to a Stage Four tribe, the leader attempts to be the super salesman, spending precious time moving from client to client doing the work of the team. This may work for the short term, but it certainly won’t scale, either in success or in time. The team won’t become self-sustaining, and the manager will likely burn out.

You know your client is moving to Stage Four when his language changes.

Stage Four language, of course, moves from “I” to “we.” Individuals say they work with others, not for them. There is a discussion about the “art of the possible.” The tribe is looking for success at a much higher level than they thought possible. The leader praises the team and takes the hit for anything that goes wrong.

If you think back to the behaviors and language of Stage Three, you’ll begin to understand what a huge leap of faith leaders moving from Stage Three to Four must make.

The Stage Four Leader

I went to high school with Bill Walton. He was an amazing athlete – we at Helix High thought he was an incredible basketball player. He was successfully recruited by John Wooden from UCLA. The story goes that in their first sessions together, Coach Wooden told Walton that he did not yet understand the game of basketball, but assured him that he would by the end of their time together.

Here is what Wooden says about leadership:

The joy and great satisfaction I derived from leadership – working with and teaching others, helping them reach their potential in contributing to the team’s common goals – ultimately surpassed outscoring an opponent, the standings, even championships. Wooden on Leadership, xiii.

On our high school team Walton was always the key contributor. In our first period classes when an announcer would come through loudspeakers to all of our rooms, the announcer talked about Bill the day after a basketball game. Many of the other players were in my first period classes through the years. Their faces would show their disappointment. By the time Walton matriculated from UCLA, he was not the only one on the team highlighted in the sports columns. He was part of a high functioning Stage Four tribe in which each member contributed to the team’s common goals. And if you are familiar with Wooden’s track record, you know that his teams were in the winning columns frequently. But again, the wins weren’t the point for Wooden.

The Tribal Leadership authors interviewed thousands of people who were able to make the transition to Stage Four. They say that every single one of them had an awakening of some sort. It was typically a bolt of understanding that there was a better way to do the job and a better way to work with their people. Whatever brought them to it (the sudden epiphany in the shower, psychotherapy, self-help books – and maybe a coach!), once they were struck they never turned back. The authors describe several ensuing parts to the epiphany:

Part One is introspective and an exploration of what the person has achieved – often with the realization that the answer is not nearly satisfying enough. Thus begins the subtle change to Part Two where there is a realization that working with others toward a goal will have a much stronger impact. At this point it’s not about what I have achieved, but what can we achieve together. Part Three then moves into discernment of the goal. What’s the point? What are we really trying to accomplish? The authors describe that physicians remembered that they “went to school to help people.” And professors wanted to “kindle a love of learning.” They all described being somehow sidetracked in competition with others as the goal – I want to be a better (lawyer, doctor, professor, etc.) than the other guy.

Now the leader is firmly in Stage 4. The language is about what “we” can do, they accomplish more by listening to others and understanding viewpoints and ideas, and they start supporting and advocating for their teams – in turn raising their teams to Stage Four.

The Coach’s Role with Stage Four Leaders

I believe our role here is to support our leaders as they rally the troops to a common goal. The Tribal authors contend that everyone on a team must be a Stage Four to function as a Stage Four tribe. So the first step on the leader’s journey is an honest appraisal of each person’s stage affinity.

The leadership coach can be a powerful partner in this journey by:

A Call to Action

I believe that Tribal Leadership provides great insights regarding how to be a servant-leader coach, and how to help those in leadership positions better serve their own teams and audiences. And along the way – raise the fun factor and job satisfaction of their teams. If you are a career coach – or leadership coach – I invite you to dig more deeply into the concepts of the book.

Works Cited

Logan, Dave; King, John; Fischer-Wright, Halee. Tribal Leadership. HarperCollins, 2008.
Wooden, John; Jamison, Steve. Wooden on Leadership. McGraw-Hill, 2005.