If we taken all these competences in account than in my opinion the last topic (authenticity) makes the difference and created a new phase in leadership. “Be yourself-more-with skill3”. Probably there can be no advice more difficult to follow than that. Because you can’t just copy another successful leader. So the challenge facing prospective leaders is for them, according to Goffee and Gareth to be themselves, but with more skill. That can be done by making yourself increasingly aware of the four leadership qualities by manipulating these qualities to come up with a personal style that works for you. But to be able to do this you need a certain selfawareness: “Being more with skill”…
3 “Wy should anyone led by you?”, Robbert Goffee and Gareth Jones
Coaching, what it is
The International Coaching Federation defines coaching in the following way:
Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.
I like to define coaching as follows: It is about getting in touch with your deepest thoughts and beliefs, about getting aware what drives you in life, what is blocking you. It’s all about knowing who you are, what your strengths are and what you desire.
It’s a process of exploring, clarifying, creating (self-) awareness, accepting and taking action. Making small steps to come closer to your purpose of life. And the closer you are to yourself the easier it is to naturally excel in life, in any way you like. A coach is the one who can guide you in this process, who facilitates, motivates and stimulates you. But the coachee is responsible and has to take ownership of this process!
The needed competences and skills of a coach
What do you need as a great coach?
ICF, the International Coaching Federation, has written down the 10 ICF core competences, which can be used as a foundation for coaching. In summary this means:
As a coach you can be able to establish trust, to be a good listener, to be open with no judgments and so on if you just know yourself. A professional coach can only create self-awareness with a client if the coach has him/herself a good developed self-awareness…
Conclusions: The coaching skills of a “true” leader
Leadership today is demanding more of a leader than 10 years ago. This is in line with the developments in our society and the changed needs of the employee. We saw that the competences of a “true” leader have a lot of simularities with the competences of a great coach. It is not necessary to become a coach as in the nineteen’s, like a “coaching leader”. Coaching will remain one of the roles of a leader. It is just that the coaching’s skills are required for being inspirational leader, a “true” leader. We also saw that self-awareness, one of the basic conditions of being a great coach, is also key for being a “true” leader.
The better you are aware of your deepest thoughts, your patterns, what is blocking you, your beliefs, the better you know who you are, what your strengths are, your weaknesses and what you desire. The easier it is to be authentic; to show selectively your weaknesses, to rely on your intuition and to show empathy as an inspirational leader.
It isn’t a coincidence that the basic condition to be an inspirational leader or a good coach is self-awareness. I think it is our current society who requires now this basic skill. After living in a knowledge-based society we are now arriving in a society that is more based on emotional intelligence. Through the Internet we all have access to the needed information. Now it is more important to engage, to align…to inspire as a coach and as a leader.
The picture on the next page gives an overview of everything described in this paper.
In summary:
Having a greater self-awareness is becoming a leader. A leader is a person who is leading his/her own life from strength to strength. Great leaders we see around us are great because they follow their own pathway, they know who they are and they are on their journey of greater self-awareness. Being a great leader is not following someone else but simply knowing yourself! And this is also valid for being a great coach….therefore a prospective leader can learn a lot of the mentioned coaching skills above.
REFERENCES
What leaders really do, J.P. Kotter, Harvard Business Review, 1990
Nederland is hard toe aan een nieuw leiderschapstype, Volkskrant, 19 april 2013 (Dutch newspaper)
Leader coaching: a new model to accelerate performances, www.right.com
Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? Robert Goffee, Gareth Jones, Harvard Business Review, sept-oct 2000
ICA Materials
http://www.impulsonline.nl/artikelen/nieuweleiderschapsstijl.html
http://www.vikkibrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ICF-PHX-2013-Coaching-History-Secret-History-of-Coaching.pdf
www.coachfederation.org/