“It’s lonely at the top”—or so goes the old saw about leadership. Even in our hyperconnected modern world, leaders may struggle to develop the skills necessary to navigate the challenges of leadership. Once the promotions start, finding someone of similar or greater authority to guide and help a leader grow can be tricky, leading to isolation.
Fortunately, there are many skilled leadership coaches who can make the journey more successful. But to get the most from your coaching experience, you must go into the relationship with the right perspective and expectations. What does your coach want you to know? How can you tell whether you’re making progress on your objectives?
Here are five ways to get the most from your coaching experience.
In a piece for Chief Learning Officer, author Madeleine Homan Blanchard lists “12 things your executive coach wants you to know.” While your plan will target your needs, these twelve things are common to most coaching relationships. Understanding your coach’s objectives at the start means you will be more likely to develop a coaching relationship that results in greater leadership development.
Above all, remember that your coach’s goal is to help you become the best leader you can become. Expect some accountability and feedback as your coach nudges you toward the best version of yourself.
Your coach won’t expect you to drop everything to focus only on improving your leadership skills; after all, you should practice your skills in your work role. However, your coach will expect you to put proper effort into your coaching sessions.
Rather than tack your coaching onto your regular work duties as an afterthought, give your coaching the same attention as you do any change initiative. Put the right amount of effort into any coaching “homework.” Ensure you attend your sessions, and don’t let them get hijacked by “urgent” matters.
Your coaching experience could provide an excellent opportunity to improve your delegation skills. “If you are spending time doing things someone else could do, you are squandering your chance to make the unique contribution only you can make,” Blanchard says. “And hogging opportunities that one of your direct reports could be taking advantage of to develop or shine.”
As Blanchard points out, leaders need “a fully functioning prefrontal cortex” to perform at their best. As a human, you need the right amount of sleep, exercise, active rest, and proper nourishment to execute your job and put the effort into learning and growing.
You don’t need to be an Olympic athlete to undergo executive coaching. However, recognize that growth and development will tax your prefrontal cortex, and your body will need proper care and feeding to become the executive you want to become.
If you are in a leadership role, you have some business acumen and strategic thinking ability. You can learn many “hard skills” associated with leadership positions in workshops, college courses, or books. The behaviors and attitudes around emotional intelligence are usually the leadership attributes your coach can help you with the most.
“The best you can hope for is to become the best possible version of yourself, to leverage strengths and mitigate or manage weaknesses and character flaws,” says Blanchard. “Until personality transplants become available, leaders have to learn to work with what they have and seek to grow and improve every single day.”
Where are the weak spots in your leadership behaviors? Your coach can help you develop the self-awareness, emotional regulation, or humility you need to succeed as a leader.
Change takes time. Leaders are often impatient about the changes and results they want to see—especially in themselves! “People new to their leadership role are particularly susceptible to the temptation to immediately fix everything. You can do it all — just not at the same time,” Blanchard reminds us.
Don’t expect to make changes immediately. Be patient with yourself when you make mistakes or slide back into old behaviors. When you struggle, pause and consider what might be getting in your way. Sometimes, it may be as simple as a physical need; controlling your own behaviors can be more difficult if you sleep poorly or feel under the weather.
When you have setbacks, make notes about your experience and share them with your coach. Your coach is there to help. Together, you can come up with strategies to address those challenges or obstacles in a better way in the future.
Leaders who take a focused and intentional approach to growth and development will significantly improve their chances of becoming effective in critical skills and competencies. The right coach can accelerate that progress and lead to great business and people results.
Stewart Leadership’s Executive Coaches can help you design the right individual development plan to grow into the leader you want to become. To learn more, contact us.