Why do some senior leaders inspire teams easily, make the right decisions, and lead organizations toward success? No luck, however. Many of these leaders have, or are working with executive leadership coaches to develop their skills into effective leaders.
Executive leadership coaching, in today’s fast-moving and changing business environment, has passed being a trend—it has become a growth power tool.
But what is the value of it? What value can senior leaders derive from working with a coach? The article deals with the top 5 benefits derived from executive leadership coaching for senior leaders and why it is worth considering.
Increased Self-Awareness
One of the best positive payoffs from executive leadership coaching is definitely self-awareness. To a large extent, the capacity to focus and manage people toward performance often siphons away a self-aware leader. Coaches help leaders look inward and reflect.
Why is self-awareness important? A leader without self-awareness will develop a pattern or a habit that, in the long run, will work against him. A great coach will be honest and probe with questions like these:
- How regularly are you listening to your team?
- Do your decisions really line up with what your core values are, or have you drifted from that?
- What do your behaviors say about the organization?
This will enable one to have a greater insight into themselves, hence better skills in decision-making, better communication, and relationships with members of the team. This is the point of knowing your strengths and weaknesses so you are more confident about leading well.
Stronger Decision-Making Skills
Decision-making is at the very heart of leadership. As a senior leader, you make choices that significantly affect the whole organization; however, with so much supposed to be in the decision, the pressure can be really overwhelming. This is where leadership coaching comes into play because it enables the leader to better make decisions while learning how to:
- Break down complex situations by using a different perspective.
- Weigh the long-term results of their decision and its short-term implications.
- Utilize both data and intuition to inform your decisions.
A leadership coach can be a listening board, aiding you in casting judgment on your choices and reflecting profoundly. They challenge one’s mind to think and look beyond the viewpoint he himself may be holding onto, and assumptions he never knew he held. And with more experience, you shall be bolder in tackling hard decisions, even under pressure.
Emotional Intelligence Improved
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is your ability to understand and manage your emotions as well as the emotions of others. It is an important capability for a senior leader to develop because it affects every way you communicate with, motivate, and lead your team members. Many of the most effective leaders have high EQ. Leadership coaching helps senior leaders develop and further EQ by working in such areas as:
- Empathy: You understand people’s feelings and perspectives.
- Self-regulation: You manage your responses and emotions during challenging situations.
- Social skills: You build strong relationships with colleagues, stakeholders, and employees.
With better emotional intelligence, the leaders will create a better work environment, will be able to solve conflicts effectively, and they can bring responsibility in the team. Once you can relate emotionally to people, you will find that your influence as a leader multiplies exponentially.
Greater Confidence and Resilience
Leadership is full of challenges—crises, large teams, or organizational changes. All these need to be managed by senior leaders, and also with more confidence and resilience. Executive leadership coaching builds up a leader’s confidence in his abilities. Coaches give support and encouragement by bringing home to leaders their achievements and strengths.
It is not a simple self-esteem boost, however. Leadership coaching also teaches resilience—the ability to bounce back from setbacks and keep moving forward. In short, confidence and resilience will make the senior leadership thrive because:
- They keep you calm under pressure.
- They enable you to take calculated risks.
- They let you lead by example, showing the team that challenges can indeed be met.
In other words, leadership coaching can make you the kind of leader who will thrive even during difficult times.
Better Communication and Influence
Effective communication is one of the most important skills for a senior leader. You have to communicate your vision, objectives, and expectations to your team and inspire them by the cause. Besides talking, it involves listening and absorbing too. Leadership coaching addresses verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Some of the ways leadership coaching assists leaders are:
- The delivery of clear and compelling messages that connect with the audience.
- Listening with purpose to learn what is being thought or worried about in the team by other people.
- Modifying your communication style according to the needs of a particular individual or situation.
But perhaps more importantly, they can help you build influence skills. Being a senior leader is essentially about influencing people to buy into your vision and ideas. It may be the motivation of a team or engaging stakeholders; in any case, influence is at the core of leadership. Coaching helps one work on strategies to build trust, and rapport, and inspire others.
Key takeaway: The better communication and influence you develop, the more effective, respected, and trusted leader you become.
Why Executive Leadership Coaching Matters to Senior Leaders
By now, you may be wondering whether executive leadership coaching is just so much money. Let’s summarize what you would take away from such an investment:
- Self-awareness enables you to better understand your strengths and weaknesses and thus become a more reflective and effective leader.
- Improved Decision-Making helps you conquer difficult decisions and make excellent decisions for the benefit of the entire organization.
- Emotional Intelligence will help you form close relationships with your team members and be able to manage your emotions when things really get stressful.
- Confidence and Resilience allow you to be with it in those tough moments and lead your people when they feel lost.
- Better Communication and Influence help you inspire your people and create a healthy, productive work environment.
The honest truth is that even the most seasoned leaders need some coaching. It’s not necessarily about fixing weaknesses or solving problems; it’s about constant growth. Leadership, like much of life, is a process, and one that can always be polished to improve.
If you are a senior leader seeking to improve your leadership, then an executive coach like Sailaja Manacha, founder of Physis, who has decades of experience in transformational work as a psychotherapist and leadership coach for senior leaders may unlock the secret to unleashing your total potential. So why not take that step on your leadership path today?
Have you ever considered a leadership coaching experience? If not, then it may be time to learn about it on your own behalf.