You are not alone! This is a conclusion most of my C-level coachees come to after having taken part in a leadership coaching process. But why would they think they had been alone beforehand? The answer is easy: because it is always lonely in the top. Imagine climbing the highest mountains; there is just no room for more. The same is true of being at the top of a company: you have nobody to share your problems with, to complain about your bosses with, or simply to go out for lunch with. You just have to be the head of a big population with all its authority, respect, trust and sometimes fear. Becoming a leader takes a long way from being a manager. It is the coach who can accompany you in this process. Here are some tools—among many—that you can use efficiently.
To stop list
Most people think they need to learn new skills to grow into a new role. Sometimes, on the contrary, it is more important to get rid of certain behaviours. As Peter Drucker said, „Most leaders don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.” Following this logic, Marshall Goldsmith has listed 20 of the behaviours one would better stop to become a great leader:
| Winning too much | Adding too much value | Passing judgement | Making destructive comments | Starting with „No,” „But,” or „However” |
| Telling the world how smart we are | Speaking when angry | Negativity, or „Let me explain why that won’t work” | Withholding information | Failing to give proper recognition |
| Claiming credit that we don’t deserve | Making excuses | Clinging to the past | Playing favourites | Refusing to express regret |
| Not listening | Failing to express gratitude | Punishing the messenger | Passing the buck | An excessive need to be „me” |
Let your coachee pick just one per week and ask him/her to examine his/her everyday activity focusing on that single behaviour. Once discovered, you can together determine a path to get rid of it.
Changes in emotions
When we think about options, we tend to limit ourselves to a logical world. This tool helps us move out of it with questions such as:
- What would be the most humorous solution?
- What solution would astonish others?
- What would you do if you had no emotions and did not have to be mindful of others?
- What would you do if you had no fears?
- What would you do if you were not angry?
Hence, an endless line of questions may be developed, with the coach’s creativity as the sole limit.
Johari Window
Published by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955, this tool is intended for the assessment of positive attributes, to measure individual effectiveness. To understand the “self”, two dimensions are delineated: the behavioural features that are known to self and those concerning the person known to others. The areas vary in size in time. As life progresses and a person gains self-knowledge and the people around him/her become acquainted with him/her, the “Blind spot” area continuously shrinks, and the size of the other three areas grows correspondingly. An interactive version of the Johari Window is available on the Internet, consisting of a window containing 25 attribute types (extroverted, introverted, helpful, friendly, etc.). After being asked to select the five words that best describe the individual, you have to enter a unique ID and send it to five stakeholders of yours, asking them to provide their input about your personality traits. You will then receive a link that features your own personal Johari window, with the traits displayed including those known to you but not known to others and those that others think describe you the best but of which you are unaware. It can be a very valuable lesson.
This article was originally published in the International Coaching News (ICN) in 2017.
