“True leaders emerge from crises.” Simbotwe Peterson
This article provides thoughtful tips on Leadership Team Coaching in Practice. Good leadership in a crisis is even more rare than in normal times. A crisis, for all its challenges, also presents opportunities. It’s your job as an executive coach to help leaders seize such opportunities.
How can you best help them use their strengths to benefit their organisation?
Related Read: Absolute Importance of Executive Coaching
Recognizing the Leaders’ Challenges
A good executive coach empathises with his/her clients. To do so, he/she must be aware of the challenges leaders face in these extraordinary times.
- Operating in a distributed, remote environment is difficult enough.
- Layoffs, furloughs, and employee retention
- Rebuilding and maintaining supply chains.
- Changing market realities
- Plant relocations
These are obvious issues facing leaders in a crisis. Add to that the myriad personal and professional challenges we all face, and you get a better idea of what leaders face.
Active Listening
One of the most important skills of a good Leadership coach is active listening. Other features include:
- Empathy
- A genuine desire to aid
- a deep regard for the client
- Flexibility in addressing client’s strengths and weaknesses
- Finding solutions and opportunities
What does active listening mean in the post-COVID-19 “New Normal”?
As a Leadership coach, you should admit your own struggles with the situation. Your goal is to encourage clients to struggle. Empathize and be compassionate. This is how your clients should communicate with their reports.
I’ve always considered empathy a metric of leadership maturity.
Asking the Right Questions
Ask important questions like:
- How to lead under duress
- What do you think are your crisis leadership strengths and weaknesses?
- Do you get along with people of various personalities?
- How do you communicate with people of different orientations?
- Where is your blind spot? Do you need more data/feedback?
- How do you communicate concisely?
By asking these questions, you help your clients evolve. Recognizing a problem is the first step towards solving it.
Bringing Out the Best
Being a receptacle for your clients’ anxieties is part of your job as a crisis leadership coach. You want your clients to be calm and human at the same time.
Make your clients feel positive about the situation. The old ‘rulebook’ is gone, but they can start fresh. Persuade them to seek new opportunities
Including All Leaders in Leadership Coaching
A leadership coach’s services should not be restricted to senior management. Persuade your clients to use your services for all levels of leadership.
Good Book Reads on Leadership Team Coaching in Practice
Organizations are increasingly complex, requiring flexibility to implement significant, rapid change that goes beyond the ability of an individual leader or CEO. A high-performing and cohesive leadership team is critical for success. There is a book named – Leadership Team Coaching in Practice by Peter Hawkins which presents enlightening case studies on how leadership team coaching techniques have been applied internationally across a variety of team types and industries, including professional services, pharmaceuticals, airlines, healthcare and finance. With expert contributions from chief executives, team coaches, team leaders and consultants, this practical guide illustrates best practice tailored to the needs of each organization. Please make use of it by reading through purchase.
