Transformational Leadership: The Leader as Coach
By: Stacy Waddell

The business environment of today requires a special set of leadership skills and competencies not evidenced by leaders of the past. This special set of competencies are best demonstrated by coaches in the field of Business and Executive Coaching.

Leadership skills such as professional expertise, innovation and problem solving abilities are basic competencies expected of all leaders in business. In order to stand out as a great leader a new set of skills are required to create a corporate culture where personal accountability and innovation drive performance and bottom line profitability.

As an example, consider a good leader that possesses an above average leadership skill set, who decides to add active listening, powerful questioning, creating awareness and designing actions to his or her “bank” of competencies. Suddenly you have the following organizational advantages :

Integrating these coaching competencies into the leadership role can produce significant and sustained results. So we must ask this question, for greater results and increased understanding, do we make a clear proclamation of our personal coaching mission or mandate? Or do we simply incorporate these competencies into our “bank” of existing competencies and get on with leading our team?

Most great coaches will agree that any sound coaching model will begin with the leader clarifying his or her personal coaching mission. A visionary and descriptive mission statement has the power to inspire and to motivate thus contributing to the overall objective. A masterful coach does not mandate, but rather seeks to link a person’s aspirations to business objectives by acting as a collaborative partner.

The benefits of integrating the four fundamental coaching competencies into the leadership role and continuing to add to the leadership competency “bank” are significant and help to define a “new” type of business leader. This “new” leader seeks performance enhancement through collaboration and not by directives.

Books

• The Extraordinary Leader: By John H. Zenger & Joseph Folkman
• The Way of Adventure: By Jeff Salz, PH.D.
• Working With Emotional Intelligence : By Daniel Goleman
• The Myth Of Excellence : By Fred Crawford & Ryan Crawford
• Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: By Stephen R. Covey
• Team-Building Activities for Every Group: By Alanna Jones
• Be Nice (or Else!): By Winn Claybaugh
• The Tipping Point: By Malcolm Gladwell
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable: By Patrick M. Lencioni
• Masterful Coaching Fieldbook: By Robert Hargrove
• First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently: By Marcus Buckingham
• Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change: By William Bridges
• Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done: By Larry Bossidy
• Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results: By Stephen C. Lundin
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't: By Jim Collins
• The Leadership Challenge, Third Edition: By James M. Kouzes (Author), Barry Z. Posner
• Leading Out Loud: Inspiring Change Through Authentic Communications, New and Revised: By Terry Pearce
• Developing The Leader Within You: By John C. Maxwell
• Leadership Is an Art: By Max Depree
• Absolute Honesty: Building a Corporate Culture That Values Straight Talk and Rewards Integrity: By Larry Johnson, Bob Phillips
• Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story: By Jerry Weissman
• Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time: By Susan Scott
• First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently: By Marcus Buckingham
• Awareness: By Anthony de Mello