Why even the most successful Executives needs an effective Coach

Why would a highly successful executive need a coach? To Become a Better Leader. Why? Because they want to grow and are intentional about their development. In my experience coaching leaders, I find three situations that typically arise with leaders who want to grow.

• They are a leader who simply wants to grow. They are intentional about their growth and love the learning and actual application. All great leaders want to keep growing.
• They are a leader who has suffered a setback. Growing leaders learn the most during times of personal challenge. They learn more who they are and what's missing and are rocked out of their day to day leadership trance - they look within themselves to better understand how their thoughts, emotions and behaviors contributed to their situations instead of blaming others.
• They are a leader who wants to leave a legacy. They want to impact lives by being somebody else's leadership hero. If you want to touch or engage the hearts and souls of others, you must do so with your own heart and soul.

So, if any or all of the situations describe you, you need a new model and new tools to lead yourself more effectively, close the gaps, increase your influence and capacity to lead yourself and others. Will Rogers said, "Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

Ex Google CEO, Eric Schmidt has said that the best advice he ever got was to hire an executive coach. When one of his board members suggested this, Schmidt resisted because he didn’t think he needed a coach. But in an interview with Fortune Magazine he said “everyone needs a coach.” Schmidt's initial reaction is not surprising. There are usually three roadblocks to getting better and leadership growth. These barriers keep leaders from seeing themselves as they really are. One or more of these is present in every leader I know.

1. Too much Autopilot ~ this is the trance where life is happening to you and your responses are automatic. You react and don't have time to think about it and it mostly works for you and helps you to accomplish, participate and lead. Autopilot is a useful shortcut for leaders to get a lot of things done. Autopilot is doing things the way we have always done them, reacting to people, situations the way we have always reacted - usually leading to getting the same results. Autopilot and growth do not go together. It must be disengaged and turned off. How do you do that? By becoming more AWARE and this is where we meet the second roadblock.
2. Using Less than 100% of Ourselves ~ Growing as a leader is more than raising your emotional intelligence or getting smarter at leadership competencies like communication, time management, delegation. Leadership growth does encompass all of these and more. If you want to be the best version of yourself, you must be AWARE of who shows up. Leading with 100% of yourself means recognizing that here are four distinct aspects or leadership dimensions of yourself that contribute to who you are as a leader: your physical body, your intellectual mind, your emotional heart and your spiritual essence. I tell leaders that they posses everything they need to be a better leader, they are just not using all of it.
3. Failing to See How One's greatest strengths are connected to their greatest weaknesses ~ Here is a simple example. Before the advent of power tools, the carpenter's best tool was his hammer and his greatest strength was hammering. He drove nails, built, achieved and got a lot of things done with his hammer. However, if the situation called for a different strength and behavior but the carpenter insisted that his greatest strength would carry the day and he kept hammering, how do you think the situation turned out? This silly example describes many leaders and offers a glimpse of how one's greatest strength and greatest weakness are related to one another.

So, if you want to grow, you must change. Change involves the unknown. The unknown is risky and scary. Real personal growth is risky and scary. If you are going to find real answers that lead to substantial change in yourself, you have to be willing to take on this risk with a trusted partner.

How would a successful executive benefit from a coach? Numerous studies provide ample data affirming the extraordinary results that can be achieved by utilizing a top executive coach. So, how will coaching help a leader get past these roadblocks? A leader needs to follow three steps to increase their impact and effectiveness.

• Become more AWARE ~ At the top of an organization you have a unique perspective, but that perspective is also limited by your position of power. A leader needs to slow down and be more aware of themselves as it help them lead mindfully instead of mindlessly. New ways of showing up and behaving lead to new and more effective outcomes. This is hard work but is the area where leaders generally grow the most.
• With more Awareness You Are Able To Better ASSESS ~ Now the leader is in a better position to assess. Assessing is all about measuring and evaluating, taking an accurate snapshot of oneself and one's capabilities in their present situation.
• Which Leads to ADJUST ~ Here adjust means change and is the real pay off step. Adjust means to behave differently. Real change shows up in your thoughts and emotions which lead to your actions.

To make these steps last, one will need to continue with two critical observations about oneself for lasting change. Both of these help us turn off the Autopilot, learn new things and accomplish real change in ourselves. First, you need to be more CURIOUS - ABOUT YOURSELF. Always evaluating, asking questions and getting honest feedback, just like when you were a child. Second, you need to BE PATIENT. Real change takes time. This is hard for leaders because everyone looks to you for answers. You are not going to change overnight, but you can begin to change overnight.

Coaching is a partnership in which you and your coach designs a plan based on your agenda – taking what’s inside and translating it into goals that you accomplish step-by-step. An executive coach is one of the few people you are able to honestly expose yourself without any judgement. Coaching is a place to test out ideas and strategy with someone you trust who has no vested interest or competing agenda. Your coach gives you objective and constructive feedback on your blind spots, and provides a very important outside perspective on the business and your team.

It is my hope you got one or two nuggets from this article so you have a little more clarity on your development and finding a coach to work with. What areas would you improve personally & professionally in helping you understand, assess and transform your behaviors for better outcomes and greater leadership effectiveness? We would love to hear from you with comments or questions. Send me a note via email at brad@aperiocoaching.net or on Twitter @bparcells.

In Latin, Aperio means to reveal, uncover, to make clear. Coaching is a powerful process of coaching leaders through personal transformation that enables the leader to reveal and illuminate their authentic leadership style.