Executive & Leadership Development: Leaders Arise! Tools for Selecting Candidates for ...

Executive & Leadership Development: Leaders Arise! Tools for Selecting Candidates for ...: With today's organizational complexities, challenges and uncertainties impacting individual and collective leadership, the demand for ...

Leaders Arise! Tools for Selecting Candidates for Executive Coaching in your Organization

With today's organizational complexities, challenges and uncertainties impacting individual and collective leadership, the demand for executive coaching is more important today than ever before. So, what's are some of the best ways to prioritize your company's selection of talent receiving coaching.

There is no one-size-fits all approach to designing coaching engagements. Rather, the design, duration, intensity, focus, goals of the coaching engagement should be based on the development needs of the leader, the desired outcomes of the organization, the level of the leader in the organization, and the impact that changed behaviors on the leader's part will have on leadership effectiveness and business performance.

Regardless of what kind of coaching a company offers its executives and other leaders, there are several important factors to consider when evaluating a person's suitability for coaching. Candidates should posses each of the following:

1. Established Track Record of Early and Consistent Success and Leadership Potential

Any leader selected should demonstrate their leadership potential and their ability to adapt and learn, work with others, and deal with challenging business conditions and challenges. Normally, these leaders already have leadership responsibilities and some can be individual contributors who show tremendous promise, who has yet to manage others. Those groomed for higher level of leadership in the near future are also viable candidates.

2. Have Demonstrated Capacity for New Learning

These individuals should possess and show an inclination and enthusiasm for real-time experience learning and lean in to new business challenges that arise. These traits are essential for leadership agility and effectiveness. Agile and resilient leaders tend to challenges the status quo, generate new strategies and plans and embrace learning as a life long goal. Look for leaders who have a thirst for new learning all the time and have an understanding that their development is a journey, not a destination.

3. Embrace Vertical/Adaptive Development

There is a real difference between Horizontal and Vertical/Adaptive development. Horizontal is necessary for sure in adding knowledge and skills that are transmitted by experts and it all about what you think. The difference is that Vertical/Adaptive development is about growing abilities to think, feel and act in complex, systematic and interdependent ways, are earned through life experiences and it is all about how you think. A great way to think about this is the metaphor of the cup and the water. Horizontal development is having an expert fill your cup (your mind) with concepts, techniques and skills. Whereas, vertical development is about growing the size of the cup (your mind) so that there is more capacity and space.

Growing vertically has three conditions: 1) Heat Experiences: leaders grow fastest when they find themselves in situations that create "heat." The criteria for heat is that results matter, chance of success or failure, people are watching and it is very uncomfortable. 2) Colliding perspectives: by surrounding yourself with people who think differently to you and connecting with others outside of your normal network and seeking other people's perspectives about challenges you are facing. 3) Reflection on Experiences: making sense of the experiences you are having, learning new lessons, reconfiguring your values, beliefs and identity.

4. Self Awareness and Emotional Intelligence

Developing oneself as a leader depends a lot on the individual's self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Highly effective leaders are very self aware and realize that to be effective they must work through others to get things done. They embrace their strengths with humility and self-confidence, and acknowledge the strengths and contributions of others. They are vulnerable, decisive, visionary and inclusive. They also realize real power comes one's ability to influence others, to engender trust and respect, and to engage and align others around common objectives, not from formal positional authority. For this reason, look for leaders who have the capacity to grow in their knowledge and awareness of self.

5. Strong Social and Interpersonal Skills

Leaders need to display an ability to work well with a variety of people. They must be able to build connections among individuals with competing goals and agendas and create the spirit of trust, engagement, alignment and camaraderie. Look for leaders who understand the importance of building "social capital" within their sphere of influence, who has shown the ability to build and maintain stakeholder networks and work across departmental or business units. Also, look for individuals who possess a flexible interpersonal style who can adjust their approach with others based on personalities and needs in the moment.

6. Presence

Leadership presence and leading with all of yourself 100% of the time is a fundamental basis of effective leadership. Look for leaders who are highly curious about their presence and developing it. This is about the impact their physical body, intellectual thoughts, their emotions and, finally at core of presence, their identity/foundational values and principles have on their presence and leadership effectiveness.

Developing leaders is never easy, especially when training and development dollars are limited and leadership development needs are growing. To maximize coaching's value, be sure to identify current and emerging leaders to receive coaching, as this will help build your leadership succession and provide for continuous development of new generations of leaders in the future.

Please share your comments here or reach out directly at brad@aperiocoaching.net