Offering coaching for CEOs and leaders
Leadership is hard. You’re doing a great job, but sometimes the cognitive and emotional load becomes too heavy and the task list just keeps growing. I can help — some specifics at the end — but first I’ll describe why a coach, and my approach to coaching, might be helpful.
How about a definition; Who is a leader? The answer is deceptively simple: a leader has followers. Leadership is about values and inspiration, not about bossing.
Reassurance: you DO know how to do it
Self-doubt is ever-present in great leaders (if it’s not, you need different help!). There’s a Tai Chi saying: the path ahead is smooth, so don’t throw rocks in your own path.
I can help identify the rocks. Self-reflection often circles around reasons why we can’t do something. Coaching creates different solutions: What if we kick the rock off the path? Can someone else move the rock? Is there another path entirely? Is the rock even real?
Ditching metaphor: name the barrier. Describe it in detail. We’ll examine it together. Then, we’ll find you already have insights for how to succeed anyway. Discover and apply what you already kinda know.
Balance out the ‘core muscles’ of leadership
You have tiny muscles in your neck to balance your head atop your spine. But most people don’t use them, because their ‘look up to the sky’ muscles (where your shoulder, neck and back meet) are overdeveloped through desk/phone hunching. And so, you get tired tension headaches.
Leaders often over-use one set of muscles, and it gives them and their teams many headaches. If your history contains ten years of being the technical expert, you’re going to find leading with detailed knowledge and evidence easiest. If you’ve done ten years in sales, you’re likely to lead through emotive persuasion and numbers.
But not everyone will follow your preferred leadership style. You have to flex a little. I can help you build your underused leadership skills:
- Methods for being more, or less, present
- Balancing team and 1:1 communication styles
- Recognising and applying your situational leadership skills
Discreet allyship in the loneliness
It’s a solitary affair, leadership. No matter your style, your accountabilities set you slightly apart at the best of times. And in more difficult times (Board pressure, revenue decline, rocky partnership…) it only gets worse. With few (or no) peers in the organisation, you can only rely on yourself, each day.
Outsiders with similar roles are often partners or rivals; it can be hard to talk to another CEO. There is little peer support out there.
It helps to have someone you can talk to. I like to make space for a ‘five-minute-moan’ — long enough to get it all out, short enough to avoid a wallow in the mud. There’s enough information in a stream-of-consciousness complaint for me to begin to formulate how to assist. And sometimes, that’s just sharing the burden with someone who gets it.
Developing actual new skills
We often get to senior leadership through our specialised skills — being a great accountant, being a great designer. This means you never arrive at the top job with all the skills needed to do it well. I can support in a range of helpful ways:
- How to do a thing yourself: I have an array of templates and scenarios to share. (Project briefs, Staff Job Plans, Policies…)
- How to find, brief and support a team member to pick up the need. (Get it done, while offering staff development)
- How to find, brief and use a consultant to fill the gap. And how to set up so that long-term dependency is avoided
- How to remove the need to do the task (some things aren’t necessary)
(Re)discovering authenticity
Everyone paints leaders into a corner. You might be the tough taskmaster, the insightful mentor, the never-enough-time absentee, the gatekeeper; you can be all of these, all at once, to multiple different people. And as those perspectives shape how your people respond to you, you can lose a little of your sense of self. Or you find yourself becoming what people need you to be, rather than who you are.
Preconceived notions of leadership abound in films and TV, on LinkedIn and airport books. Mostly they’re useless. I can help you sift through the preconceptions and find your inner authenticity, because that’s your best route to being the best leader. This might be by exploring what energises you, and what brings you down. It might be discovering new language to articulate your passion and needs. And sometimes, it’s about re-discovering the seed you already know but have temporarily lost in wrappings of chaff
You can only walk the path until you’re walking the path
It’s like being in love, it’s like being a parent: until you’re in it, you don’t know what it’s really like. You discover knowledge gaps (tax regulations, anyone?). You find out that one of your Board or staff member’s working style is diametrically opposed to yours and the relationship is full of friction. There’s some organisational history with a legacy you can’t shake.
It helps when someone’s been there before. After careful listening, I will have concrete suggestions, and we’ll have a safe, open, discursive space to discover solutions together.
Being method agnostic
There’s so much garbage in the market. There are as many ‘Foolproof techniques for CEOs!’ as there are cold calls for IT service providers. It is seductive to believe that there’s a single solution out there — just learn Six Sigma, or Lean, or, or, or… But questing for a magic bullet is a fool’s errand.
I can hone the techniques you’re already using. (Slack channels for teams? Try one for operational problem solving.) And I can offer you others.
Coaching vs mentoring
There’s not a clear distinction. Both focus on supportive change for a client. But the theory of coaching is that it requires no sector or role knowledge. A great coach could support a doctor, or a tennis player, to become better. Whereas a mentor has knowledge to impart. I like to think of them as complementary. I can share a few methods i’ve come across, and one of them might work for you. Maybe not. If it feels right to you — great, let’s talk more about applying it. If it doesn’t — then we drop it and move on to another way to help. The very opposite of the Fancy Management Training Course.
So far so good. What does it look like in practice?
It’s deceptively simple: a conversation. It’s centred on your needs, and is fully confidential, always. You bring your thoughts and feelings, I listen, and together we talk through with the focus on you.
Spend half an hour with me. You’ll discover quickly if I’m the right person to help you, or not. If so, then we can work with,
- 3x60min coaching sessions a fortnight apart — good for a specific challenge
- Ongoing 2x60min coaching sessions per month — best for support for new leaders, and leaders with long projects outside their comfort zone challenges (organisational growth, leadership change…)
- Coach on call: 1x60min coaching session per month plus on-demand advice as needed
My only goal is to help you be the best leader you can be, and my focus is on empowering, strengthening and unlocking the talents you already have.
Why trust me with your growth?
I’ve had training and mentoring in coaching: I hold a Certificate of Professional Development in Coaching, and have experienced five coaches in my career, all with different styles that I’ve learnt from. But this is the least important reason to trust me.
- Clear ethical grounding: the focus is on you, I won’t allow dependency, there’s zero judgement, everything’s confidential
- I want only the best for you — my motivation is to see people thrive
- I’m good at it; I’ve been acclaimed as an advisor, mentor and coach by staff, peers and Board members, while acting in CEO and senior leadership positions.
- After running organisations, projects and departments for 25 years, in two countries and three sectors, I have a library of ‘stuff that works’ across commercial to compliance, strategy to operations, Board to casuals, procurement to fundraising.
- I follow my values: I live and work on Aboriginal Land and I donate 5% of all gross revenue to Pay The Rent
- Try me out first — there’s no cost, and no hard feelings if I’m not the help you need right now.
