The short answer: In today’s world, many unknown factors occur when you create new systems, design new products and services, and handle people challenges to meet customer demands.
Change (real and perceived) causes anxiety for you, team members, boards, and customers. When you (or they) are uncomfortable or confronted, it feels like a mosquito constantly buzzing. Then, you (or they) may do mischievous things to make the annoyance stop (make bad decisions, focus on personal impacts, hideout).
On October 7th, I celebrated having been a leadership, executive, and people coach for over 31 years!
I’ve worked with:
- Tough leaders that continually get themselves in trouble.
- Other leaders that have the capabilities but not the drive and willingness to address the “tough issues” or have the “tough conversations.”
- Successful leaders that are the guiding light for others and understand they still need an objective sounding board when making those “tough decisions.”
My philosophy: Good leaders with leadership coaches produce their intended results while guiding their team members to grow.
Having a leadership coach will:
- Sharpen your skills
- Help you be coachable
- Teach you to accept feedback from customers, bosses, teams, and others
- Provide a committed listener to reduce anxiety, stress, and frustrations
- Improve decisions, relationships, results, and bottom lines
- Show you how to develop team members to excel and achieve unprecedented results
6 Traits Required to Grow Your Leadership
Influence Others. Being an influencer depends on your ability to work with and through others! Making good decisions and providing clarity during the murky times is the leader’s opportunity to influence while growing the team. Your leadership coach guides you in your critical thinking, working relationships, and basic knowledge.
For example, if you have a team conflict, it’s essential to address it immediately because it never gets better. (Or, I would have already!) As an influencer and leader, develop a strategy with your coach. Start the process using a qualified job-fit assessment to help the team see why they are pointing fingers at each other and how to achieve the intended results. (Objective data)
Listen While Building a Workable Plan. Listening is critical for everyone, especially a successful leader. It’s amazing what you’ll hear and the ideas that pop up as a result of true listening. Remember, not every idea has a positive return on investment. Work with your coach to ensure everyone is encouraged to contribute solutions and that the plan meets budgets, timelines, and customer needs.
Make Good Decisions. Too often, leaders want to be liked. As a result, they fail to make good decisions or any decisions. They lose the respect of others, including their board, top talent, and customers. A leadership coach helps you formulate good business questions to ask before having the required conversations to make better decisions.
Work with Difficult People. There will always be nay-sayers, those jealous and upset that you have what they want (e.g., job, title, results, money). It’s impossible to avoid these types of co-workers and employees. But don’t ignore the gossip they create, and include them in discussions by asking for their advice. (Use mindful resilience techniques when triggered by their comments or actions.) While this minimizes the negativity, it won’t stop them from their critical critique of you. (It’s not personal – if it wasn’t about you, they would criticize someone or something else … and often do.)
Clarify Leadership Blind Spots. Work with your leadership coach to discover your leadership blind spots. Remember, you can build on strengths. Focusing on weaknesses only keeps them around.
Avoid Excuses! Time and money are the #1 excuses and rarely the real issues. Look beneath these excuses to identify the fears you and others attempt to cover up. Are the fears something that can be addressed? In most cases, yes. Working with your coach keeps the conversation moving forward, ensures it stays on point and provides realistic goals/results.
©Jeannette Seibly 2023 All Rights Reserved
Jeannette Seibly is a champion for success. As a leader, do you have bosses that are difficult for teams to work with? Jeannette’s depth of experience and wisdom comes from 31 years of transforming bosses from hated to respected! Contact Jeannette for a confidential discussion.
A note from Jeannette about working with a leadership coach: Successful leaders have coaches! Let me repeat this! Successful leaders have coaches! (think Michael Jordan, Tom Brady) A coach helps improve your results, people management, and ability to navigate complicated relationships and situations. Contact Jeannette for a confidential conversation about how to hire the right leadership coach for you!
The coach is in! Are you ready to build your confidence and success as a boss? As a leader, do you have bosses that are difficult for teams to work with? Or are you one of those bosses? With my depth of experience and wisdom, I transform bosses from hated to respected! Contact me to learn more about my in-depth, one-on-one, customized coaching programs.