Being a coach

I was recently discussing the question of legacy with a mentor, a CEO of a regional company. I asked him what he felt is his primary purpose is in his role. He answered “Preparing my successor to succeed me”. He went on to explain that he was transforming his business into a learning organisation where performance is measured by how employees develop, grow and achieve their highest potential. His commitment, in his words, was to coach his people to greatness. This CEO is a conscious leader.

Conscious leaders coach. They hold space for the people around them to grow, learn, and contribute at their highest level. There are steps we can take to be better leaders who coach.

Embrace emotional intelligence

Build your levels of self-awareness and self-management. Notice, and control, your emotions so that you can handle relationships with empathy and tact and achieve progress in a self-motivated way. Manage relationships with agility and be flexible in how you interact with the people around you. And continue to build on these skills by actively seeking feedback from your team members and colleagues on your behaviour and performance.

Be values based

Have a firm understanding of the principles and beliefs that are at the core of who you are, and behave in ways that honour those core values. Align your choices and behaviour with you values. And encourage your team members to be values based too, showing them how to do this.

Choose trust

Believe in yourself and, therefore, trust yourself to be responsible and to use sound judgement. This belief and trust comes from your conscious self and is felt from the inside out. This gives your team members permission to believe in themselves too. And so trust is built.

Use coaching skills

Act as coach to your team members. Ask, listen, encourage, praise, recognize, and support. And shift your behaviour in specific ways:

·     Rather than command, collaborate –create space for team members to perform actions according to how they choose to do them, not how you want them to do them.

·     Rather than control, influence – treat others in ways that make them feel engaged and empowered.

·     Rather than tell, ask – use open questions to help team members develop their own thinking on what, where, when, and how.

·    Rather than demand, listen – hold space for team members when they need to be heard, and actively seek their input, ideas, and contributions.

·     Rather than criticize, encourage –encourage team members to lead others and support them in their development.

Measure success not by results but by impact

Start seeing success as progress through process. Rather than praise results, recognize contributions, efforts, improvement, and growth as they occur. This focuses attention on the experience of learning and growth, which itself becomes satisfying and self-fulfilling.

What difference does this make? It allows team members to be empowered to lead themselves, and it lets you focus on addressing difficulties and challenges as they arise. You form a collaborative partnership of learning and growth in which both parties are open to change to achieve higher potential. In doing so, the conscious leader enables a sustainable pathway of fulfilment and growth.

If you want to up-level your leadership to be a Conscious Lawyer, reach out to engage in C-Success Coaching at https://www.kiranscarr.com/coaching.