How do leadership and coaching work together?

Based on descriptions of coaching skills from Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, Sandahl, & Whitworth (2011), Rogers (2012), Collins (2009), Stoltzfus (2005), & Bennet & Harper (2008), and based on Winston & Patterson’s (2006) integrative definition of leadership, the following table gives comparative skills of coaching and leadership:

Coaching skills	Leadership skills
Focusing on the coachee. Listening and "harvesting": (articulating, clarifying, meta-view, metaphor, recovery, clearing, reframing. making distinctions). Asking powerful questions. Asking permission.	Focusing on the company’s vision. Mobilizing. Training and equipping. Modeling. Empowering. Energizing. Personal renewal and growth.
Skills shared by coaching and leadership
Selecting. Influencing and intuition (intruding and blurting). Building a relationship of trust and respect (honesty, humility, and credibility). Service. Goal setting. Requesting and guiding. Brainstorming Challenging, assessing, supporting (acknowledging progress and championing). Bottom-lining. Healing.

                                              Table 1: Comparative skills of coaching and leadership

Reading this table inevitably raises the question: "Is there even a clear line between leadership and coaching? The answer is "no". How then do both processes work together?

One function of effective leadership is to develop followers. Therefore coaching can become a powerful tool at the service successful leaders. Actually good coaching with an alignment between the company’s vision and each follower’s personal dream can create a powerful leadership model. Here are two examples:

1. Leaders “influence [followers] by humbly conveying a prophetic vision of the future in clear terms that resonates with the follower(s) beliefs and values in such a way that the follower(s) can understand and interpret the future into present-time action steps” (Winston & Patterson, 2006, p.7). Good coaching will help the manager identify follower’s beliefs and values, and will facilitate the process of selection, positioning and alignment, and thus create effective teams.
2. When managers only focus on their views, they deprive their team form followers’ insights and engagement, and isolate themselves. Good coaching enhances commitment through listening, intuition and positive discourse, and causes followers to expend their energies (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) willingly and enthusiastically (Winston & Patterson, 2006) for the pursuit of the organization’s goals. Can you see the power of getting followers to give their best this way? That is what leaders can achieve when they coach followers.

Coaching skills are not necessarily inherent to leadership. Some of them could actually be in conflict with good leadership. For example, coaches ask questions, avoid offering advice and solutions, and seldom request actions. Most times they only create structures to support solutions developed by coachees. Leaders for their part request and advice more although they also consider followers’ opinions. On the other hand, some coaching skills are strongly useful to both coaching and leadership, like bottom-lining. Kimsey-House et al. (2011) note that coaches go to the bottom line, coachees do the talking. In leadership also, bottom-lining confers and enhances leadership power.

References

Bennett, J. L., Harper, M. (2008). Executive Coaching Readiness Assessment Scale. Presented at Academy of Management. Anaheim, CA.

Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P., Whitworth, L. (2011). Co-active coaching: Changing businesses, transforming lives (3^rd ed.). Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Rogers, J. (2012). Coaching skills: A handbook. : Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill.

Stoltzfus, T. (2005). Leadership coaching: The disciplines, skills, and heart of a christian coach [Kindle edition]. Available from www.amazon.com

Winston, B., & Patteson, K. (2006). An Integrative Definition of Leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies 1(2), 6-66.

Humility starts with a healthy sense of self-perception

A healthy self-perception is a good foundation for humility. If I know I am loved and accepted as I am, I become more ready to recognize others’ unique value as well. Humility is the quality that makes people so aware of their limitations that their sense of entitlement vanishes authentically. While being mostly reserved for those with reasons to boast, humility is enforced by deep spirituality. Being powerful creates conditions for one’s humility to be validated, and knowing God reveals one’s sense of worthlessness and catalyzes humility.

To demonstrate humility, a leader must be safe, confident, and connected to God. The Bible illustrates this in John 13: 3-5: In order to wash his disciples’ feet, Jesus first “knew that the Father had given everything into His hands”, second, had a clear sense of his origin and destiny. This combined knowledge of God and of self, made him safe and confident to wash His disciples’ feet. A competent teacher is confident to be receptive to students input to knowledge acquisition. A competent physician demystifies what he or she is doing and receives input from the patient. In the process of being down to earth, the leader builds followers’ confidence, and tells them: “you too can become like me”. The leader also connects better with followers and builds their competences. On the other hand, “pride or the loss of … humility is the root of every sin and evil” (Murray, 1900, p. 12).

Unfortunately, humility is far from being a universally shared leadership behavior. The contrary of it has gained popularity among leadership practitioners, to the detriment of shared well-being and success in communities and in companies. Bekker (nd) points to the fact that contemporary leadership authors have positioned self-promotion as a leadership quality. Only an intentional effort to create a climate of humility can overcome the natural human inclination toward preeminence. Such efforts include public rejection of arrogance, recognition and reward of humble behaviors, explicit inclusion of humility among organizational values, exemplification of humility by leaders, and hiring practices that look at prospects’ humility (Bekker, n d). Robertson (2007) also warns that God will allow “a messenger of satan” to persecute His servants whom he elevates, in order to keep them humble despite the great things God may do through them.

References

Bekker, C., J. (nd). Leading with the Head bowed down: Lessons in Leadership Humility from the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia. Inner Resources for Leaders, 1(3).

Murray, A. (1900). Humility; the beauty of holiness. New York, Revell [n.d.].

Robertson, P. (2007). The greatest virtue. Virginia Beach, VA: Christian Broadcasting Netwrok.

Purity is an idea for successful business people

It is unfortunate that one of the most popular beliefs in the corporate world is that seeking others' interest is naive. A twin belief that I have found as popular yet false it that treachery is a necessary evil for success in business. World wisdom assumes that the only way to get ahead is to have dirty hands (Sartre 1948). These ideas are popularized and embraced by people everywhere. The best such convictions can do is to serve those who embrace them for a relatively short time. When their effects fire back, they cost a lot much more that whatever they could have benefited their followers. Khan (2006) gives eight values that are correlated with long lasting success in business according to research: (1) Treat others with uncompromising truth, (2) lavish trust on your associates (3), mentor unselfishly, (4) be receptive to new ideas regardless of their origin, (5) take personal risks for the organization's sake, (6) give credit where it is due, (7) do not touch dishonest dollars, and (8) putt the interests of others before your own.


Let us elaborate on truth, empathy, and honesty. These values build and maintain trust. They keep their followers free and happy. They facilitates followership and make business relationships less constrained and costly. Biblical wisdom instructs: "Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another" (Ephesians 4: 25, Holman Christian Standard Bible). The reason the Bible gives for speaking the truth is that if I hurt my neighbor, I hurt part of myself. It seems evident to me that that in business, a stakeholder (partner, client supplier, government, employee …) cannot be hurt while I remain totally safe. His or her stability is tightly linked with mine.


Even if we imagined a possibility of remaining safe while cheating on stakeholders, we know that liars are constantly worried that their lies can be exposed. And when this happens, it splashes the reputation and kills trust. And there is no bigger asset a company has than its reputation. Take Tradex for instance, an oil retailer in Cameroon. In about 10 years Tradex has risen to become the largest oil retailer after Total in Cameroon. I recently talked with a gas station manager in my neighborhood. This man was happy that a new Tradex gas station in the neighborhood was built on a different street that his. "If they had built it on this street, we would be in serious difficulty" he said. This is because in a country where some oil retailers mix petrol with cheaper kerosene, Tradex has a reputation of selling unaltered high quality petrol. Purity is certainly not an idea for a yogi or a monk (Sartre, 1948). It is a smart idea for successful business people.

References

Khan, S. (2006). It is not so much What as How. Consulting to Management, 17(2), 62-63.
Sartre, J. P. (1948). Les mains sales [Dirty Hands]. Paris: Gallimard.