Leadership Coaching

Executives might be at the top of the organizational hierarchy, but leaders can be found anywhere. Even when someone is clearly a natural born leader, their skills can always be further honed. By nurturing the leadership abilities of those with the talent and energy to drive success, companies can reap valuable benefits. 

What Is Leadership Coaching?

A leader is both a person who has a certain position within an organization, and a person with the ability to motivate, provide advice to, or control others. Although a formal leader has the responsibility to achieve certain results, a non-official leader has the opportunity to create success for themselves and for the people around them. In both cases, the leader relies on various inborn talents and acquired skills that put them at the front of their group.  

Although leadership skills can be enhanced through training and mentoring, a coach makes the ideal partner. The close, personal observation that is associated with a coaching style of learning is best for dealing with the complex tasks related to leadership. As a reflection of this, 48% of leaders prefer coaching as the method for implementing their L&D programs

Leadership coaching is the enhancement, through a coaching-style expert, of the skills that allow a person to guide an organization.

Why Is Leadership Coaching Important?

Companies that successfully implement leadership coaching programs can avoid the numerous pitfalls of insufficient leadership, which affects 77% of organizations.

Leadership coaching serves to address two common organizational challenges:

Skill development

Coaching serves to enhance a leader’s skills and knowledge, including elements of work-life balance. 80% of organizations apply leadership coaching for building the skills of specific individuals. 

Problem resolution

Stress has become a focus of coaching, particularly since the beginning of the pandemic. Leaders may also seek help in the face of professional crises, emotional difficulties, organizational politics, and interpersonal issues. 

What Skills Relate to Leadership Coaching?

The most common skills addressed by coaching programs are self-awareness, communication, change management, and strategic thinking. Additional major skill areas depend on the level of the organization at which the employee is located.

Entry-level employees who show leadership potential tend to receive coaching for interpersonal skills and basic task execution as they ‘learn the ropes’ and hone the manner in which they relate to their peers.

For mid-level managers, the focus of coaching usually covers the leadership of essential teams within the organization and proficiency in administering their associated activities. 

Lastly, senior and executive leaders often receive coaching for long-term planning, strategic thinking, and change management. 

What Are the Benefits of Leadership Coaching?

Successful coaching in general provides many advantages, and leadership coaching is no exception. These are just some of the potential gains:

Discovering a leadership style

There are many types of leadership styles, from authoritarian to affiliative. A leader might change their attitude when under pressure or according to the group they are managing. Leadership coaching can help the employee bring out the best in their natural approach and let them know when they are applying the wrong method. 

Building new proficiencies

As leaders progress through an organization, they are presented with different challenges. Chances are that some situations will be totally new and require an updated set of related soft skills

Improving communication

A leader must connect with peers, superiors, and subordinates through verbal, written, and presentational methods. Very few people are adept in every aspect of communication, but a coach can maximize a leader’s skills in the essential areas.    

The Challenge of Measurement

Leadership coaching is a common initiative, yet organizations still face leadership skill gaps. One of the reasons for this is the absence of proper measurement tools to grade courses and experts. In general, the L&D industry suffers from a lack of objective, easy to apply evaluation methods. According to this study, approximately 73% of organizations that host leadership coaching programs do not sufficiently measure their business impact.

Let GrowthSpace Lead the Way

Leadership coaching programs, as noted above, cover numerous skills. The question for organizations is – how do you find the best coach for your needs? 

The answer is GrowthSpace. Its L&D platform is dedicated to enabling L&D practitioners to match employees at any level with top-rated professional coaches of every specialty. In addition, GrowthSpace’s coaching sprints impart maximum knowledge in minimum time, so L&D programs remain convenient and focused. And finally, GrowthSpace’s talent development solution uses a proprietary assessment method that emphasizes simplicity and clarity so that organizations can track the success of employees, coaches, and L&D programming.

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