coaching. It is the genuine passion and intention to grow others that spurs us on to transform ourselves. To develop others, we have to first develop ourselves . . . and to continuously change others, we can’t help but continuously transform ourselves.
Before we coach, we learn, we prepare, and we reflect on how we can be an effective coach. During the coaching session, we gain hands-on experience and practice coaching skills and techniques. After coaching, we reflect on what transpired during the dialogue and what went well, what didn’t, and how we can do better next time. This cycle of learning returns over and over again throughout the entire coaching relationship. As we coach more people, we inculcate knowledge, skills, and competencies in coaching that will help us in many aspects of our professional and personal lives.
When we constantly apply these coaching competencies into what we do daily, we are enriched and we become better leaders, team players, spouses, parents, and friends.
Thomas G. Crane, author of The Heart of Coaching, asserts that transformational coaching is applied leadership. In many ways, being a good coach for the people who work with you makes you a better leader because the ability to coach and develop people has come to be accepted as one of the major competencies of a good leader. According to John Whitmore, the author of Coaching for Performance, “A manager’s job is simple—to get the job done and grow his staff. Time and resource pressures limit the latter. Coaching is one process that accomplishes both.”
If you are a leader who effectively coaches others, you grow your people. When that happens, they produce better results; this in turn brings you and your organization to a higher level of success. When you coach a lot of people in your company, and they see the great value that occurs, this motivates them to become coaches too. This creates a multiplier effect that often goes beyond those who report directly to you. It helps create a culture of coaching and leadership excellence throughout the whole organization. This is what Jeff Fettig, the chairman of Whirlpool Corporation, did to grow his organization. He fully committed himself to coaching people and to creating a coaching culture. He firmly believed that when he developed others, he developed himself and when he developed himself and others, he developed his organization. Coaching people is so important to developing leaders that Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO and chairman of GE, decreed that those who did not coach others would not be promoted. Welch knew that when his leaders grew others, they grew themselves and the organization.
As you have seen in the Coaching Principles explained in the earlier part of this book, when you develop as a coach, you learn to believe in people’s potential; you learn how to empower people to bring out the best in them and to let them lead; you cultivate the ability of using influence to motivate people from within rather than using authority to command them from without; and you develop resilience and the ability to thrive on adversity and flexibility.
As you delve further into this book, you will discover other principles that when applied in coaching will develop your ability to establish rapport and build good and trusting relationships with people. You’ll learn how to become a good listener in order to gain valuable input from others; to use intuition and observation to help you discover solutions and root causes of problems; to ask effective questions to draw out the best from others; to give and receive effective feedback for creating awareness and making improvements; to provide useful suggestions and use the power of simplicity to establish clarity and focus; to set goals and develop action plans that create ownership and commitment; to establish a system to keep track of action steps and progress; to solicit accountability that drives accomplishments; and to provide ongoing encouragement, support, and acknowledgment for the attainment of goals.
Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul® and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you're ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com
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