How do you coach leaders at different levels?

One thing I use is a Being profile and this allows me to assess where individuals are at in relation to healthy and unhealthy practices in their lives. It’s important to establish this in order to deal with symptoms that are showing up in their lives.

One corner stone of coaching is to meet folks where they are. What does it mean? “Where they are at” means?you need to listen and learn, seek to understand, and tailor your approach. It's not about your needs, but their needs. What is crucial here? Leaving judgment aside and bringing in curiosity. Don't let a VP title come in the way of really assessing where a leader is at. Becoming curious is key. Asking questions to.learn and not to probe is key. This requires having empathy and letting it to come out.

While these models and assessments can create a common language to be shared by the coach and the performer*, be careful not to force people to fit a model. More important than assessing the level of the performer is building a foundation for a trusting relationship. Assessing "level" can also divert attention off of identifying what success looks like for that individual. Assigning a level can create an artificial label that limits what success might look like for that leader. *I prefer the term "performer" over "coachee." Coachee focuses the attention on the coach while performer focuses the attention on the one seeking to improve and/or grow.

The individual is the focus or at least should be, more than their level or title. All problems, issues, and challenges are individual. A CEO has an issue, but is the issue really because of their level? Or is it because of the way they personally deal with that issue? At the end of the day it's not the problem or issue that we coach, it's not the title or level we coach. It is who the person is, and how they see and how they interact with the problem and challenge. Every single person is unique. That means how they see problems and challenges will be unique. Stay focused on the person and not the title or "level", because it comes down to their individual success.

Different levels of leadership have different challenges and tensions. Assessing the level using a model or framework is useful but there is a risk of forcing the client into a box. Using active listening and understanding to explore the individual challenges of the client is critical for the success of coaching at all leadership levels.

Creating buy in is critical to do early. Aligning the persons goals and visions with the requirements and growth that is going to be asked of them, helps them take ownership of the work.

Listen first. Unless the client leader is explicitly seeking to grow in insight through an instrument, then make sure you have a good reason to use one. See how they interact with others, watching for what communications work well or poorly for them. Even ask what their ideal conversation is like, or what frustrates them. This can provide the opportunity to offer to work with them to raise deeper awareness. Models, tools and instruments are powerful, but introduce them in this practical context so that the 'why' is clear and the 'return on investment' is evident. Nothing builds rapport with leadership figures, in my experience, like respecting their challenges and respecting their time.

Building rapport through conversation creates the foundation needed for a trusting coaching relationship. Being present and focusing your attention on understanding the performer's situation start to build that rapport. Tools don't build rapport. They can be helpful when used appropriately. Too often, I've seen DiSC, MBTI, and other assessments misused. They can offer a limited understanding of who the whole person is and what they are striving to become. This isn't rapport. It is a shortcut that can oversimplify the depth and complexity of a person. Building rapport isn't a "tool" or technique. It is the pathway to building trusting relationships that lead to significant conversations.

As a subset of powerful questions, consider 'wicked questions' (from Liberating Structures). Leaders often operate in complex, ambiguous and contested environments, where the difficulty is particularly around making a decision that will make certain things tangibly better for some, and tangibly worse for others. If a powerful question is "And what is the impact of doing nothing?", a wicked question might be "And how might you achieve x, and also reduce the negative effect of y?" This echoes the Leadership Agility model, where a hallmark of leaders who perform at higher levels of Leadership Agility is that ability to hold seemingly incompatible views alongside one another - finding deeper and more transformative solutions in this way.

As important as powerful questions can be, listening to the performer's* responses, asking informed follow-up questions, and checking for understanding will make your questions even more powerful. *The term "coachee" is a pet peeve of mine. It may not be a big deal but, for me, it reinforces the idea of the coach being the central figure in the relationship. The person seeking growth and development needs to be the focus. "Coachee" links their identity to the coach. To be an effective leadership coach, we need to take ourselves out of the central focus. As Mrs. Increadable said to Mr. Increadable "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!

While learning is an important aspect of leadership development, it can't stop there. It can't stop at transferring learning to the work context, either. The role of a Leadership Development Coach isn't to facilitate learning but to facilitate behavior change. These changes need to result in enhanced performance and improved results. SMART goals and action plans are nice but never touch the world until they result in behaviors and actions.

Leaders and leadership systems are rarely in static equilibrium, they are constantly shifting and adapting. With some leaders I coach, we find that the level of change around them is such that the conclusion of the previous session does not at all resemble the start of the next. In those cases, the art is to look for the recurrent themes: What strengths do they rely on most? Are they chosen for suitability or from habit? What challenges, frustrations or blind spots recur? This can be a good moment for Hall's Iceberg Model of Culture. These questions will take the work a little deeper into the water to unlock more transformative change, in volatile environments where superficial 'transactional coaching' will struggle to add value.