6 Steps of a Leaders Conversation
Thomas Bookhamer
I help people monetize their expertise by creating a community of growth and belonging around existing content, a life experience, a topic, or an event.
A leader’s primary interest is to add value to others, serving their ability “To Grow”. Many of my clients find this simple framework easy to understand, yet hard to do!
The primary ways of influencing others are the example you set by your own behavior each day and coaching.
? A coaching conversation, allows the client to go within for answers.
? If a leader or a coach gives you the answers, then you will reach their potential and not your own.
A Leader believes in you until you believe in yourself. A leader encourages others to go within for the answers. A leader’s desire is for others to reach their potential. As a leader, if I always tell you what to do you will reach the potential of me. You are better than just reaching my potential. I want you to reach YOUR potential.
A leader encourages others to think into their results. A leader will ask you the right questions to allow you to discover your own truth!
Who is the Coach or leader in this picture?
If you selected the one sitting down listening, then you are right!
Begin to practice this simple framework today. You will see results right away!
More in-depth teaching on the 6 Steps of a Leaders Conversation is available in my NEW BOOK! https://journey.leadersfactor.com/eBook
In my experience, today's corporate leadership culture is still very autocratic. Top-down management leveraging authority and organizational charts are far too common and will inhibit innovation. If a leader's primary concern is to grow others then coaching skills will support that effort. Before we talk about coaching skills let's clarify. Some will say to me, a leader's primary concern is NOT to grow others, it is to lead. Someone has to LEAD. There is a lot to talk about here, and I do hope we will have the opportunity to participate together as a learning community going forward. I would love to better understand your thoughts. For now, allow me to share a leadership principle from my friend and mentor, John C. Maxwell in his book; The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork.
The Law of significance states; One is too small a number to achieve greatness. The belief that one person can do something great is a myth. Even the Lone Ranger wasn't really alone. Everywhere he went, there was Tonto.
I say this to illustrate that even though someone must LEAD, and that might be you, the bottom line is that it takes a team to do anything of value. If you live this out your primary concern comes back around to growing others. Doing your part to help them to be the best version of themselves is how we all succeed together.
Let's talk about coaching skills for a minute. Coaching or Leading is not directive. Coaching is not even giving advice. If you are directing or giving advice then you are consulting or even better, you are teaching. Now, don't get me wrong here. There are many times when teaching, consulting, and advising are very appropriate. However, are you achieving a good balance by leading as well? I am a certified John Maxwell Leadership, Coach, Teacher, and Speaker. This means sometimes I am coaching. And, other times I am teaching, speaking, or even giving expert advice based on experience, which is consulting.
I am going to share something a bit transparent based on my experience. I have been coaching professionally for over 20 years and during that time I have only met a few coaches (less than 5). These are people that actually understand what coaching is. Most of the coaches I meet are coaches by title and consultants by behavior. Coaching is a very miss-understood term and often miss-used. I'll say this another way. Answer this question and let's see where your awareness is. Is advanced agile experience and knowledge what makes you an agile coach? Did you become a coach through your Agile experience? Of course, you did! Which is good. However, did you also acquire any specific coaching skills to move you from an agile consultant and qualify you to be a coach? How about leadership training? Was it leadership or management?
Why am I talking about coaching in an article about leaders? Because the same goes for Leadership! Leadership is also very miss-understood.
This is just the beginning of the Leaders Journey. There are many, many, great discussions ahead. I invite you to joins us and share your thoughts and experience at the Agile Leaders Group (Linkedin). This group is dedicated to understanding the influence your leadership culture has on organizational agility. - https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/12224726/
Thanks for choosing to use your time reading this article. I appreciate you! I hope to see you in one of these free options so we may learn from one another and add value to others. I would love to be blessed by your feedback on these thoughts via comments. Let's start an open and transparent discussion. Let me know what you think! Let's grow together.
Thomas Bookhamer, https://www.leadersfactor.com/
P.S. Reach out to me anytime - [email protected] I would love to learn more about you and your experience.
WEBINARS:
The Leaders Journey - Evolving form Authority to Influence - The evolution from an autocratic management style of authority and policy to a leadership culture of innovation and influence - https://journey.leadersfactor.com/WEBINAR
Team Development & Optimization through Communication Awareness - Learn your communication style and behavioral traits. Learn to recognize the behavioral patterns in others - https://journey.leadersfactor.com/COMMUNICATION
Chief Student Advocate @ L-EAF Lab | Agile Learning Experiences for Students - Chief Student Advocate @ L-EAF | Educational Agility - Speaker - Leadership Coach
5 年The fact that you avoided mentioning Servant Leadership, I fell, will enable the consumption/coaching from this framework perspective easier for many who leaders who struggle adopting the coaching. Good work I may borrow some of this for my current engagement when working with particular leaders.
Retired Agilist at Working for Nobody
5 年I think the Leader/Coach behaviour is highly dependent on the maturity level of the team. Initially the team may not even recognise that they have topics that they need to address or outcomes they need to achieve. At this point a more directive approach may be desirable to help them to become more self-aware. You should aim to not be adopting this role for any longer than absolutely necessary. Once the team starts to become self-aware you become more of an influencer, you may see the next steps they need to take, and guide their thinking so they can get there themselves. Finally you become a sounding board, the team pro-actively identifies the need to change and proposes ways in which to change, and you are used to bounce ideas off. The skill is in recognising where they are in the journey and changing your behaviour accordingly.
Agile Transformation Coach | Agile Trainer | Agile Environmentalist
5 年Very well written! The takeaway for me is that your framework was able to reference the servant leadership mindset without even having to reference the word servant.
Preserving Honor | Preserving Craft
5 年I appreciate that you use the term and concept of leadership as opposed to management. People don't want to be managed they want and need to be led. And in this you provide a great way to approach any situation from the viewpoint and stance of a leader.
I feel topic is similar to reality. I use GROW. Reality is to get some context around the issue the client is facing. I like that you address the topic part. But normally the topic the client brought is not usually the topic, you may need to dig deeper to find the real topic which is bothering the client. Does it make sense? :)