How Coaching Makes You a Better Leader

Let’s talk about how coaching makes a better leader…

As a leader, at times you are going to face within yourself and within others limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome that prevents you from stepping into your full potential. This is one of the topics I coach so many of the leaders and executive I work with in how to handle.

As you know if you’ve been listening to me for a while I’ve talked many times about imposter syndrome and limiting beliefs. Having that negative voice in the back of our heads, the one that attacks our confidence and makes us doubt ourselves. It's called imposter syndrome or our inner critic, and it can show up in various aspects of our lives, whether it's at work, in our relationships, or even when we look at ourselves in the mirror. Imposter syndrome leads us to believe that we're not good enough, that our goals and accomplishments are not worthy. It's a constant battle that holds us back from reaching our full potential.

But becoming a coach can help you learn how to self-coach yourself and navigate through these limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome.

So many of the amazing women leaders I’ve had the privilege to train as coaches have said that one of the most profound benefits of training to be a coach is better understanding how to coach yourself through tough times. Some of these women still have me as their coach (I too have a coach by the way - you may have heard me say that before, and its true: I fundamentally believe having a coach is now a non-negotiable for me in my career). But what these women and I all notice is that once you are trained as a coach yourself even when you receive coaching we reach new heights of what is possible.

Knowing how coaching works provides us with the tools to deal with that negative inner voice and replace it with a more empowering mindset. The tools you learn to use as a coach allow you to recognize your strengths, challenge your self-doubt, and build the confidence needed to achieve huge, scary but exciting goals.

If you are in a leadership role, you no doubt want to see and help your team succeed in their goals. It’s your job as a leader to encourage and guide your team toward those goals and visions and if you seek to take a coaching approach to your leadership, you’re able to help your team find their own personal capabilities while becoming better leaders themselves and finding their own leadership voices.

This is a huge part of what learning to be a coach is all about.

But we’re also talking about allowing you to have an expanded set of goals and vision and to not be intimidated by it. To understand your true capabilities and be a better leader, simply by knowing how to have a productive inner dialogue and practice some self-coaching. When you become a coach, to really level up and be extraordinary as a coach you have to do the work on you first, and that is where a whole new level of leadership gets unlocked.

As leaders, becoming a better coach is essential.

It's about honing our skills in guiding and inspiring our team members towards their full potential. And remember that by applying coaching techniques, we can cultivate deeper connections with our team, strengthen our active listening skills, and communicate with empathy and understanding. This leads to increased productivity, engagement, and overall success.

Learning coaching skills can add value to your life and to those you coach. By honing your coaching skills, you’re able to better address that constant work/life balancing act. You’ll be more excited about adding new skills and how to add value to your team. And you’ll be able to coach your team in exactly the same skills. I talk a lot in my leadership programs about how being authentic is really about being the leader you want to have leading you. And coaching allows you to really embody that.

A leader who is able to embody the coaching skills, whether those skills are taught by me or by someone else, tends to perform better in their careers. Improved communication skills help to create solid relationships with team members, which in turn creates a motivating drive among the team to take action. You’re able to help your team find their way, rather than giving solutions or direction if there’s a problem.

I’ve talked before about the Reverse, Neutral, Forward cycle which, as you’ll be able to learn in an upcoming interview, is viewed by those who come through my coaching training program as the single biggest game-changer in understanding how they and those around them operate.

I developed this framework when I first started working as a mentor, even before I started coaching, and over the years I’ve honed and refined how it operates to what I now teach today to my Coach Training program members. I also use it daily in my own coaching approach.

When we're in reverse, we're caught in a negative self-reinforcing spiral. It's that feeling of being stuck, where everything seems to work against us, and we lack clarity and energy. This state often accompanies self-doubt and even depression. It's crucial to recognize when we're in this mode and find a way to shift to neutral.

Neutral is a state of curiosity and openness. It's when we let go of judgment and become receptive to new possibilities. In this state, we can start seeing opportunities and taking appropriate actions. It's important to stay in neutral without slipping back into reverse, as that can hinder our progress.

And then there's forward gear. When we're in forward, we enter a positive self-reinforcing cycle. I like to call it "sparkle mode" because everything seems to align and work in our favor. Opportunities arise, progress is made, and we feel empowered.

The primary goal of coaching is to identify where in this framework the person you are coaching is (and by the way you may be coaching you - this still applies). And progress them through to reach forward. To reach forward we need to choose the right opportunities and ensure that the mindset supports the person’s actions. It's about embracing the unknown, avoiding self-doubt or distraction, and fully committing to our goals.

You may find that someone seems to be in forward — they are taking action and making good decisions. Part of coaching is identifying where they might have one small area stuck in reverse or neutral. On the surface we can seem to be in forward, but underneath there is something much deeper going on that is hindering that forward momentum. This is where the true power of what we do in coaching can have huge impact.

Of course, I’ve worked with many leaders who are stuck in the negative thoughts of reverse. They lack confidence, have a constant inner critic, or they are simultaneously frustrated and angry at a lack of progress in their careers and feeling stuck but thinking that maybe it is all justified and should mean they should leave the industry or let go of their ambition. But then there are the leaders who aren’t in this state but still have some subtle symptoms that are holding them back from their full potential.

Coaching is about uncovering those hidden issues that we hide even from ourselves. As a leader it is about not jumping to conclusions about why your team isn’t performing the way you want them to, or that they miss deadlines or seem to drop the ball and instead dig into why that is instead of falling into the trap of micromanagement.

And when we do all this our team and our own potential SKYROCKETS.

Listen here to find out more: https://tonicollis.com/episode162