What’s all this fuss about coaching?

In his recent blog post, Jack Welch nails it. Jack points out that the journey to success, that probably got you into a leadership position in the first instance, is all about you. Being a successful leader once there, however, is all about coaching others in a team. There are many definitions of coaching. These two are simply my favourites:

Unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance.  It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them

 (Whitmore 2003)

The art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another

(Downey, 2003)

For a lovely little language-free animation of how coaching works, click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY75MQte4RU

It is one thing to understand what coaching is and how it works and quite another to become an effective coach. Coaching is a craft that most of us will have to learn. In fact we will probably have to do some unlearning first. The demands of coaching often challenge our most fundamental and deeply embedded behaviours. At S A Partners we have found an effective mechanism for addressing those demands is through a deep understanding of language – our prevailing language preferences and associated behaviours. We are carrying out some exciting and ground breaking research on the language of leadership. To see and read more, click below to a webinar transmitted earlier this year and a white paper summarising the webinar:

https://www.sapartners.com/thought-leadership-in-the-area-of-lean-culture/

https://www.sapartners.com/summary-paper-of-the-webinar-titled-thought-leadership-in-the-area-of-lean-culture/

Look out for follow-on webinars and white papers in the autumn detailing how we are applying the ideas in practice and the results being achieved.