May 17-23, 2021 is International Coaching Week. In honor of this global celebration of professional coaching, we want to celebrate some of the world-class coaches here at Sounding Board. These are just a few of our many talented coaches, sharing their perspective on critical leadership capabilities.
Leadership Capability: Organization Collaboration
“Working collaboratively across your organization is a business imperative. The very nature of work itself and how work gets done has been irrevocably changed by the pandemic. Hierarchical organization structures no longer represent who or how work gets done. Purposeful organizational collaboration across informal structures is a new leadership protocol. To effectively lead in organizations requires you to navigate the turbulent waters of power, politics, and challenging organizational dynamics. Developing high degrees of self-awareness coupled with self-management enables a greater impact and better results.”
- Maryanne S., New Jersey
Leadership Capability: Executive Presence
“When thinking about Executive Presence, there can be a tendency to look around you. How do you see other leaders show-up? What do they do? What marks them out? The risk becomes that you then try to imitate a combination of other’s styles. Instead, it is finding your own version. Thinking about what makes you different, and owning it. What can you be counted on for? How do you want to be perceived? These questions can help set a direction and assess progress, while building your consistency and visibility.”
- Craig H., United Kingdom
Leadership Capability: Developing Others
“Good leaders realise pretty quickly that it’s not about them individually anymore; it’s all about the team and what’s possible collectively. That means focusing on the developmental needs of the individuals in relation to the goals of the wider team. Time must be spent creating opportunities for team members to expand their skills, rather than simply allocating tasks to whoever can do it quickest. It requires a leader to take a longer term, strategic viewpoint - rather than a short term tactical one.”
- Nicki L., China
Leadership Capability: Communication
“Communication is such a powerful leadership capability to work with leaders on and it’s not all about your ability to demonstrate your expertise through the spoken word. It’s a life-ship practice rooted in the ability to raise our self-awareness and sense (or feel) into the energetic impact one is having, intentional or unintentional. We do this through listening into the feedback that is swirling all around us. It’s learning to read the unspoken word and sense into what’s not being said and getting curious about that. This requires us to courageously set aside our assumptions, bias or being right for the sake of initiating and encouraging conversations and all voices being heard.”
- Sue J., Canada
Leadership Capability: Managing Change
“In a way, you don’t manage change. Change is the weather, you don’t get to control it, but you also don’t let it dictate how you respond to it. You surf change. Some days, you surf it brilliantly; other days you wipe out. Whichever happens, the next day you paddle back out, and you do it again. Now, that’s the change that comes from without. In another way, you can manage change, that’s the change that comes from within. You achieve change.”
- Richard N., New York
Leadership Capability: Decision-making
“Leaders are inundated with a constant stream of decisions and to make strategic, timely, and quality decisions is a top leadership capability. Strong decision-making entails using your head and heart. It is about considering and evaluating reason and logic, including diverse viewpoints from all stakeholders, and knowing how to triangulate responses, that is, taking three varying perspectives on one topic and synthesizing for the best outcome. It is also grounded in the values of the leader, team, and company, and encourage utilizing your intuition for positive outcomes.”
- Regina Z., New York
