“I wish I had a coach or leadership coaching in my first year as a leader!”
Said J, a seasoned leader I coached, at the end of our coaching engagement. As a young, high-potential leader, J took over as head of a company branch with P&L responsibilities. She made some financial errors that snowballed into a crisis. Years passed, but the shame and guilt lingered until coaching finally enabled her to let go of them.
J was an excellent leader, no doubt. But would a release from her self-limiting beliefs earlier have benefited her and her organization even more? I believe so. I have seen J’s story replicated in different organizations across geographies throughout my career as a corporate leader and coach. The reasons, context, and outcomes may have differed. But the same thread of thought ran through all leaders – they would have done much better for themselves and their organization with the proper support at the right time. Coaching is a powerful transformational tool to maximize the potential you see in your leaders. Most organizations and leaders believe coaching only benefits leaders with ‘x’ years of experience. That’s not true.
Leadership coaching can give new leaders a starting advantage and help prevent common rookie errors they make as they climb up the corporate ladder.
Top benefits of leadership coaching for first-time leaders
Here are five reasons to consider investing in leadership coaching for your fresh, young leadership talent. They are suitable for leaders at all levels. They cover five vital areas of leadership, which, when taken care of, can springboard your leaders to deliver stellar results for your organization.
1) Prepare employees for the leadership role
Sounds familiar? Every first-time leader faces the excruciating dilemma of leading former colleagues – how much to talk & withhold, how to be friendly yet maintain distance, how to handle jealousy, insubordination, ineptitude, and more.
Coaching helps newbie leaders develop their leadership persona. Leaders become more self-confident & self-assured as a result. They can set goals, establish boundaries amiably, & be authentic while leading.
Many seasoned leaders, even executives, seek out leadership coaches to address issues that arise from poor people skills. Addressing this deficit earlier through coaching can benefit both the leaders and the organization.
2) Create a collaborative coaching mindset
The first few years of leadership are challenging. Ambitious leaders typically assert themselves and adopt a commander mindset with employees, micromanaging to achieve perfection. But this can be self-sabotaging and lead to a toxic work culture.
Leadership coaches enable young leaders to develop the coaching mindset early on, help organizations move away from the command & control mindset, and establish a more collaborative coaching culture.
3) Achieve work-life integration
Most leaders regret that they lived one-dimensional lives where work was the priority. They couldn’t make time for their people, passions, or health. And more often than not, this realization comes too late.
Leadership coaching can enable leaders to integrate work & life holistically right from the start, helping them work towards all personal and professional milestones.
4) Enable purpose-driven leadership
The latest Gallup survey shows that 87% of employees are disengaged at work. One of the primary reasons for this is the lack of purpose. The onus is on leaders to show direction. For this, leaders must first clarify their purpose as individuals and as leaders. Leadership coaches can act as thinking partners to help leaders figure out early on what their goals are. This allows them to focus on organizational goals with greater motivation.
Leadership coaching is transformational for leaders seeking to discover their life purpose. It stimulates, excites, and invigorates them, paving the way to authentic leadership.
Coaching also brings clarity to leaders & organizations on whether they are suitable for each other.
5) Self-development
Leaders can use coaching to identify strengths & work on weaknesses, thus increasing self-awareness. Coaching that holistically focuses on performance (IQ), people skills (EQ), and life purpose (SQ or Spiritual Quotient) empowers leaders to be well-rounded, ethically grounded professionals and individuals.
Benefits of leadership coaching for organizations
Organizations naturally have misgivings about investing in leadership coaching for their young leaders. Most aren’t aware of its long-term tangible and intangible benefits**. Here are some of them.
- Enhance performance – Coaching fine-tunes a leader, enabling them to excel at their role
- Address attrition – Coaching is a show of confidence in your leader and could make them invest their future in your organization.
- Set healthy company culture – Leaders exposed to coaching are likelier to coach their teams.
- Reduce burnout – More than 50% of leaders across professions report burnout. Coaching can prevent burnout by helping leaders integrate personal and professional lives satisfactorily.
Leadership coaching is a highly efficacious pre-emptive & preventive tool organizations can leverage to create effective, sustainable leadership right from the grassroots.
Make leadership Coaching a part of your Leadership Development Program.
Partnering with Regal Unlimited would be the right move for you.
We have enabled 1000+ leaders from over 50 global organizations (Incl. Fortune 500) to develop the winning combination of IQ-driven performance, EQ-driven people skills, and SQ-driven purpose. (#IntelligenceQ2EmotionalQ2SpiritualQ).
What puts Regal Unlimited in the Ivy League of Coaching Firms?
- ICF coaches with leadership experience across domains
- Ten years of coaching and going strong
- Adherence to international standards of coaching set by ICF & EMCC
- Equal focus on performance (IQ), people skills (EQ) & life purpose (SQ)
- Coaches trained in modalities such as healing, meditation, mindfulness & vipassana
Great things begin with a conversation. So let’s get on a call to discuss your leaders’ needs.
Nominate your leaders for leadership coaching. For more details, please mail us at karan@regalunlimited.com
Learn through real-life stories how leadership & executive coaching are benefiting organizations. Please read our blog, Top Organizational Benefits of Leadership Coaching
FAQs
Q. Why don’t organizations invest in leadership coaching for first-time leaders?
Organizations feel –
- It is too expensive.
- Their investment in coaching will prove useless if the leader jumps to another organization.
- Leadership coaching is unnecessary and overrated.
Q. Why do first-time leaders need leadership coaching?
- Develop a leadership persona
- Enable first-time leaders to develop an effective leadership style
- Identify a leader’s strengths & limitations
- Help enhance performance
- Help leaders hone their people skills
- Develop a coaching mindset
- Achieve work-life integration
