Coaching Encourages Leaders to Shift Their Thinking
Challenges in the workplace, internal and external, have multiplied during the pandemic, and as we adapt to the challenges of our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. During challenging and changing times, a new brand of leader is needed to grow and drive business results for organizations.
Leaders must be creative, big-picture thinkers, detail-oriented, strategic, and many more things. One way that leaders can develop the necessary critical-thinking skills and business acumen is through coaching. Not only can coaching impact employee engagement, it can also help transfer knowledge from training sessions to day-to-day job responsibilities.
Workplace benefits of coaching include:
- Coaching equips leaders with skills to make more complex decisions: In a rapidly shifting workplace, using new leadership logic is imperative. Leaders who have the pointed guidance of a coach can gain the vertical development that is missing in traditional horizontal training approaches.
- Coaching encourages the ability to adapt: With the more unpredictable nature of the workplace and world, leaders must think about the needs of the future. Coaching helps leaders broaden how they think about possible outcomes and the actions that could move them toward the multiple possibilities of the future.
- Coaching helps leaders learn to manage complex work: New tasks and ways in which we work require leaders to be able to manage mental focus and creativity carefully while also being harder to monitor. Coaching helps leaders adapt by thinking creatively and utilizing innovation through collaboration.
- Coaching teaches leaders to be mentally prepared and react differently to unexpected outcomes: Leading through complex, shifting, and uncertain futures means reacting to events that can be unexplained and unexpected. To be mentally prepared even when something unexpected happens, coaching helps leaders consider how to respond objectively and think of different reactions.
Coaching is a way for leaders to discuss ideas, strategies, and challenges in a space dedicated to their growth. Organizations at large benefit from the sharpened focus and expanded thought process that individual leaders develop by working closely with a coach, while individual leaders benefit from the exponential growth and targeted development opportunities.
The best approach to developing leaders and developing a coaching culture is one that maximizes their potential as well as their possible impact on the organization. Adding coaching or group coaching to other development options gives these leaders a way to bring forth new solutions, brainstorm problems and causes, and respond quickly and effectively.
Photo by Joel Peel on Unsplash
