Leadership Coaching

Are you interested in developing your leadership skills for the future to ensure you are fit for a key leadership role in the next 1, 2, 3 years and beyond?

Scores of employee surveys reveal that staff need and want more from their leaders in order to perform at their best, help their organisation deliver its objectives and keep people in jobs.

With greater pressure than ever in both the private and public sector to achieve more with fewer staff, leadership to maximise the use of resources is of paramount importance.

Gone are the days when staff respond to being told what to do - not in the way they were in the past anyway.

To engage, motivate and enthuse staff and get them performing to their best, good leaders ask them their views and act on some of these.

Good modern leaders involve the idea generators and recognise and reward their success appropriately.

Different leadership styles and approaches are called for and there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach.

If you are ambitious and driven, to feel a sense of enjoyment and fulfilment at work - as well as work at the level you want - demands a high level of leadership skill.

More and more senior leaders are turning to one-to-one tailored leadership coaching to build their skills and achieve greater effectiveness and enjoyment in their work.

Do you feel you need to develop any of the following which are key business skills and approaches for successful leadership:

• Leadership styles and approaches to address current people issues - such as under-performance
• Personal leadership vision and values
• Managing change in your team or organisation
• Pre-thinking difficult conversations with customers, staff and other senior leaders
• Building and cultivating your customer relationships
• Work-life balance - in particular achieving better health and well-being
• Creativity and innovation in product or proposition development
• Improving key processes to achieve optimum staffing levels for your business
• Building a high-performing team
• Emotional intelligence - particularly your self-awareness

Developing a leadership coaching relationship is an enjoyable journey because you can focus on tailoring your coaching programme to the kinds of needs outlined above and your specific leadership requirements.

In particular, you will benefit from working with someone you can trust to help you along your development journey.

For example, most individuals start off with a regular monthly 2-hour coaching session for about 6 months, moving this to every 2 to 3 months after this period.

Leadership coaching should always be moving you forwards, helping you to learn at a faster rate and gain better results than you would be achieving on your own.

If any of the above strikes a chord with you, a good starting point would be to discuss your position with us through our website West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Alternatively, our own coaching relationships commence with an initial Complimentary Coaching Session so you why not get in touch so we can help you decide if leadership coaching is something that you would benefit from.

What Does Business Coaching 'Do' For People?

Are you thinking about contacting someone about business coaching and want to know a bit more about what this kind of support will likely do for you?

I was motivated to write this blog by a new client who said that such a blog would have helped him to decide to start working with an executive coach sooner.

The truth is, the kind of support provided by any kind of coaching depends on what you want to achieve from the process.

Every case is different but here are some examples of what business coaching can do for individuals, their businesses and their careers:

Most of my clients who are senior executives - including MDs, directors, business owners, senior clinicians, department heads and senior managers - like to use my business coaching as a confidential sounding board for their ideas.

In fact, they come to rely on me as a confidante who they can debate and discuss things with and be challenged on issues where necessary.

I frequently use my own experience of operating in senior corporate roles to provide 'wise counsel' (a client's words - not my own) and advice when requested.

I also always look to help individuals think through what they specifically want, view their options and assess the plans they have put in place to achieve their goals.

Some clients see me for  career coaching where we work together to help them into the career move they're looking for through a process which involves assessing the skills they enjoy using the most and - in some cases  - directly approaching target organisations.

Many clients also use business coaching to help them to gain in confidence for a particular challenge, reduce their anxiety and alleviate any negative introspection or forecasting which might be holding them back

The feedback I receive from clients can also be used to help answer the original question posed in this post - 'What Does Business Coaching 'Do' For People?' - and here are some examples:

• 'Coaching really helped me to raise my game through raising my confidence levels'
• 'Coaching helps me to learn new and better ways of doing business'
• 'Reflecting with my coach helps me to think about new ways of approaching organisational effectiveness'
• 'My coach helped me to improve all of my key work relationships'
• 'Coaching helped me to achieve my goals quicker and easier than on my own'
• 'As a lone director, my coach provides an essential resource to air and discuss ideas with'
• 'I'm supporting my CEO - I needed a coach to give me support'
• 'Coaching helped me to radically change my thinking - I am now realistic, positive and able to put things into perspective'
• 'Working with a coach is like having a rudder on my boat helping me to navigate the rough waters'

If you're interested in coaching, it's a good idea to talk to people who have or are currently undergoing business coaching and I can put you in touch with these people if you want to take the first step towards taking on a business coach.

So, if you have an appetite for making changes through business coaching, career coaching or executive coaching and have any questions before you embark on this journey then please do get in touch with us via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Gearing up for Change in 2012

Do you like to set New Year's resolutions so that you have a good set of goals to motivate you for the year ahead? Even better - goals that contribute to your life aims.

Perhaps this year you did not set goals or set them only to abandon them part way through.

Perhaps you did set goals and have achieved them.

Now is the time to start taking stock of what went well for you in 2011 and what you want to achieve in the coming year.

To help you with this task I will draw on a client case study.

Start with a list of areas of your life that are important to you.

My client for this case study listed: Health, Work, Relationships, Finances, Hobbies and Community. You will make your own list which may be different.

I asked her then to think about what she had achieved in 2011 within each of these 'important' values areas.

Again she made a list. For example, against Health she wrote:

• Started working out 3 times per week
• Reduced drinking alcohol to 1-2 nights a week with no more than 2 standard glasses of wine
• Adhered to a healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner pattern without late-night eating

Once complete I asked her to scale each area from 0-10 with 10 representing the high strength end.

Then I asked her to think about what she would like to leave as her legacy and what she would aim to achieve in 2012 towards that end.

For example, within relationships she said her legacy would be to have been a wise counsel to her family and friends.

With this in mind her goal for Relationships for 2012 was to reach out to every family member and friend at least once a month - to ask them questions about them, provide a listening ear and support where she could help.

My client also reviews her goals every 2 months with my support, updating and amending them as required. She intends to continue with this approach in 2012.

I would like to invite you to have a go at this exercise yourself. If you find it helps you, please leave a comment.

If you would like help reviewing your last 12 months and planning 2012 please get in touch with via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Career Coaching - Checklist

So you want to get in control of your career. Where do you start?

Start with your career goals and then progress with a strategy or approach and an action plan.

Career Goals:

• What would you like to achieve long-term, at the height of your career - your ultimate ambition?
• What about medium-term over - say the next five years?
• What about in the short-term - say 12-24 months?

Approach:

Start with a self-assessment. What are you good at? What do you enjoy doing?

If you are interested you might complete a working styles questionnaire such as Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

Action Plan:

Is your CV up to date, 1-2 pages long and are its content geared to the roles you are seeking in terms of your results to date and your capabilities (skills, knowledge and competencies)?

Do you have a good cover letter template?

What verbal self-presentation statement do you have off-pat to use with potential employers?

What will you do to prepare for an interview?

I hope this checklist is of use to you in managing your career. Please let us know how you get on and if you would like assistance please contact us via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Coaching to achieve your potential

Do you feel as though you could be doing much better in your professional working life and yet feel stuck and unsure of how to deal with this?

Are you frustrated working for others who seem to take all of the recognition for work that you deliver?

Do you think that you are achieving a small fraction of your potential?

A good personal coach will help you to clearly articulate what you want from your professional life over the long, medium and short term.

A good personal coach will help you to identify where you are currently in relation to your ambitions and goals and help you to address any barriers to your moving forwards, in particular limiting beliefs and confidence issues.

A good personal coach will help you to develop an action plan and interventions that will help you to achieve your long-, medium- and short-term ambitions and goals.

A good coach will provide you with tools and techniques to help you to get where you want to go at a pace that is right for you and to ease you into making the changes you will be making.

A good coach will provide you with optimum levels of support and challenge so you can achieve your potential, which will change as you progress in achieving your ambition and goals.

At West of England Coaching and Counselling, we all experience excellent coaching support as well as providing excellent coaching support to our clients.

We know that coaching helps us to achieve extraordinary results and we want the same for you. We are passionate about you achieving your potential and what you deserve.

What dreams would you like to make a reality through congruent goals, objectives and action plans?

You are likely to be somewhat successful now and with the help of an experienced coach you can look forward to taking the next steps up the ladder in your professional life or move careers or maximise your current opportunity.

Whatever your situation we will help you to move onwards and upwards.

Why not make a positive start in 2012 and get in touch with me personally via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling for an investment in your future.

Career Coaching - Starting Again

I recently worked with a client who decided to leave her current role which she was not enjoying to spend some time working out what to do next.

Are you in or want to be in a similar position or are you about to find yourself in a similar place? Where do you start?

I started exploring the options with my client by examining the following areas:

• Projects enjoyed - Including the skills, knowledge and competencies required
• Particular strengths - Such as key capabilities like being totally client-focused or good at managing conflicts between people and resources in big network or a particular field
• Preferred working environment - Such as in a large team with lots of support or working alone with a high level of autonomy
• Preferred work location - Such as Bristol, the UK or from home
• Realistic remuneration expectations
• Career ambitions and time-scales - Such as becoming an MD of a blue chip or working for yourself
• Career values - Such as working for not-for-profit organisation, wanting to work in NHS, having a job with a good work-life-balance and limited travel through to wanting to work overseas in different cultures
• Example organisations you would like to work in
• Types of jobs you would like to do

We then started tailoring my client's CV for her target job and organisation, keeping it within the 2-page best practice guideline and focusing on her results and value-added proposition.

We then identified 5 target organisations from an initial brainstorm of 10.

My client then researched each of the target organisations so she understood more about their current business as well as their strategic goals.

From her research she was able to identify those areas where she would be able to add value and used these to tailor her CV to the precise requirements of her potential employers.

Rather than waiting for a job advert to appear, she approached the HR department direct in each case and was invited to attend an initial meeting at 3 of the 5 potential employers.

My client's current position is that she has 2 job offers and our next task is to help her to decide which position to accept. She feels in control of her own career through her most proactive approach yet.

If this blog helps you please let us know about it. For help and advice in moving forward with your own career please visit our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling, get in touch by sending us an email at enquiries@westofenglandcoachingandcounselling.co.uk or calling us on 01761 237 400.

Career Coaching - Stay Or Look For A New Role?

I am currently working with a senior executive who needs to make a decision about whether to stay in her existing role or move to another role in another organisation.

In fact, she has a job offer on the table and the organisation concerned is so eager to have her that they have given her until the end of the calendar year to make her decision prior to giving notice in her current role.

Are you in a similar position? Perhaps you have dissatisfactions in your current role which are causing you to consider your options.

From personal experience - and in working with many executives in this area - it is important to start by thinking about what is driving you to consider a change within your career.

Can the issues which are causing you to consider change be resolved within your current role? For example, workload, work type or work location?

Have you exhausted all of the possibilities for making the changes that you want within your current role?

If the issue - or issues - are not resolvable and you are sure that you want to make the change, think through your decision carefully first and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the rationale behind the decision? 
• What are the facts? 
• What is the logic behind your decision?
• How do you feel? 
• What impact will this decision have on your values?

But what are your options and what criteria will you use to assess these options and make a decision?

One technique which I suggested to my client - and we went though in our session - may provide you with some help. Simply answer the following questions and it should help you reach a decision:

• What would/could you gain if you moved to the/a new role?
• What would/could you lose if you moved to the/a new role?
• What would/could you keep [which is important to you] if you stay?
• What would/could you lose if you stay in your current role?

Sometimes we need to step back and see the wood for the trees.

Sometimes the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence when we may be:

• Jumping from the frying pan into the fire
• Avoiding handling issues such as relationship management that we may well come across in our next role - the saying 'Wherever I go, there I am' springs to mind here
• Experiencing the horns effect when we give a high weighting to an issue that we are unhappy about but may have not done enough to address it using all of our strengths and resources.

If you have found this blog to be useful please leave a comment and if you would like support in your career then please do get in touch via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling - Career Coaching.

Executive Coaching

Are you an ambitious manager, senior manager or director working within a public or private sector organisation or for yourself or in a partnership?

Have you recently had your performance review and identified with your line manager areas of strengths to build on as well as possible areas for development?

Perhaps you have had some feedback through a 360-degree feedback process which has highlighted areas of development which, addressed, will help you to further your career.

Research shows that managers, senior managers and directors often develop more quickly and better through one-to-one executive coaching than through any other performance development intervention - including traditional classroom training.

This is because individual one-to-one coaching focuses on you and is tailored to your specific and precise needs within a structure that will have you feeling more motivated and confident in achieving your development objectives.

An independent coach will provide the following:

• A confidential listening ear and sounding board for your experiences, problems and solutions
• A source of advice should you request this
• In-time support, being available regularly face-to-face and also available on email and the telephone when you need them
• Work with you to clearly articulate positive, specific, measurable, realistic and time-bound objectives
• A structure to achieve your desired outcomes, such as, career progression or specific leadership skills development
• A coaching model to guide and steer discussions
• Good challenging questions that help you to think differently
• Collateral specific to your needs, such as, communication models, tools and techniques
• A non-judgemental presence coming from a supportive, positive and enabling place.

Managers, senior managers and directors who are serious about their continuous professional development and want learning on the fast-track develop business cases to secure funding for their coaching, which include coaching being an investment to help them to achieve their objectives and also improve the performance and engagement of their teams.

If you are unsure about whether to progress with coaching at this time please see my blog - are you ready, willing and able to be coached?

If you have found this blog useful please leave a comment or if you would like to discuss your personal coaching needs please get in touch in confidence via our website West of England Coaching and Counselling.

Executive Coaching: Acquiring New Skills For New Roles and Challenges

I was inspired to write this blog post after a session with an executive client today who is in a new role with fresh challenges and needs to develop their skills to make the most out of this opportunity.

My client wanted to work on acquiring these new skills one-to-one because:

1. There was no training course that offered her the specific skills she wanted in one programme
   
2. She wanted an 'expert' to focus solely on her to speed up results

We discussed how we would use our 2 hours together by first focusing on what she would leave our session with for it to have been considered a success.

We developed a goal and objectives for the session which focused on skills for developing a productive team and addressing current conflicts.

For example, I shared with my client a tool for providing feedback which builds motivation, helps to develop staff and improve their performance.

We then chose to role-play using the tool in practice. First, I acted out her role for demonstration purposes and then she followed by acting out her own role.

This reminded me how well one-on-one coaching works for executives who acquiring new skills which are not always easily labelled or neatly boxed into a traditional training course.

Perhaps you can use this blog to practice new skills with a trusted colleague. Please let me know how you get on.

If you would like support in this or any other area of personal and career development please get in touch via our website at West of England Coaching and Counselling - Executive Coaching.