The Authentic leadership Paradox Wheel

I am currently in coaching relationships with a number of leaders who need to make a shift from operational leadership to strategic leadership.  This requires some paradigms shifts, to move from the place of working “in” the business, to working “on” the business.  It’s a real challenge to take a hands-off approach when you are so familiar with a hands-on approach. I like to offer my clients different leadership perspectives that might help them to articulate and start to practice their leadership in a new way.   One of the tools that has has been helpful in this process is The Authentic Leadership Paradox Wheel.

Nowadays, leaders are expected to constantly juggle a delicate balance between apparent conflicting behaviors. They need to be tough and courageous but also empathetic and compassionate, model self-reliance and optimism while at the same time opening and trusting to and with others.

The Authentic Leadership Paradox Model (Bunker & Wakefield, 2005), developed by Centre for Creative Leadership, provides insight into the delicate process of developing trustworthy leadership behaviors. Trust is the hub of the wheel.  Trust is what is at stake as people form impressions of leadership based on the balance of behaviors expressed on the twelve spokes.

A hub surrounded by a finely tuned set of interdependent spokes is a useful metaphor for understanding the dynamics at play when leading in the face of change. Attributes are in pairs of opposites around the wheel. Optimism is, for example, opposite and balanced by Realism.  Each spoke, from the outer to the inner ring, is a measuring yardstick.

A person who is exhibiting an appropriate pattern and level of behavior relative to a given attribute will be perceived as doing it right, and the resultant score will be plotted on the bold, dark circle for that scale. A leader perceived as underdoing would be plotted somewhere inside the bold circle, toward the hub, depending on the perceived degree of deviation from about right.  Similarly, overdoing scores are plotted outside the bold circle and toward the outer edge of the wheel. For example,  overdone Optimism and underdone Realism will pull  that particular spoke well out of balance.  Notice the subtly—that attributes that are next to one another, on the same side of the wheel, are  linked. For example, a person overdoing Sense of Urgency, might likely also be overdoing Being Tough.

What are your own particular patterns of overdoing and underdoing on the twelve attributes? Without assessment or honest self-examination you may not be aware where your leadership spokes are improperly tuned.

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Michelle Clarke is an Executive Coach based in Cape Town.  She works locally and internationally with Leaders, Executives and Executive Coaches.  To learn more about her work please visit her website www.motivcoach.com, and be sure also to subscribe to this blog for future updates.

Do you know someone who might benefit from this information?  Please share this email in the spirit of coaching abundance.    Thank You!

 

 

4 Ways to use Coaching: Skill, Performance, Development and Free Agenda

For those of us looking to share and deepen our coaching skills;

Coaching is no longer a buzzword, in fact executive coaching is now seen as a valuable adjunct to most executive’s performance. This highly personalized learning process adapts and flexes to each executives needs along a continuum of Skills, Performance, Development and Free Agenda.  What do each of these mean?  Guided by Robert Witherspoon’s insert in Coaching for Leadership [Goldsmith, Lyons, Freas] I’ve created this outline below;

Coaching for Skill: Skill refers to knowledge, skills, abilities and perspectives that enable an executive to take effective action.  Coaching for skills involves a dynamic interaction between executive and coach.  It is distinct from teaching, which relies on one-way telling and instruction; rather, it requires a deliberate process of observation, inquiry, dialogue and discovery.  The essence of coaching executives is helping them to learn, rather than training or tutoring them.  To coach in this sense is less to instruct than to facilitate (literally, to make easy)

When to use it:    I need to sharpen my skills for x, I know how, but I do  not always do it well

With who:   Executive, manager or individual contributor

Why: The primary focus is to sharpen an executives skill s for a current project or task.

What: Executive works with coach to: * assess current skills * Clarify expectations for current project or  tasks * Plan for skill building * Enhance effective action and * improve learning agility

Coaching for skills usually occurs over a short term, such as one or more sessions over several weeks  or months.

Coaching for Performance:  Performance is used broadly to refer to the executives competencies and his or her characteristics that contribute to a current role or job.  A related coaching role is coaching to correct performance for executives at risk, which looks to remedy problems that interfere with an executives job performance or that risk derailing a career.

When to use it:    There is pressure to improve x, I need to do a better  job at x, I am not aware of my  impact on x

With Who:   Senior executives, key performers, or executives at  risk

Why:  The primary focus is to improve the executives effectiveness in a current job or role.

What:    Executive works with coach to: * Assess current competencies of present job * Clarify expectations on present performance * Prioritize the executives needs for present job performance * Plan for continuing improvement

* Enhance effective action * Improve learning agility

Coaching for performance usually occurs over a longer term (several months or quarters)

Coaching for Development: Development is used broadly to refer to the executives competencies and characteristics that are required for a future job or role and may entail considerable growth.  Over time, an executives personal growth and development process is one of becoming more open (able to entertain alternative perspectives), differentiated (able to draw from distinctions), and integrated (able to weave these differences in to an increasingly complex whole)

When to use it: I am being groomed to advance, I am considering a career move to x, I am in the succession planning pool for x,

With Who:   Promising people and high potentials

Why:   The primary focus is to prepare the executive for a future position, a leadership role, or a career m ove.

What:  Executive works with coach to:  * Assess current competencies * Clarify expectations for future performance  * Plan for continuing development * Enhance effective action * Improve   learning agility

Coaching for development usually occurs over a longer term (several quarters or more)

Coaching for Free Agenda: Executive Free Agenda is used broadly to refer to personal, business and/or organizational issues or concerns.  Often this coaching covers important is sues for executives and their organizations that are otherwise overlooked, particularly during change initiatives, layoffs, or company downsizing.  Sometimes the sessions border on life coaching as the executive considers his or her life purpose and personal challenges.

When to use it:   It is lonely at the top, I am in over my  head, I am facing a big challenge at x, I need a talking  partner for x

With Who:  CEOs and heads of business or major business function

Why:  The primary focus is on the executives larger agenda, including business results.

What:     The executive works with the coach to: * Develop ideas and options * Prioritize the executives needs * Plan for the executives agenda * Obtain better support for the executives agenda * Enhance effective action * Improve learning  agility

Coaching for the executives agenda can be ongoing and is highly variable, depending on the issue.

What is REALLY VALUABLE to YOU?

If we want the deepest level of life fulfillment, we can achieve it in only one way: by deciding upon what we value most in our life, what our highest values are, and then committing to live by them every single day. If you and I are not clear about what’s important in our lives—what we truly stand for—then how can we ever expect to lay the foundation for a sense of self- esteem, much less have the capacity to make effective decisions?

The Real-Time Benefit of an Accountability Partner

We’re 10 minutes into our coaching session and there’s an urgent knock at the door.  Crises!  The IT guy, in a hurried tone, tells my client that as we speak, her hard-drive is crashing along with all her data.  Now I don’t know about you, but I might have gone berserk at this point.  But not my client.  So elegant.  So graceful.  So efficient in her instructions and with such decorum she handled the situation, hardly making a fuss so that she could return, unfettered, to our coaching conversation.

Afterward I sent her a note saying how impressed I was by how she had handled the tricky situation.  She replied thus;

“Laptop now sorted.  Thanks for the compliments.  I am learning that if there is nothing I can do about a situation – I shouldn’t stress about it – does not help things in any way. But maybe and mostly, it’s because you were around.”

 I take no credit for this at all, but it does offer a lovely example of the real-time benefits of an accountability partner.

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For more information on Michelle Clarke, Executive and Business Coach, her work and what her clients say, please visit www.motivcoach.com

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There are many paths

A friend reminded me this morning of Carlos Casteneda, and how much I admire his work.  This reminder sent me looking for an article that I wrote for my newsletter in 2007, when I was engrossed in Danah Zohar’s book; Connecting with our Spiritual Intelligence.  At that time, I was grappling with the notion of choosing one path (career-wise, spiritually, intellectually) when I have an intense desire, paradoxically, to be on many paths simultaneously.  The article is nothing more than a re-quote of Zohar’s words, and it still rings true to me today.  How does it resonate with you?;

The Truth about Executive Coaching

Does the title of this post intrigue you?  Does it attract you because you suspect it might shed light on this somewhat intangible and elusive ’product’ that has mushroomed into the corporate and business world over the last decade?  I know there are many executive coaching naysayers, or even aspirant wanna-be’s, who are waiting for the big truth to be revealed – how do a group of change agents manage to sell conversation for a living, and more, appear to be financially successful at it, in some instances, more so that any helping profession before them?

Brand Blisters? Take a brand break!

What are brand blisters?  Here is a personal experience to clarify this very real symptom of continuous hard work throughout the year.  This week I sent the same proposal to a client three times.  After receiving the first proposal he returned it to me asking me to correct the date, which I then duly did.  He returned the second copy and again the date was wrong!  And, if you can believe it, the third also needed a date correction.  I apologised profusely, but he was very kind about it, saying, ‘Hey, that’s just end-of-year blisters’.