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What a Leadership Coach Won’t Do For You

Have you ever considered hiring a leadership coach? Do you know someone who has a coach? Contrary to popular opinion, coaches are not just a luxury service for the rich and famous (as one of my past clients once believed). Writers hire writing coaches, speakers hire speaking coaches, actors hire acting coaches, and quarterbacks hire quarterback coaches. Why should leaders be any different?

Leadership CoachingMany leaders hire a coach when they want to gain clarity, explore future opportunities, form an action plan, or resolve a leadership challenge. They share conversations either on a regular or intermittent basis. Coaches are champions of the clients’ vision. But coaches aren’t saviors. Let’s take a look at some of the things a coach won’t do for you.

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Leadership Profile: Stephen Covey

Stephen CoveyIn case you hadn’t heard, author and leadership guru Stephen Covey passed away last summer at age 79 from injuries suffered in a bicycling accident. Covey is perhaps best known for his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. It’s the second-best book on leadership I’ve ever read (neck and neck with Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People).

There isn’t room to adequately capture Covey’s contributions in a single post, so I’d like to briefly share a bit from Covey’s first habit: Be Proactive. This is where effectiveness begins.

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Listen Your Way to the Top

In recent years, we’ve seen a new emphasis placed on the art of listening. It can’t be because listening is all of a sudden more important than it ever was before. Maybe the nature of work in the information age means the the cost of misunderstanding is higher. Or perhaps the experts have been burned by poor listening one too many times and decided to produce more thought leadership on the topic.

At any rate, study after study demonstrates the importance of listening to communication, leadership and influence. We are apparently able to listen about three times faster than we can speak, but we also forget most of what we’ve heard. Listening been identified as one of the top qualities employers seek. And the ability to listen well has been tied to the ability to lead. Leadership is impossible without communication and communication is impossible without listening.

Listening Kid

Everyone wants to be hired, to lead well and to understood. So how can we learn to listen more effectively? The first step is to distinguish between the various listening levels that exist. Here are five of the most common ones:

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5 Thoughts on Becoming a Leader

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Drew Tewell, author of the book The Dream  Job Program: Get the Job You Want. You can purchase it on Amazon, or get it for free when you subscribe to his blog. You can also connect with him on Twitter   and Facebook. If you would like to be featured on this site, click here.

When I was 19 years old, I read my first book on leadership, Be a People Person by John Maxwell. I devoured that book. Today, 15 years later, I am convinced that leadership is crucial if we are going to reach our goals and live out our dreams.

Why? Because if you have big dreams, you will not be able to accomplish them by yourself. You will need other people.

Red leader and business teamHow do you become a leader? I submit to you 5 thoughts.

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How I Cashed In on My Own $77 Million Mistake

“Good morning, this is Nathan,” I greeted the caller on my cubicle phone several years ago.

“Yes, this is Bill. I’m a Vice President at First Big Bank. I need to know where our $77 million is.”

piles-of-money1

“Uh, yes,” I gulped. “Well… do you have an account number?” I was working in the investor reporting department of a major financial institution at my first job out of college. A large commercial property had paid off that week and the payment was split between two separate beneficiaries. As I had entered the $77 million wire into the electronic payment system, I was already preparing my braggadocio about the large amounts of cash I routinely handled in my job (even though this was a special circumstance and was only “electronic” money). But now it looked as though my day was about to be ruined. As I checked the account, my fears were confirmed.

“Um, I think I’m going to have to call you back…” I mustered. Epic. Fail.

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The Problem with Good Ideas

Light BulbAre good ideas ruining the effectiveness of your team or organization? Yes, you read that correctly. Are good ideas keeping you from winning? At a time when creativity and innovation are at a premium, good ideas are actually more threatening than ever.

As organizational leaders, we tend to worship good ideas. We don’t want followers who simply show up to do their work and leave, we want ones who generate ideas on their own and possess the motivation to see them through. So what makes good ideas so dangerous? The answer lies in the substantial difference between a good idea and a right idea (tweet).

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Powerful Question #2

Question Mark 2Everyone has development experiences throughout their life and career outside of formal training programs (school, professional certifications, etc.) that impact the way they perform as a person, professional, and a leader.

What’s one of the richest leadership development experiences you’ve ever had and how has it helped shape your leadership ability?

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Leadership Profile: Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie2I don’t have too many claims to fame, but occasionally I like to tell people that I grew up in the same town as Dale Carnegie: Belton, MO. Ironically, I had to travel to the opposite side of the globe before I invested the time to read what I have since considered the greatest leadership book of all-time: Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’ve read through this book many times since then and even attended the Dale Carnegie capstone course which is over 100 years old. Therefore, I’d like to enthusiastically introduce you to one of my leadership heroes. I believe there is plenty we can all learn from the man who pioneered so much work in the area of personal leadership and influence.

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How to Build a Professional Mentoring Program

Have you ever been a part of a formal mentoring program at your organization? If so, how did it go? It not, would it have been helpful? Maybe you’ve even wondered how to set up a mentoring program yourself so that you and/or others could benefit from it.

Mentoring Program

In my last post, I shared the basic principles of mentoring from a potential mentee’s standpoint that I’ve learned over the years. But I’ve also built a professional mentoring program in a previous role and also advised clients on mentoring programs they’ve set up themselves. I’d like to share some of the best practices I’ve collected.

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Mentoring 101

Mentor

Telemachus consults Mentor

It’s said that King Solomon was the wisest man who ever walked the earth.  From the stories it seems his leadership ability was pretty astonishing as well.  Imagine what it would have been like to spend an hour with him.  What questions would you ask?  What problems would you want him to help you solve?  What best practices would you want to know about?

I had the privilege of studying under Dr. Jeff Myers in college and he introduced me to the art of mentoring.  My life hasn’t been the same since.  

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What People Want: 8 Things Money Can’t Buy

You may remember the Mastercard commercials that ran on television several years ago. Each one depicted a family having a wonderful (and expensive) excursion together. The punchline informed us, “there are some things money can’t buy. For everything else there’s Mastercard.” The subliminal message may have been that if you spend enough money, you can buy a priceless experience. Regardless, I thought the ads were brilliant. (Who doesn’t want a priceless experience with people they care about?) But they really begged the bigger question: what exactly are the things that money can’t buy?

Dollar Bill