This month, we're delving into the world of senior leadership teams and how coaching enables both individual leaders and the leadership team to flourish. In this exploration, we'll be focusing on four distinct coaching styles that have emerged in shaping leadership dynamics. Let's dive in, starting with client-led coaching.
Client-Led Coaching: Guiding Leadership Progression
Client-led coaching is a unique approach that centres around leaders taking an active role in their developmental journey. This style helps teams to define their purpose, navigate challenges, and steer their growth trajectory. Unlike a predetermined curriculum, client-led coaching helps leaders to also determine their development priorities, resulting in a personalised path towards improvement.
Embracing Dialogue-Led Coaching: Cultivating Conversations
Dialogue-led coaching places emphasis on developing conversations between leaders in the team. This approach encourages leaders to engage in meaningful discussions about their thoughts, concerns, and aspirations. The challenge and resulting strength of dialogue-led coaching lies in establishing a safe environment, in which leaders grow their confidence to hold these deeper and richer discussions.
Process-Led Coaching: Structuring Growth
Process-led coaching follows a structured framework designed to guide teams through a series of stages aimed at fostering growth. This approach provides teams with a no-surprises, very clear developmental path. It’s often used in conjunction with traditional team building techniques and provision of a set curriculum. A challenge with this approach is that it doesn’t always cater to individual needs within the team.
Performance-Led Coaching: Striving for Leadership Productivity
Probably the most recognisable… performance-led coaching is designed to enhance specific or desired leadership attributes or skills. Leaders work to identify areas of improvement and together implement solutions designed to enhance their performance. This is often utilised by coaches with a specific leadership model and includes a periodic assessment of progression.
Spotlight on a blended approach of Client-Led Coaching, supported with increased conversations and dialogue …
At The Activation Project, we use a tried and trusted blend of Client-Led Coaching, with varying degrees of dialogue-led coaching depending on the needs of the team. This blended approach enables both teams and individual leaders to bring their unique strengths, challenges, and aspirations to the table. Critically, it aims to acknowledge where teams are starting from and subsequently, tailors their development and progression accordingly. We also see many teams having first time conversations, even when they may have been working together for many years.
From our experience, this enables two important things to happen. It ensures leaders and the collective take responsibility for their journey, something which can be undermined in other styles of coaching. It helps teams address challenges pertinent to their situation, making their learning directly applicable.
As a result, when leaders individually flourish, their confidence, their cohesiveness and importantly, their collective leadership potential all flourish too; and as a coach, there is no other feeling that’s better in the world, than seeing your coachees flourish.
Read how #LeaderLine has shaped the dynamics of many #leaders and their #teams - Living Library | TheActivationProject. To register yourself for #coaching, visit Sign up to LeaderLine | TheActivationProject. For more information about LeaderLine, visit What we do | TheActivationProject.
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