The power of leadership coaching
Having a leadership coach can be a powerful developmental relationship. A coach can:
- help you to excel at ‘self leadership’ (i.e. knowing the personal values, nature, strengths and weaknesses and actively managing your life so that you are your best as a leader)
- help you develop specific leadership strategies or skills
- help you work through challenging issues (e.g. a career transition)
- help you build and implement a personalised leadership development plan to allow you to clarify your developmental objectives, the behaviours and strategies you plan to use, how to practice these behaviours, and how to get feedback and support along the way
- help you to access resources (e.g. information on leadership strategies, models and tools)
- challenge you (e.g. to re-frame a problem or to move outside your ‘comfort zone’)
- provide support and encouragement
- provide an ‘accountability mechanism’ to keep you on-track and making progress with developmental work.
How it works
A typical coaching relationship consists of three one-hour meetings between the coachee and the coach. These meetings may be separated by several weeks. They may be done face to face, by telephone or via Skype. Each meeting will have clear objectives.
The benefits
Leadership coaching will benefit any water practitioner who:
- is motivated to work with a coach to build leadership skills
- is prepared to be challenged and do work between coaching sessions
- has the opportunity to practice leadership behaviours and strategies (i.e. is currently working through real leadership challenges).