Following the inspiring coaching conversation on Leadership Behaviours between Sharon Lawton and Claire Cahill, one of The Coaching Academy's expert trainers on the Corporate and Executive Coaching Programme, we have asked Claire to expand on how leadership coaching supports leaders to join the dots. Read on to learn more.
In this blog, Claire unveils more of her favourite leadership coaching tools that she mentioned in April's Coaching Conversation, and how these tools support Claire to empower leaders to chart their course with purpose and authenticity.
As a seasoned leadership coach, Claire navigates critical leadership behaviours such as difficult conversations, effective communication, active listening, resilience, emotional intelligence, and decision-making rooted in values and motivational drivers. She passionately advocates that coaching offers a unique psychological sanctuary where leaders can embrace vulnerability and candid self-reflection. Claire's favourite coaching question: "What keeps you awake at 3am?" and the transformative concept of "The Shadow I Cast" foster pivotal self-awareness. But we'll hand over to Claire to tell you more about her favourite tools and models for leadership coaching for behavioural change.
I ask this question because we all have leadership skills and our role as coaches is to raise awareness of the skills and behaviours our coaching clients have even if we don’t realise this is what we are doing. Coaching leadership behaviours is not just about honing the skills of individuals in executive positions or those with formal leadership titles. It encompasses a broader spectrum, recognising that leadership qualities are inherent in various roles and capacities within an organisation. Whether it's a team member facilitating a meeting, a project manager guiding a group through a complex task, or a junior employee taking initiative, leadership traits manifest in diverse ways.
As coaches, our task extends beyond merely supporting in identifying and enhancing these attributes in those explicitly designated as leaders. It involves fostering a culture where everyone feels empowered to exhibit leadership qualities in their respective roles.
1. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) Analysis: This is a great tool to use to help your clients delve into their strengths and weaknesses. You could encourage your clients to complete this analysis ahead of the coaching session and then bring the analysis to the coaching session so that they can share as part of the reality section. The strengths and weaknesses are typically what they believe to be true about themselves and during the coaching session you may raise awareness of other strengths and weaknesses that are uncovered as part of your conversation. During the coaching session you will explore opportunities that they can play to their strengths as well as develop their weaknesses whilst eliminating the threats. Through this conversation you will help your client set goals and agree the way forward.
2. 360 Feedback: Feedback is a gift, and it is what we choose to do with it which is where the change in behaviour occurs. I’ve found in large corporate organisations; leaders will reach out for feedback at least once a year as part of the annual review process and it’s typically because it is a ‘formal process’ that is in place and therefore a mandatory requirement. When I work with leaders and business owners then they typically work in 90-day cycles, therefore it’s encouraged that they gather feedback every quarter through the year so that they can review and decide “what do I need to do more of?” and “what do I need to do less of?” As a result of gathering the feedback from those above, below and on the same level, your coaching client can gain valuable insight as well as raise awareness of potential blind spots, all of which can be coached on.
3. The Shadow I Cast: This is an activity that I completed with a team when I wrote and published my book “Empowering Employee Engagement – How to ignite your team for peak performance”. I invite you to go & ask those nearest and dearest to you, those that will be completely open & honest with their feedback “What is it like to be around me when I am at my best?” This is a great opportunity to capture all the good behaviours that you demonstrate and update your strengths in your SWOT. You then flip the question and ask, “What is it like to be around me at my worst?”, you then update the weaknesses and the threats on your SWOT analysis. Once this activity is complete, you can then explore the goals as part of your coaching session.
4. DISC Personality Profiling: For those of you that have had your DISC profile completed then you will be aware that in the 18-page report your strengths are highlighted, as well as your motivators, ideal environment and how you best like to communicate. This is another great tool that you can use to get to know your clients in minutes rather than months and raise their awareness of their leadership behaviours. Depending on the goals your clients want to achieve you can explore how they can use the insight in the report to share with others what it is like to work with them. For those who are employed, it may be information that they share in their CVs or LinkedIN profile. For those that are self-employed then they may use this to write content on their websites or marketing material so that people can get a feel for them & their business.
5. The STEAR Model: The STEAR Model can be described as a structured approach to problem-solving and decision-making, incorporating five key steps: Specify the problem, Think of solutions, Evaluate options, Act on the best solution, and Review the outcome. This is a model that my coach uses with me, she is an NLP coach and I have found this extremely valuable to help me make sense of my thoughts, feelings and ultimately behaviour. I will journal around the situation – what is it? I then do a thought download and capture all of my thoughts about the situation. Once I’ve downloaded all of my thoughts, I explore the emotion that the thought stirs. Thoughts and emotions drive behaviours which drives action or inaction. The result is then the final piece of the model.
Leadership coaching for behavioural change is something that you can incorporate as part of your coaching practice even when using The GROW Model, and now from this blog article you’ve got 5 more coaching tools, techniques and models that you can add to your coaching toolbox.
If you missed April's Coaching Conversation with Claire, head to our YouTube Channel where you can watch the replay of Coaching Leadership Behaviours! Plus, if you'd like to hear more from Claire and gain insights into Corporate & Executive Coaching, join her on our Insight into Corporate and Executive Coaching webinar.
About Author:
Claire Cahill is an award-winning Executive Confidence & Leadership Coach and published author of Empowering Employee Engagement – How to ignite your team for peak performance specialising in Employee Engagement. She is a graduate of The Coaching Academy and one of our inspiring trainers on our Corporate & Executive Coaching Diploma. She loves creating a safe psychological space to enable busy stressed-out leaders to step out of the hamster wheel and have time to get their creative juices flowing. She ‘ignites’ leaders’ potential for them and their teams to be their best selves, shining in all their glory by playing to their strengths, whilst challenging the status quo to implement and embrace change.
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