Home > Resources > Published E-Zines > Published in 2005 > Leadership E-Zines > July 2005

Progress! First-Class Leadership - Issue No. 7/ July 2005

Dear Reader,

Have you ever been frustrated because of employees or colleagues who obviously need to make certain changes but refuse to budge? To help them understand, you've tried to explain or prove to them that changing is a good thing, you've tried to offer incentives or even threatened them with penalties, but they still don't want to change.

Let's face it: changing is not a pleasant activity. Yes, there are people who enjoy change, but in all likelihood, what they actually enjoy is having the results that change produces. Change in itself is rather undesirable.

The point is it does not matter how much I believe that a certain change would be beneficial for that person - the only thing that matters is how much that person believes it. People are more likely to believe the truths they discover on their own than things other people discover for them.

Coaching is an effective intervention to help a person figure things out for himself, thus leaving full ownership with the coachee. At the same time, the coach must be ready to accept the possibility that what the coachee identifies as the best for himself might not be what the coach wants for the coachee. A true coach has only one thing in mind: the most optimal outcome for his coachee, as defined by the coachee himself.

This process works extremely well between professional coaches and their clients, as well as between managers and their direct reports and colleagues.

Do you know how to coach?

Let's keep progressing!

Charlie Lang
Executive Coach and Founder of Progress-U Ltd.

Back to Top

Series: The Purpose of Executive Coaching [Part III]

Download this article

The Fast Track from Manager to Leader
by Charlie Lang

How do you know if you are simply a manager or a leader as well?

The great Peter F. Drucker once said, "Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things." John Sculley offered an even more detailed comparison: "Leadership is often confused with other things, specifically management. As I see it, leadership revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. One can't lead unless one can leverage more than his own capabilities . . . You have to be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist - that's management, not leadership."

I find that these two quotes give us a good idea of how a manager is different from a leader. Of course, a leader must not cease to be a manager in order to be a leader - it's just that he needs to develop additional competencies to become an effective leader. Are good management skills a prerequisite to being a good leader? Not necessarily, though these skills are highly useful.

So what does it take to become an effective leader?

Karen* is the managing director of the regional headquarters of a multinational company. She was pirated from a competitor where she was a successful sales director responsible for both the marketing and sales departments.

Less than half a year into her new job, she felt extremely stressed and drained of energy. She had never experienced this before - in fact, she was known for being a power woman, always positive and energetic. She couldn't quite understand what was going on. She worked long hours, as in her previous jobs, and was fully committed to achieve excellent results.

Unfortunately, the results didn't develop as expected and the workload seemed to increase by the day. What happened?

When Karen finally contacted me to figure out what was going on and how I could help her, I asked her to describe her typical working day in as much detail as possible. I also inquired about the way she communicated and interacted with the other senior managers. Finally, I asked her what components of her job are most important for her to be a successful managing director.

Based on her answers and the previously mentioned definitions of management and leadership, Karen appeared to function as a manager, not as a leader, in her new company.

We also talked about how things worked out so well in her previous position. It turned out that her boss was a strong leader who took over the leadership aspect of her role as a sales director so she could focus on managing the daily work and supporting the key account managers in winning important orders. Together, they produced a winning combination of leadership and management.

She suddenly realized that this important function of her previous boss - which she took for granted at that time - was missing, and that it was her responsibility to take over this task.

Within the first 3 months, we focused on creating a clear direction for the regional headquarters, which we developed together with the senior management team:

•  A vision statement (Where do we want to go?)

•  A mission statement (Why do we want to go there? What is the
purpose?)

•  A value statement (Which principles should guide us on our way?)

Based on the vision, Karen and her directors decided on a strategy that would most likely make the vision a reality.

While completing the direction, we worked on her communication skills, especially when talking in front of larger internal or external groups. Karen also noticed that even though one of her strengths was her ability to create good rapport almost instantly, she sometimes had problems sustaining relationships. She realized that she rarely coached her reports, which caused frustration and decreased engagement.

As a consequence, we practiced coaching skills, feedback and feed-forward, as well as how to make employee participation more effective.

It was also important for Karen to learn that she had to let go of being the "super manager", as a former colleague described her. This was not her main job anymore. As she already had a good knowledge of the capabilities of each of her reports, she was able to delegate more management tasks. Also, she followed my advice to employ a capable personal assistant to free her from everyday tasks.

As a result, after 9 months of coaching, Karen's and her company's situation changed dramatically:

For Karen:

•  She still worked long hours, but found it much more enjoyable.

•  She became as energized as she used to be.

•  She made the shift from being a "super manager" to being a "super leader."

For her company:

•  Engagement (we made an employee satisfaction inquiry at the beginning and after 9 months) greatly improved.

•  Retention, especially of the high performers, considerably improved.

•  The financial results showed a new positive trend after approximately 6 months.

Karen decided to continue having coaching sessions to further strengthen her leadership competencies. Also, she noticed that coaching helped her when making important decisions because she had an unbiased yet understanding sparring partner who challenged her thoughts and expanded her awareness.

Of course, professional executive coaching is not the only way to develop leadership competencies, but it is perhaps the fastest and most effective way. Cases like Karen's clearly prove the potential value of coaching.

* Details have been changed to protect the identity of our clients.

In Part IV of this series, we will explain how executive coaching can help successful managers change disruptive behaviors

Purpose Statement: The basic purpose of executive coaching is to help the coachee further improve his performance and make better decisions to maximize his success and, subsequently, the success of his organization.

For more information related to Progress-U Leadership Coaching please visit click here.

Back to Top of this Article

Charlie Lang is an Executive Coach and Trainer who founded Progress-U Limited in 2002. His mission is to develop his clients to become First-Class Leaders. He is a passionate and professional Executive Coach, Mentor Coach, Trainer, Public Speaker and Author of articles related to leadership, change management and innovative sales. In 2004, he initiated the Master Coach Alliance in Hong Kong, a network of professional Life, Business and Corporate Coaches. End of 2004, he started authoring a book on First-Class Leadership which is due to be published in mid-2005. Copyright 2002-2005 Progress-U Limited