Coaching for Leadership Power and Influence (Part 4)

“We aim above the mark, in order to hit the mark” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

I recently came across a newspaper article in The Star, one of South Africa’s major newspapers with the title: “Africa’s Leadership Challenge”, written as a contribution to a debate by Hennie Miller. This is part of what he wrote in the article: “The African continent has over the years suffered greatly from the absence of committed and inspiring leadership at every sphere of life. The greatest losers are the people who look to leaders, especially in government for the provision of basic amenities and other essential components of day to day living. Unfortunately, the people continue to be denied good service delivery, care and opportunities for growth and fulfillment”.

It is apparent from the above that people generally have huge, but largely unmet expectations of their leaders. And, this is not just a situation localised in one country or an organisation. It is a general phenomenon that leaders are expected to be sensitive and responsive to their peoples’ needs and challenges. Such expectations obviously also add up to present the leaders with the real challenge – the leadership challenge.

The leadership challenge is the challenge of bringing about desired changes by making sustainable impact in, and improving the lives of people. This is the challenge that every leader at every level must contend with. It is also a challenge that they must confront in order to effectively serve people and offer them some realistic benefits, which in some ways address their major concerns and expectations. This is never easy, but inspirational and transformational leaders always make these to be top priorities.

The major issues which leaders at all levels have to address, in order to bring about desired changes usually involve the challenges of creating and communicating their personal and corporate vision in a manner that will resonate with their people. In doing this, there is often the eagerness to implement desirable change and devise practical agendas for action. The most obvious aim of the leaders in doing this is mainly to make sustainable impact and improve the lives of others.

While the above is excellent in every way, there is also the big issue of leaders learning how to develop and utilise the talents of others, as they build their own leadership capacity and the diverse abilities of their people and/or team members. The key is that leadership must offer to individuals the opportunities to turn the talents of as many people as possible to talents. That is the main objective of leadership, team and organizational coaching. The goal in this regard is to bring about personal and corporate transformation.

The truth is that there are fewer ways to build capacity in people, organisations, institutions and processes than that which is possible through the inspirational processes of personal development and team building, which result from coaching interventions. Specifically, personal, team and corporate coaching all aim to build personal capacities, by expanding existing abilities through the unlocking and unleashing of latent or hitherto unveiled potentials.

This is precisely the goal of coaching, and when applied to leadership scenarios provide the best guidelines for leaders to become personally empowered through increased self awareness and personal energy (passion and enthusiasm). With such power, leadership coaching helps to guide leaders to seek ways of positively influencing and impacting people without falling into the temptation of lording their leadership power and authority over the people. And, that is the power that coaching offers to the client. Its greatest benefits however relate to its potential for transformation.

Coaching has for decades been known to act as a vehicle of transformation when applied to personal life or any aspect of life and human endeavour. This is mainly due to the fact that it enables people to reach their dreams and goals by inspiration and superior belief systems. Thus, leadership coaching as a process and a structure leads to the attainment of new levels of power and competence in organizations, as corporate leaders are supported to deliver profitable organizations, which reward them for the investment of their knowledge, time, efforts, energy and networks.

Leadership coaching in this regard celebrates the benefits of ensuring personal transformation, improved performance, sustained integrity, as well as increased wealth creation and utilisation. The end goal however remains increased personnel motivation, enhanced productivity and workflow efficiency in the workplace. What this does in the organization is that it encourages the leaders to exert the right influences and utilise their power of leadership to proactively develop strategies that help them and their team to be more productive in every way. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.

Emmanuel Imevbere