Perspectives of inspirational leadership coaching (3)

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together” (Vincent Van Gogh).

Transformation, regardless of the context in which it is applied suggests the movement from one level to another. Hence, transformational leadership is about uplifting the abilities and capacities of people by engaging their heart and spirit. This of course results from higher levels of personal inspiration, intense motivation and adherence to the purest forms of personal and corporate morality. In other words, transformational leadership fosters the acceptance of group goals, which are communicated through high performance expectations.

Transformational leadership thus challenges people intellectually, emotionally and mentally. This is especially because the leader sets the example of what is expected from those being led in terms of the ideal behaviour. This is what every leadership coaching engagement supports. The idea is that leadership coaching must continually provide the momentum for inspired leaders to accomplish complex leadership tasks. Of course, coaching is beneficial when a leader needs fresh ideas to move forward with confidence. The coach is there to support the leader to remain at the leading edge of the industry by being focused and inspired.

Transformational leadership, being essentially relationship-based focuses more on the capacity of leaders to inspire and motivate people to buy into a vision that offers them significantly better promises of the present and future. With regard to organisations and businesses, transformational leadership harps on team-building, motivation and collaboration with employees at different levels to accomplish change for the better.

In the course of transformational leadership coaching, the emphasis is on setting goals and placing incentives as the currency to push the client to higher performance levels. Importantly, the process also seeks to create opportunities for the client to invest in personal development, as well as technical and/or professional growth. This is because the transformational leader must first invest in his or her own personal development. This is then used as the basis and springboard for seeking similar empowerment of others to become reliable agents of change.

Empowerment in this regard means that other team members are taking on and fulfilling their responsibilities. And because they embrace the authority that has been given to them, they hold themselves up for scrutiny by being accountable to themselves and the team. Transformational leaders are therefore not people who just point out the way. They are models that show people how to achieve goals and attain higher levels of performance by themselves. Such leaders are therefore not afraid to allow people to make mistakes, but they would definitely not allow or encourage their people to keep repeating the same mistakes.

What all of these mean is that transformational leaders are not just change agents, but very importantly embody and manifest the change that they desire and facilitate in all respects. They are nevertheless careful not to make issues of leadership to be all about them but rather to involve them, even if they have to be at the centre of the desired changes. They may be change agents, but transformational leaders avoid becoming just change managers. They would rather be facilitators and catalysts of change, who are eager riders of change along with their team.

Coaching leaders to be transformational in their leadership approach and activity has one other important rule. It is that the coach emphasises and compels the understanding of “questioning” in leading others. Since the coaching process thrives a lot on developing questioning and listening skills, the leader that would be support and lead others to be quality achievers of great goals must inspire the confidence for people not only to ask questions, but to also be able to answer questions and give excellent feedbacks to the leader. Good leaders do not lead by merely issuing instructions to others, but more by asking questions and receiving feedback.

These questions and feedbacks reveal realities and help people to find solutions instead of the possible reliance on just one person – the leader to come up with the solution to every problem. The transformational leadership style thus shows up leaders as individuals that understand that they are not infallible and definitely not the ‘superman’ of their team with the solution to every problem. As a result, leadership coaching encourages leaders to always seek to invest in their people.

Transformational leaders are therefore investors and not gamblers. They invest in the knowledge, talents, skills, passion and dreams of their people rather than gamble with them. They understand that their leadership style, which compels them to lead by example, especially by making such investments, is a form of motivation. It is what usually inspires their people to in turn invest their knowledge, talents, skills, passion and dreams in the corporate growth and development of the organisation.

Wherever there is the need to create a big vision, inspire confidence, challenge hindrances, promote creativity, motivate people, and compel necessary change, transformational leadership would be necessary. Its application would therefore span virtually all human endeavours where positive change and people performance need to be optimised. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.

Emmanuel Imevbere