Perspectives of inspirational leadership coaching (4)

The sweetness of victory is magnified by the effort it took to achieve it” (Chris Widener).

A great part of leadership at any level and situation is communication. There must be clear communication of the leader’s vision, just as the direction to take in attaining that vision must also be clearly communicated. Then of course, there is the issue of personal inspiration and motivation. If the leader does not inspire people to take action, there is the likelihood that it has resulted from two failures. The first failure is the possible absence of knowledge and enthusiasm, while the other relates to faulty communication of whatever personal knowledge or enthusiasm may have existed.

Clearly, two-way communication is essential for effective leadership, especially when much of such communication is in fact nonverbal. What this means for example is that a good leader must act in a manner that clearly demonstrates and communicates to his people exactly what he wants them to do. A lot of times, it is the leader setting the example for others to copy through his own actions and behaviours.

In this regard, what and how the leader communicates should ideally build and promote personal relationships. However, since all situations are different, the leader has the responsibility to create the scenario that compels the best course of action, as well as the kind of leadership style essential for the particular situation. With his influence and power to make changes, the true and authentic leader communicates in ways that breeds confidence, excitement and energy among people.

This is what distinguishes a leader from someone that just bosses people around because of the benefit of authority, influence and power. A leader thus differs from a boss in the sense that the leader actually inspires followers to want to achieve higher goals by themselves. This is because they have personal drive, desire and motivation to be greater than they are. They also wish to do greater things for and by themselves than they have previously done through the inspiration of the leader.

The leader in this regard acts as a catalyst and facilitator, especially through his communicated actions and personal examples. The leader is thus an ‘influencer’, bringing about desired changes by influencing his people to do great things. And, this is what really makes the people to fully accept the leadership of a particular person and decide to follow the leader. It is also what marks out a person as a transformational leader. A transformational leader in this regard conveys a strong vision of the future and provides a clear sense of direction.

As a result, people learn to trust and respect such a leader mainly because he is a person of trustworthy character. The personal character of the leader is what people firstly associate with. It is what is first communicated to and accepted or received by the people. The two way communication in this regard has to do with the leader projecting certain attributes and the people responding by deciding based on their observations, assessment and experience whether the leader is honorable and trust worthy or self serving and manipulative.

In the course of leadership coaching, much emphasis is placed on personal and people perceptions. How a leader perceives himself is so important because that image is what he would invariably project and communicate to others. In this regard, a successful leadership coaching process will comprise getting the proper alignment of the leader’s “be”, “know” and “do” attributes. For avoidance of doubt, the “be” attributes refer to the personal characters, behaviours, feelings, beliefs and attitudes of the leader.

In coaching leaders in this regard, the challenge and focus would be to determine what the current situation is, in relation to the ideal or what the leader “wants to be”. There from, practical steps and solutions are developed to bridge the existing ‘be’ gaps. Secondly, being what one desires to be is inescapably tied to knowledge. Almost all the time, it is what you know that makes you do what you do or need to do. Knowledge is what feeds the mind of a person with ‘meaning’, and meaning in turn creates a mind frame, which leads to a person’s specific responses in situations.

Coaching leaders to improve the “know” attributes would involve development of special skills of self examination and self assessment, in order to be self correcting and self driven. It would also involve the development of interpersonal skills, so that better relationships can be forged. It would in addition involve development of specific technical or professional skills. For instance, it would help little if a leader has such great human relation skills, but does not know how to do his professional job or carry out his professional tasks efficiently and effectively.

Finally, the “do” attributes relate to the responsible and effective implementation of decisions. This must be done in a manner that sustains the energy and passion of people. Importantly, it must stimulate them enough to elicit their self motivation in following the direction of the leader. Ultimately, all of these boil down to honorable character and selfless service, which are the real basis of good leadership.

Emmanuel Imevbere, entrepreneur and management consultant

You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.