“Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones” (Phillip Brooks).
Several years ago in the United Kingdom, a young man named Neil Anderson was being interviewed for a middle management position in a well established organisation. Seeing from the body language of the interview panel that he seemed to have done well so far, the young man became even more confident, to be point of being outrightly bold. This became evident when the CEO of the company asked him this question: “If you are given this job, where do you see yourself in the next few years?” His reply was: “I see myself sitting in your chair as CEO sir”.
There was some laughter from the interview panel including the CEO who followed up his question with “You mean that you will take over my job?” The young man calmly answered: “Sir, we’ll send you away with a very generous retirement package”. Neil Anderson got the job and incredibly is a mere three positions way from becoming the CEO of the company. Luckily for him, he joined an organisation that creates opportunities and provides a platform for ambitious personnel to pursue their dreams and life goals.
Neil Anderson is also a leadership and organisational coach. He has with his wealth of experience from the private sector coached several managers and leaders in both the private and public sector in the United Kingdom where he lives and works. And although he commits a lot of time to his primary assignment as a top executive in his company, he also creates time to coach – because he just loves coaching. He describes coaching as a tonic for him especially when he has to help people and businesses to stretch themselves and go beyond their assumed bench marks to create new frontiers.
As a practitioner, he believes that the primary role of a good business or executive coach is to be an “enabler”. Such a coach must be prepared to make the sacrifices that would be required to partner with the client to set and achieve desired goals and outcomes no matter the challenges. Such sacrifices will according to him task the coach physically, intellectually and emotionally, but the rewards are well worth it. Obviously, apart from loving the work of coaching, there must be the strong personal conviction that would spur the commitment and consistency needed to stay focused, while assisting others to be similarly focused in achieving their goals.
The coaches that demand and extract the best from their clients must be just as tenacious as they want their clients to be. Importantly, they must also have experiences and skills of their own to draw on at various times and stages in the coaching process. Apart from providing them the opportunity to share with others, this helps them to be more constructive rather than being judgmental in nudging their client on.
Business coaching is not for people that would engage in it for the sake of just having a job and making some money. Because, apart from being particularly knowledable in the area of interest of the client, the coach must constructively, fearlessly and purposefully hold up the mirror so that he or she can be trusted. Effective business coaching in this respect is a challenging engagement between the coach and the client. It specifically challenges the client in the most practical and most appropriate ways.
It is for this reason that the business coach must be both experienced and grounded in the prevailing business realities. Theoretical approaches would hardly be effective when coaching an organisation that must take decisions that would not just affect their profits but also impact the lives of several households. And because business coaching shows forth itself by having its most profound effect on top management and business leaders, there is the need to channel its power to enhance critical leadership aspects such as better decision-making, personnel motivation, and adroit resource management among others.
With business coaching engagements, every organisation can expect to have their staff manifesting greater levels of skill awareness essentially because of their increased self-awareness and heightened personal energies. This is often the stimulus that business leaders and top managers need to facilitate individual and corporate growth. With this, they can motivate their people to deploy their best skills, personal strengths and greatest commitment to produce peak performance. That is in fact what business coaching promises and delivers if done correctly.
However, for business coaching to be truly effective and for the benefits to be well harnessed for personal and corporate good, there must be consistency of good leadership decision-making and strategy implementation. Leadership consistency of course fast tracks the processes of talent and skills development in the workplace. It also creates an environment of stability and security, which is the best platform for the expression of individual and team abilities. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching and register for wealth coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.
Emmanuel Imevbore
