Listening

Leader as coach

Leader as coach

Recently, I was talking with Jim, a former client who has retired from his role as CEO of a major nonprofit organization. As we talked about his desire to support other CEOs, the idea of “leader as coach” came up, and with it, the notion that we can develop others more effectively with questions than advice. “I didn’t spend a lot of time asking questions as CEO,” Jim confessed. “It’s just inefficient.” 

Do you know what’s happening?

What keeps coming up is the importance of deeply sensing what is happening. The more deeply I can feel into what’s going on with the team, the more we can accomplish together. As leaders, we can use this sensing to make every interaction more powerful. In this post, I’m going to tease apart what I believe is involved in this sensing. My experience suggests there are 3 essential components.