Emerging from the pandemic means change for your organization. How can you prepare your leadership team to navigate the challenges and seize opportunities?
As the world looks forward to emerging out of the COVID-19 pandemic and into a vibrant, competitive economy, companies will have to re-establish cohesion and shift their focus from surviving to winning. How will they communicate this shift and all it will entail? Are CEO’s and their teams equipped to deliver the message in a way that engages their teams? Leadership coaching may be an important tool to enhance their success.
The Challenge
Emergence from our cramped existence of the past year may be halting and inconsistent, but we will all face fundamental questions as we design our “New Normal.” What will our offices and our organizations look like? What enduring role will working from home have in our businesses? What impact will the increased focus on diversity, inclusion and equity have on our cultures? Will we have to confront extreme political polarization in our organizations? What have we learned from surviving in a crisis? As we look forward to normal levels of competition, how do we emerge as stronger competitors – competing for customers and also for high-quality employees.
These are some of the pressing strategic questions facing business leaders in 2021. They lead to another pressing question: as we rethink our priorities and reshape our cultures, how do we bring our employees along on that journey? How do we coalesce as a focused team on a clear mission?
Our employee populations have largely spent the last year in their individual hidey-holes. In the New Normal, they may stay at home or come to office or some combination of the two. Regardless of where everyone sits , however, organizations have to transition from surviving oppressive conditions to defining and creating an inspiring environment. For this pivot to be credible and effective, the message has to start from the top and it has to be disseminated in a coordinated, consistent way with sincerity and authenticity.
How Does Leadership Coaching Fit into this Story?
What is Leadership Coaching Really About?
The essence of coaching – any type of coaching – is helping the person being coached get the most out of their unique mix of strengths and weaknesses. In business coaching, this involves helping a leader sort out what’s most important and helping them overcome obstacles – often self-imposed – to achieving their objectives. It is done by tapping into their authentic selves – not their image of what others expect a leader to look like. In leading change, coaching helps them to focus on the positive elements of the journey and to communicate honestly in order to engage their team in their mission. It involves striking the right balance between empathy and authority. It’s also about helping leaders to more fully recognize and trust their own strengths, and to use those strengths to super-charge their leadership effectiveness.
Leaders are People, Too
Leading change requires embracing the change completely. However, leaders will have their own doubts, their own anxieties, as they face major change. Coaching is a process that can help them to bring themselves authentically to a challenging situation. To find the positive and lead with it. To manage their own hesitations and focus on their responsibilities to lead others.
Why Talk About This Now, When There is so Much Else Going On?
This is exactly the right time. Change, especially cultural change, is only successful if employees can look upward and be reassured that it’s going to be all right. One eye-roll, one sarcastic snicker, one cynical remark can derail an entire initiative. Is this asking too much from your leadership team? After all, they’re people, too, with their own insecurities about the changes they’re facing. That’s why they need the support that a coach brings.
Who Can Benefit?
CEOs
It is often said that “It’s lonely at the top.” And it’s true. The exhilaration of senior leadership that a CEO has earned is balanced by a heavy burden of responsibility. CEOs are keenly aware of the hundreds or thousands of tens of thousands of families depending on the quality of their decisions in leading their organizations. Yet from the CEO’s perspective, the onus they carry can be isolating. The motivations of peers and other business relationships are often impure, and true friends may be difficult to distinguish from people merely hungering for access and advancement. The presence of a leadership coach provides a partner who has no agenda other than the CEO’s success – a partner whose job is to keep the CEO on track with their mission. To keep them true to their own values. And to keep them accountable to their own standards. A coach can be a rare lifeline for the CEO in their sole dedication to keeping the CEO connected to their best self.
Senior Executive Team
The CEO’s leadership team must be able to fan out and reinforce the messaging that comes from the top. They can tailor or refine the message to make it relevant to their part of the overall mission, but their main responsibility is to sing from the same hymnal and to do it with a melody and rhythm that resonates with their specific audience. All this while managing their own fears and uncertainties.
High Potential Performers Climbing the Corporate Ladder
Real and potential leaders aren’t all tagged and given a certain job title. Leadership can come from any direction. And any good executive knows who their de facto leaders are. This is a time to invest in this high potential talent. To ensure that they’re on board and on message and their own concerns are addressed. The assignment of a coach to a rising leader is an investment in that future leader’s skill set and in their commitment to the organization. It is a precious gift to a deserving employee.
Where is the Return on my Investment?
As competition for talent grows in a reviving economy, holding onto and motivating your most expensive resource – your people – is a paramount concern. Ensuring that your leadership team effectively communicates and models a vision of your company’s New Normal is critical to getting the most out of that most precious resource. Showing your willingness to invest in key individuals is an important ingredient in retaining the right people and in winning the competition for the best talent.
Conclusion
The future, as always, is coming fast. Being ready to define how you will deal with the next chapter in your business’s history is important. Living up to that definition is critical, and leadership teams at all levels will need all the help they can get. The stakes are high at this inflection point, and it’s worth considering all the tools available in your arsenal.