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What is leadership coaching? Why is it important?

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What is leadership? 

Leadership is the process of leading a group of people into achieving a common goal. There are a number of leadership styles and each leadership style highlights one core skill of a leader that makes him/her capable enough to lead a team of people. 

Different styles of leadership

  • Transactional 
  • Transformational
  • Authoritarian 
  • Participative  
  • Delegative  

Transactional leadership 

A leader following this style of leadership is always to give out rewards, punishments and such to get the job done. They help a team of people in mastering the art of following procedures and routines on a regular basis until they master them. This style of leadership always helps in keeping any group of teammates always motivated and productive throughout the day. 

Transformational  leadership 

Transformational leadership as the name says is a type of leadership in which a leader does all it takes to drive a change in the way a team works in order to achieve their full potential. These leaders help in improving the performance level, commitment level, loyalty and all in all the involvement of a team member while performing a task. 

Authoritarian leadership

Authoritarian leadership is a style of leadership, in which decisions are mostly taken by the leader , with little for no involvement from his team. Construction, Military and Manufacturing industries are industries that follow a given line of tasks , leaving them no room for mistakes. Adolf Hitler, Vladamir Putin and Bill Gates are widely known to be successful authoritative leaders. 

Participative leadership 

A leadership style in which the decision-making process incorporates the inputs of every member on the team. This leadership style empowers every member on the team and makes them feel important and entitled. Also it helps in building good relationships within the team, among team members. 

Delegative leadership 

In this style of leadership, a team member is given all the freedom he or she can get to make decisions during the course of the completion of a task. A delegation leader always believes in the skillsets of his team and empowers the team to play to their strengths and weaknesses. 

What is leadership coaching? 

Leadership coaching is a process in which a leader with the help of a coach learns important aspects on how he or she can become the best of themselves. In other words, it is a process that helps leaders to be more open to change in terms of their way of work in order to be more effective and efficient in leading a team towards achieving their goals. 

Types of leadership coaching 

  • Humanist coaching 
  • Adult development coaching 
  • Cognitive coaching 
  • Positive psychology model for coaching 
  • Systemic Coaching 
  • Goal-oriented coaching

Humanist Coaching

Humanist coaching is helping leaders to reach their full potential. You would have heard the term self-actualization and that’s what this is all about. It totally relies on the relationship established between leaders and coaches. This trust leads to success.

Adult Development Coaching

Adult Development Coaching mainly focuses on the different stages of adult development, where the coach tries to figure out where the leader stands in his/her development and helps the leader to move towards an advanced level of understanding of authority and responsibility.

This, again is a more therapeutic approach of coaching strategy which is focused on the issues that one experiences at the stage of adult development.

Cognitive Coaching

Cognitive coaching mainly focuses on addressing the nonadaptive thoughts that might come across the ways of a leader’s success. This is another beneficial approach towards coaching where the coach challenges the ways of actions the leader might come up with, thus obstructing his/her own success.

Positive Psycho model for Coaching

The positive psychological method of coaching has seen a huge spike in popularity over the past few years. This approach is frequently seen as a power-based approach. The idea here is that the coach will be helping the leader to expand his/her existing strengths to build positive emotions, spread happiness, etc. Sometimes it can be used to achieve particular goals.

Systemic Coaching

As the name implies, Systemic coaching covers a wide range of factors that affect the performance of leaders. It mainly focuses on observing the patterns that may cause an impact on leaders’ performance and tries to disrupt them. It also focuses on the changes that can be made to add up to the big results over time. 

Goal oriented Coaching

Goal-oriented coaching is basically the type of coaching in the workplace of which most of us are familiar. It’s about helping out leaders to categorize and direct their personal and interpersonal resources to gain better goals. The primary goal of this coaching is to help leaders to form well-planned goals and develop an effective action plan. 

Importance of leadership coaching 

Improves leadership abilities 

A leader is considered to be great only if he or she constantly learns something new everyday. The job of a leader is not just to solve the problems of his team, it is to teach them how to learn from their problems and to find different ways to solve them on their own. Constant improvement is the only way to become a great leader and a leadership coach helps in bridging the gaps that stop a good leader from becoming a great leader. 

Increases level of empathy 

The secret tool every great leader uses to inspire his team is empathy. A simple “I know how you feel”, from a leader can help team members know you care for him or her. Everyone deals with success and failure in a different way and a good leader knows when to use empathy to help his team mates fight through their failures and stand by them when they taste success. 

Improve social skills 

Not every leader is a good communicator, while some are good at communicating over emails , some others may be good at leading by example. A leadership coach helps bridge the gap between what you as a leader feel is the best way to communicate with your team and how your team prefers to communicate with you. 

Make weaknesses into strengths

Every leader has his or her weakness, a leadership coach helps him or her turn those weaknesses into their strengths. Stage fright to speaking disorders, or anything for that matter that hinders a leader from becoming a good leader, can be fought with and won over to become a strength in the making with the help of a coach. 

No leader just becomes good or great in a day, it takes years and years to know one’s true potential as a leader, a leadership coach decreases that time and help a leader become the best of himself. If you ever dreamt of being a good leader, but seldom find yourself losing your way, sign up to use professional help to sail beyond your problems.

Vishnu R
Vishnu, a content marketer by profession, a poet by night, a sportsman by heart and a soon to be stand-up comedian.

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