Posts Tagged ‘coaching and mentoring’

While there are many books out there which tell you what you need to do to succeed as a leader, the truth is there is no magic blueprint.

At the same time, I believe that there are some things that you can do to set yourself up for success.

One of the most important, and often overlooked by all of us (myself included), is to make sure that you have some support in place.

Truth is it can be really lonely at the top and having someone divorced from the day to day challenges, like a coach or mentor, can really make a difference.

This type of support can help you through the initial challenges, offering you someone to talk through concerns with, provide you with some reassurance and provide you with strategies and ideas to accelerate the transition.

So if you are struggling as a new leader, take some time to determine what support could make a real difference in accelerating your progress.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Being a leader can be a really lonely existence.  Expectations are high and it can often be a real struggle to stay on top of your game and continually deliver great results.  Continuing to develop as a leader has never been so vital not least because of the major challenges facing many organisations right now.

For those at a more senior level working with a coach or mentor is often a great way of continuing to develop.  So what are the benefits?

Benefit 1: Thinking time

The pace at which leaders operate in organisations is often relentless and means that there is little or no time to stand back and take stock.  Being able to stand back from issues and challenges allows you to clearly think through the choices, look at challenges in different ways and ultimately to take better decisions.  And if you are taking better decisions it means better results for you personally and the organisation.

Benefit 2: Ongoing support

Training is great and I have been to many great training courses over the years.  Trouble is most training courses are a one shot opportunity.  What I mean by that is that you go along to the course, leave enthusiastic and an few months later find you are back where you started.  If you are a leader looking to be more effective over the long term you know that it is going to take time.  Having that ongoing support can help you make that sustained change in performance.

Benefit 3: Personal attention

In my experience of working with clients there are often some very specific areas of focus that leaders and managers want to work on.  Sometimes it might be about strategies and tactics that they can apply and other times it might be tackling areas of self doubt or misconceptions.  I also notice that they rarely need to work on all aspects of a particular topic but more on one or two areas.   The nature of the relationship means that it is much easier to tailor the programme to meet specific needs.

Benefit 4: Highly time efficient

I know that when I was in leadership and management roles, creating the time to attend a 2 or 3 day course was often a real challenge.  By comparison finding a couple of hours a month to work with a coach was much more time efficient and effective.

Benefit 5: Return on Investment

Ultimately if you are investing time, money and energy into something the return on what you have invested will be important.  Research into the benefits of coaching indicates that the return on investment is in the region of 500-700%.  Now these numbers might well look huge but let’s take a look at an example.  Imagine you are a senior manager who aspires to be a Director.  Ask yourself what’s the difference in salary and benefits?  In a field like accountancy, the differential between a number one and number two can easily be in the £30-50,000 per annum range.  If you are in the number one job for say 10 years, that could mean an extra £300-£500,000 to your earnings.  So look at your investment in terms of the lifetime value.

Bottom Line – Continuing to develop as a leader is no longer an optional extra.  If you are serious about realising your professional and personal potential, working with a coach or mentor might just be the catalyst.

The Insights Series from The Chartered Association of Certified Accountants identified coaching and mentoring as one of the most effective development methods.  So what is it about coaching and mentoring that makes it such a powerful development method?  Here are my 5 top reasons.

1. Ongoing

Many traditional approaches to development are one chance events.  If you prosper fantastic if not your opportunity is gone.  While this type of development activity is excellent for acquiring skills or knowledge, it can be less effective when it comes to working on personal attributes or softer skills.

2. Personalised

Many development activities aim to cover a number of areas in a short time frame.  While this is excellent for getting breadth, it can mean that only a small proportion of the time is spent on the areas that matter to you.  When working with a coach or mentor you focus on the specific areas that will give you greatest leverage or benefit from your development time.  You get to develop your own personalised programme.

3. Focused

Coaching and mentoring is highly targeted and because it is ongoing you move forward quicker because it is focused.  You don’t waste time and effort on areas that you don’t need to.

4. Supportive

People who take on the role of coach or mentor are highly supportive.  They can be counted on to be behind you encouraging and supporting you as you take action.  Knowing that you have the support of someone who believes 100% in you is an amazingly powerful motivator.

5. Accountability

Study after study highlights that having accountability is one of the most important ingredients in achieving results.  One study suggested that you have a 95% chance of achieving an objective when you have accountability in place. When you have to self account for what you have or have not achieved, you do more than you would have done otherwise.  Your coach or mentor holds you to account for those actions that you have committed to taking in order to get results and move forward.

Clearly all development activity has benefits.  Working with a coach or mentor is a powerful tool in your personal development toolkit that you may not be fully utilising.  How might you benefit if you did?