“Aren’t leaders supposed to coach and teach?”
I’ve been authoring posts about practical leadership concepts and observations for a many years. I aim to be entertaining enough to keep your interest and educational enough that you learn. Leaders must be teachers, coaches, people developers, visionaries, risk takers, role models and decision makers.
The last point here is critical for today’s thought. Leaders must be able to make the tough decisions. There is a sensitive balance in determining whether a team member needs coaching and development or more serious action taken. Generally this is a delicate skill learned over many years. I’ve learned over time that often when I get frustrated over something not being completed to an acceptable standard, it is a teaching opportunity. What if after many missed commitments and several coaching opportunities an individual actually goes on the offense and says, “Aren’t leaders supposed to coach and teach?” This would clearly be a misinterpretation of what LiaV is about.
The risk of stating your leadership theory in public is it can then be turned back on you. It is a risk I have been willing to take.
Have your coaching words ever been taken out of context and used back on you? How did you resolve the situation?
Monday, June 21, 2010
“Leadership” double-speak
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3 comments:
Becoming a leader isn't easy, many claim that effective leaders are born naturally. But learning to lead is a lot easier than most of us think it is, because each of us contains the capacity for leadership.
Nice work done by you. Just keep it up your work. I have lots of expectation to you. Anyway thanks for the post.
mba india
Thank you for the perspective John. I've found that it's valuable simply to listen to employees and give them the opportunity to come up with their own solutions. In this way, I don't have to get involved or talk about my leadership philosophy and the onus is on the employee to find a solution that makes sense to him or her. The general idea is to help people grow and generate solutions from within.
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