By Lynn Morrison, People Director

Modern leadership is a complex and often challenging landscape and equipping people to be good leaders is no easy task. We caught up with People Director Lynn Morrison to find out more about an increasingly popular approach which is proving to be incredibly powerful in preparing people for effective and inclusive leadership: Leadership Coaching.

What are the main benefits of Leadership Coaching?

Leadership coaching is a really good way of helping people at middle management and upwards become good leaders soonest. With agreed outcomes, I have found that even six sessions can shift managers massively. It complements other development approaches, such as skills-based training, rather than replacing them entirely, as it focuses more on the individual’s effectiveness and development as opposed to being more general.

What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?

A coach utilises their skills and expertise to help their coachees to find solutions to problems, ways forward and personal insight to help them achieve their goals. A coach does not need to have expertise in the subject matter; coaching is much more about guiding the individual to find solutions themselves, which has a big impact on their own self-reliance and confidence.

When mentoring, you are assisting the individual with their issue by drawing on your own experience and knowledge working at the most senior levels. Coaching skills are often used alongside mentoring skills if you are a qualified coach but they are quite different approaches. Workplace mentors are usually not qualified but utilise their knowledge and experience to assist more junior employees advance in their careers.

How does Leadership Coaching work?

As a qualified Executive Coach and Mentor, I work with people at all organisational levels right up to CEO and board. Management Coaches tend to work with people at management level and below. Part of our role as People Directors is to work alongside the Board and senior leadership team to help the team as a whole to function more cohesively, but also to help each individual to excel in their role.

Leadership Coaching is one of the most effective ways to help others to develop and apply great leadership skills in business. It enables focused development on a 1-1 basis and can provide impactful results in a relatively small number of sessions. I tend to use both coaching and mentoring techniques, depending on the individual’s needs.

Firstly, I usually work in blocks of six sessions and ask the coachee and their line manager to identify the first areas for development. I ask the coachee and manager individually to score where the coachee is currently and then this is checked for change towards the end of the sessions to assess progress and help them to see the impact of their development. If required, we then move on to another block of six to address a different area, or to progress to a more advanced level.

Why is it so effective?

For a start, it’s very tailored to the individual and their needs. It provides a safe environment for self-reflection and awareness, and where the focus is purely on that individual and their development needs. That can be very motivating for them and means we can get into the depth and detail quite quickly to see what might be holding them back, and help them identify how to progress.

It is also very flexible. It works very well remotely, for example, so it’s convenient and doesn’t require enormous amounts of time out of a busy schedule. That also means that the subject matter is often quite immediate and allows space to discuss real business situations so that the coachee gets instant value from the sessions, and gives them the chance to apply what they are learning straight away. That mix of reflection and application is very effective.

Of all the work I undertake with clients, Leadership Coaching is the most fulfilling. The impact it has on the individual person can be quite profound, and is one of the fastest and most effective ways to accelerate personal and professional growth.

If you have some people in your team who would benefit from leadership coaching and want to find out more about how a part time People Director can help, please get in touch on 0345 646 5201 or email [email protected] we would love to have a chat and see how we can help.