INsight/ Seeing Two Sides
Manila, 30 August 2017 — Leaders take perspectives, all the time. And in doing so, coaching helps them discover how to work with opposites, just like the two sides of a coin.
In my work as a leadership coach, I love to work with business managers and professionals who are passionate about sustainability. I appreciate how keen they are to develop their influencing skills to accelerate innovation in their business or organization.
After a week of working with water leaders in Australia, I realized again how powerful it is to engage in a one-to-one coaching relationship that guides leaders forward on their journey. It's like the athlete who decides to work with a coach to reach their goal of winning a medal.
This past week, we explored how the challenges in our world today require of leaders that they embrace a combination of opposite perspectives. I call this method Flipping The Coin. Here are three examples.
First, the leaders learned how to combine inside-out with outside-in approaches to grow their leadership. The majority of leadership books in the bookshop will teach you about growing your leadership inside-out by expanding your self-awareness.
While this is important, it is only half the story. You need to also stretch yourself to learn new styles and methods that can make you feel strange, awkward and even inauthentic at first.
Second, the leaders discovered how to combine consistency with creativity in their leadership practice.
While you build your personal brand as a leader who is consistent and reliable through your behaviors and habits, the flip side requires you to adjust your leadership style and role continuously to make your best contribution in every situation you encounter. Seemingly a paradox, yet this is an essential part of becoming an effective leader.
Third, the leaders practiced how to combine thinking big with acting small.
Learning to inspire a big vision for your business and project requires many skills, including for communication and networking. On the flip side, you need to ensure that practical results are achieved in every situation, in every meeting, every day. This requires some unique skills to combine big thinking with continuous actions.
Effective leaders flip their coin all the time, as they take perspectives and combine opposites. There is no one way that works for everyone since we are all endowed with unique personality profiles. That is why athletes and their coaches work out individual programs for success. You can do that too.
If you are a sustainability leader and you are stretching and struggling to become a change maker in your work and world, there are currently a few slots available to work with me in an exclusive one-to-one coaching program to help you lead change. If you are coachable and ready to invest in growing your leadership, contact me to set up a call.