Prescription for Leadership

By Doug Van Dyke

Many years ago I worked in St. Augustine. Frequently, I would find myself driving down the street that was home to Ponce De Leon’s Fountain of Youth. That street was once voted the most beautiful street in America – huge, arching oaks, filtered cathedral light, truly spectacular. While tourists were drawn to the anti-aging promise of the Fountain of Youth, they would have gotten closer to their goal by simply walking up and down the magnificent pathway that played home to a false promise. Similarly, many leaders follow a false promise by finding a pathway to success, and then getting stuck there. Those leaders never discover that the leadership Fountain of Youth may be found in a simple activity. Which activity? In a word: coaching.

Too many leaders are viewed by others as “old school.” They have lost their youthful edge. This typically happens when a leader gets comfortable with a certain management style, and simply stops growing. Frequent byproducts of this condition are stagnant results, an ill-motivated team, and above-average team member turnover. Alternatively, consistently successful leaders maintain a personal growth curve by helping others to grow and develop. How do they go about coaching, when they have so many other demands? They integrate the following mindsets and actions into the fiber of their work life.

1.  Coaching is constant. Realize that developing people is not an occasional or one-time event. Rather, informal coaching is an activity in which powerful leaders engage every day. If you want your team to consistently perform at a high level, make certain you observe team member behaviors and proactively coach on a daily basis.

2.  Ownership. It is the coach’s responsibility to drive formal development activities. While team members certainly have a huge stake, the learning process should be driven and monitored by the coach.

3.  Have a plan. The creation and sharing of a formal coaching plan is a crucial step in the development process. It is a growth roadmap that serves as a complement to the casual coaching that you offer each day. A coaching plan should contain an outline of the process, the results that are desired, a list of the team member’s strengths, and a detail of the topics that will be covered over a specified time frame. The rollout of each coaching plan, as well as the process itself, should be conducted on a one-on-one basis.

4.  Partnership. Once a formal coaching plan has been discussed with a team member, it is important to seek their buy-in. You may ask them to demonstrate their commitment by signing the coaching plan. 

5.  Tailor. While you may possess a particular coaching style, a good coach is often a chameleon. It may be necessary for you to adjust your coaching style so that it fits seamlessly with a team member’s personality, skill level, experience, and potential. More than likely, the members of your team have varied levels of the above traits. As such, their needs will call for you to adjust your approach in order to be the most effective coach for them.

6.  Time allocation. It is a brutal reality, but a coach only has so much time to offer team members. It is critical that coaches “force rank” team members from most valuable to least valuable in order to clearly understand who the high performers are, as well as who possesses high potential. By allocating the lion’s share of your time to high-value categories you will be maximizing your team’s potential results. Spending an unfair share of your time coaching underperformers is unfair to the people who are producing, and will ultimately stunt your team’s results. Picture a basketball game. Who does the coach talk with most during the game, the people on the bench or the people scoring the points?

Bottom Line: The prescription for leadership anti-aging lies with coaching others. By helping your team members to grow and develop you will stay sharp and build positive energy. The result: a leader – no matter what his real age – who is cutting edge, with his finger on the pulse of positive trends, as well as team member perspective.

About the Author
Doug Van Dyke is a leadership and communication consultant, executive coach, and business planner. For more information about coaching, contact Doug or read his book, Leadership Simplified – THE Field Guide for Savvy Leaders.  Audios and videos are also available at www.leadershipsimplified.com. To have Doug speak at your next event contact him at doug@leadershipsimplified.com or at 941-776-1121.

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