Courageous leaders coach to achieve high performance

In these current challenging times where we are being asked to do more with less - many organisations are relying on their managers and leaders to 'coach' others within the business to achieve high performance. I believe this can only work if there is a strong foundation for coaching. The foundation for coaching can be summarised into 3 critical types of 'real' conversations that people need to be having with each others. Leaders need to have a:
- delegating conversation to set the person up to complete the task
- supportive conversation while they undertake the task
- feedback conversation to inform the person on the adequacy of their performance.

If these conversations do not happen regularly, consistently and authentically then coaching conversations are not going to be succesful in changing behaviours and achieving the high performance you are looking for.

Courageous leaders negotiate differently!

I had an incredible experience last week facilitating business negotiation skills workshops for a client. When first asked to undertake this project I declined because I believed that I did not negotiate and cringed at the use of the word. Courageous leaders do not negotiate...........this was the inner chatter in my head and yet upon reflection and challenge I realised that courageous leaders DO negotiate and so did I - just on different terms to that of the stereotype I had in my head about what constituted an effective negotiatior! My upbringing in business had lead me to believe that an effective negotiator was aggressive, kept information and needs close to their chest, played manipulative games and walked out with the knowledge they had WON and the other person had lost! And this was not what I did and it was not what I ever wanted to do!This experience has allowed me to recognise that I am a great negotiator but that I do it with my style and now I am proud to refer to this as the courageous negotiator. The courageous negotiator is transparent, gives information freely and with the intent of finding the best outcome for all parties because they believe so strongly that it is win-win or no deal. I also now know that my style is very much based on the wonderful movie called "Pay It Forward" and counter to what many effective negotiators believe I make widespread use of generosity. This has created great outcomes for me and for others involved in the negotiation. So for me I am eternally thankful to this client as I have now totally reframed myself and are proud to say that I AM a negotiator - a courageous negotiator!!!

Can people be expected to manage and lead?

People in their organisational roles are being expected to manage AND lead. Yet in my experience these same people devote so little conscious time to explore how to build this capability - so little time spent reflecting to capture their learning, so little time reading about it and so little time spent talking about it with their colleagues and bosses! How can we expect people to get better at managing and leading when there is so little impetus, enthusiasm, dedication and inspiration around the importance of it. We need more people to have the courage to step up and challenge what is happening in their organisations and challenge the choices they make - to spend time reading about managing and leading instead of the latest tax legislation, the stock market movements, the latest breakthrough in technical research of their specialist field! People need to want to improve the way they manage and lead and actively build their knowledge, skills and desire to become the kind of leader they can be proud of!!!!