XL Coaching

Leadership Coaching

Leadership Coaching is about Partnering for Success

Leadership Coaching - XL Coaching Queenstown

Just as champion sportspeople hire coaches, high performance leaders need a coach to ensure they perform at their best.

Coaching is fast-becoming part of the standard development training for valued executives, talented up-and-comers and business owners to achieve their highest potential.

More and more executives and managers are hiring their own coach to boost their performance and fast track their careers

What is Leadership Coaching?

Leadership coaching, also referred to as ‘executive coaching’ or ‘professional supervision’ is in essence, a one-on-one strategic partnership that empowers managers to develop their leadership effectiveness and create positive change. Outcomes for coaching are often identified from 360 degree appraisal conversations or are defined by the coachee sometimes in collaboration with their organization. Once set, coaching conversations are confidential. Each coaching session provides the coachee with the opportunity to reflect, discuss challenges, gain insight, strategise, practise skills and refocus. Action is taken in between sessions so that new results are achieved.

‘Leader’ is defined as Directors, CEOs, GMs, HR Managers, Heads of Departments, Middle Managers, Team Leaders and Professionals.

Leadership Coaching Outcomes can include to:

  • Effectively manage organisational change or advancement into a more senior role
  • Take the reins and step up from Manager to Leader/Coach
  • Grow awareness of leadership strengths and weaknesses through self or peer assessment, create stretch goals, a gap plan and take effective action
  • Improve strategic thinking and ability to deal with business challenges
  • Develop clear vision, values and purpose and ability to inspire action
  • Increase ‘mana’, visible confidence and presence that is immediately recognised by the team
  • Increase influence through assertive communication
  • Deliver effective feedback without destroying motivation
  • Manage time and self-manage more effectively
  • Accelerate personal development and key ‘soft skills,’ which are often missing from management training programs
  • Transform the knowledge gained on trainings into behavioural change, increasing ROI
  • Develop greater emotional intelligence, relationships and team loyalty
  • Learn state of the art coaching techniques to motivate teams to perform
  • Elevate team morale and team ‘spirit’
  • Manage stress, avoid burn out, enhance work / life balance
  • Increase self motivation
  • Identify a clear career direction that’s inspiring

[button link=”https://xlcoaching.co.nz/contact-us/” color=”teal”]Contact Us[/button]to organise a complimentary call to discuss your needs and goals.

How Does Leadership Coaching Work?

The Coachee completes a Coaching Outcomes Form and has a conversation with their Sponsor (Board, CE, GM or HR) to agree upon the goals and focus for coaching. An initial session is then organised. The purpose of this session is to give the Coach an understanding of the Coachee’s needs and goals, helps determine whether there is suitable rapport and that the Coachee is coachable. The call gives the Coachee a feel for the Coach and a taste of coaching. At the end of the session, both parties discuss whether leadership coaching is the best modality to support the Coachee to move towards their goals. Provided both parties agree to proceed, the duration of the program and the process is discussed. Programs can range from 3 months to 1 year to achieve sustainable results. Sessions can take place weekly or fortnightly and usually run for 45 minutes. By email the Coach agrees upon the parameters  of coaching with the Sponsor and a contract is signed. Since most coaching is by telephone, the Coachee can easily connect with their Coach from anywhere in the world. The Coachee is asked to ‘take action’ in between coaching sessions, which leads to new results. Each session begins with a review of the previous session’s actions to ensure accountability is provided. Ongoing support is offered in between coaching sessions by email and telephone. The Coach shares articles, books and relevant resources. Trust is an essential ingredient in coaching to provide a safe environment for the Coachee to share fully, and work through any obstacles, that are limiting high performance. Once a Coaching Programme has been agreed upon, full confidentiality between the Coach and the Coachee is assured. Part way through the programme, the Coachee has a conversation with their Sponsor to share how coaching is going. Coaching results are measured at the start, interim and final stages of program and the Coachee is asked to feedback these measures to their Sponsor. If the Sponsor requires additional feedback, this is agreed upon, up front, between the Sponsor, Coachee and the Coach.

MBTI Assessment and 1-to-1 Feedback Coaching Session

MBTI assessment and feedback coaching sessionThe Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a psychological instrument that supports leaders to understand their personality type, unique gifts, blindspots, stress triggers and is an excellent starting point for leadership development. This information builds self-awareness, an appreciation of differences and in turn provides additional resources for leaders to understand how to engage staff more effectively. Contact us for more info.

Why Hire an XL Leadership Coach?

Outlined below are some of the features and benefits of partnering with an XL Coach:

  • Coaching achieves results

Coaching achieves results, especially in the development of softer skills that are fast being recognized as critical to leadership and team performance. US based Manchester Consulting Group surveyed Fortune 100 clients and discovered:

[box type=”note” style=”rounded” border=”full”]An average ROI of 5.7 times the initial investment in Executive Coaching, or a return of more than US$100,000

77% improved relationships with direct reports

71% improved relationships with their immediate managers

61% improved job satisfaction[/box]

More and more organisations are employing coaches as a critical strategy to business success. The Institute for Employment Studies UK (2000) reported that over 80% of employers are using coaching to support individuals and improve organisational performance.

In a recent Australian study (2004), Leadership Management Australia reported that 90% of people consider their own coaching experience to have been beneficial.

  • Maximize training and guarantee change

Human beings are creatures of habit and too often we come away from training courses inspired, only to find that pretty soon we get caught up in old behaviours. The US Public Service surveyed this and discovered that training alone increases productivity by 22%, while training plus follow-up coaching increases productivity by a staggering 88%. If you really want to guarantee sustained behavioural change, consider offering the support of an external coach or better still train your managers to coach. By building a coaching culture, everyone in the organisation will be focussed on development and that will catalyse positive change.

  • Overcome challenges and stay positive and focused

It can be tough, busy and lonely at the top and it’s so much easier with a collaborative partner and sound-board who wants you to succeed just as much as you do.

  • Coaching is confidential and non-judgmental

Many of us can be uncomfortable discussing our challenges, fears and revealing our weaknesses within our organisations. Your coach has no agenda apart from wanting you to succeed. For some, the coaching relationship is the most honest and empowering relationship they have ever experienced. This leads to self-discovery at the deepest level and acceleration in personal development and professional achievement.

  • Develop skills and abilities, not necessarily incorporated in typical leadership training courses

According to the Hudson Report, June 2005, ‘leadership in New Zealand is lacking’. To compensate for this organisations send their staff on generic leadership trainings that do not necessarily support individual leaders to focus on their specific development needs. Furthermore these trainings do not support the leader to follow through and ‘walk the talk’. Hudson found that ‘individual behaviour change is achieved more successfully through individual interventions such as coaching’. At XL Coaching, each program is uniquely designed to meet the specific needs of the individual Leader. Needs can be skills based, emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual in nature. We believe that our holistic approach to coaching catalyses each Manager to be the best leader they can be.
[quote style=”boxed”]It’s not enough to expect people to perform; You need to coach them to do it![/quote]

[button link=”https://xlcoaching.co.nz/contact-us/” color=”teal”]Contact Us[/button]to organise a complimentary call to discuss your needs and goals.

Leadership Coaching Testimonials

My management style prior to coaching was very much a doer rather than a delegator. I am now more of a coach leader. The observations I have seen in most cases where I am coaching are that people are going to new levels of performance and motivation levels are running high. I am seeing quality of work improved and teams coming together with improved communication They all want to participate and are willingly offering their skills to ensure the best possible results are achieved

– Rob Jewell, Executive, Shotover Jet Group of Companies

I had thought about coaching for a while but did not do anything about it – I was unsure it was for me! My board suggested it would be a great thing for me and offered me support with coaching. I took the chance and already it is paying dividends. I am more focused, more motivated and just love the frank and honest discussion I have with Amanda. I can feel difference and I am already experiencing the benefit at both the personal and professional level. It has been an uplifting experience and I have some really exciting plans in place for 2010 and beyond. It was/is for me – I don’t know why it took me so long to do it in the first place!

– Tim Cossar, CEO, Tourism Industry Association New Zealand

Some of the things I have covered during coaching over the last 6 months would never have occurred to me as viable ways of getting better results. I would have just continued to tread water, barely keeping my head above the surface thinking that was “normal”, or at least normal for me. I now realise that it is OK to say no to people when they ask me to do things, although this will always be difficult for me. I now realise that most people are unlikely to dissolve in the face of constructive criticism, and neither am I when giving it – it is all in the delivery and such feedback is of value to the individual in the long term. I have benefited from interacting with the workforce during break times, and am currently actively attempting to spend more time with them out on site (by popular demand!). I now have a switch in my head that flicks whenever a task comes to me, asking “Who can I get to do that”, rather than automatically doing it myself. I’m not afraid to shut the door or ask for no calls to be put through once in a while. Gradually, with all but the exception, I am seeing that the team are managing to come to their own decisions much more often than before – or at least just “keep me informed” rather than “ask me to solve”, and that foot traffic through my door has decreased somewhat. Downer have benefitted from this process as they now have someone who is probably much more equipped to take on a wider range of tasks and situations.

– Kirsty Marlow, Divisional Manager, Downer EDI Works

Coaching has helped me have better understanding of my management techniques, increased business satisfaction and is giving me the balance I have been searching for between my personal life and career.

– Adrian Walters, GM, Queenstown Lodge

I found coaching to be immensely helpful. Being the leader of the organisation often found me with no avenue to express my feelings while at the same time being there for everyone else. Amanda would listen with patience, ask the right questions about the decision making process and be 100% supportive while at the same providing best practice examples from her extensive knowledge and library of business books. Coaching has been enlightening and invaluable and I have since encouraged members of my senior management team to give it a go. The results are immediate and I have witnessed nothing but positive outcomes for myself and my management team both as people and in the application of our duties.

– Graham Whorskey, GM, AJ Hackett Bungy

I felt somewhat burnt out prior to coaching. I am now stronger, more assertive, more energized and more confident. I communicate more effectively and enthusiastically with my team and am able to give more in terms of support and direction. As a team we are communicating more openly and we are now focusing on solutions instead of problems.

– Louise Forsyth, GM, Eldercare

I have become more confident in leading my duty managers and directing them to complete tasks. My team has been very receptive to this new assertiveness, which has increased their confidence in me as their leader. I have left every coaching session feeling positive and enthusiastic that I can do this and am more willing to deal with situations that I would normally have shied away from.

– Klaus Kinatender, Asst. GM Novotel Gardens

Organizations often struggle at the Exec level of training within their companies. Many companies look to Chamber of Commerce and Inst of Mgmt type seminars and block courses, some look to on-line resources. ACCOR too, has employed a variety of all of these options but to take on behavioural change is a big one. Behavioural change requires trained expertise in psyche? Psychotherapy? Combined with a good understanding of what makes an effective leader. Coaching of the type that you do guides you thru a practical process to understand what you “look like” now…what you want to look like and identifies the gap. What you do is give practical pointers and aids to solve/improve behavioural habit. For example, we talk about stress and bang you have “top of mind” practical suggestions. We talk about needs and bang, you have a way of extracting what they are and how to affirmatively seek a resolution. We also talk about the practical solutions to delegation, time management etc but in a format where it is practical. Ie. “ So what CAN you do to manage this Klaus?”And then the re-cap…” So what are you going to PRACTICE this week to help to get you where you want to be/how you want to look?

– Carl Braddock, General Manager Hotel Ibis

Please accept this brief letter as a thank you and a note of appreciation for the Coaching sessions I received. They have not only assisted me as a Manager but also helped me become a better Coach to my staff.
Some of the skills, which I have already successfully introduced into my portfolio of tricks (which I thought maybe of interest) thanks to you, are:
– An increase in the level and confidence of delegation and the coaching of my supervisors to delegate down.
– Improved open communication between my supervisors and me, which has enabled honest rapport between us so delicate issues can be addressed (unilaterally) face to face with an improved level of comfort.
– An artillery of improved questioning techniques to gain more open honest responses from my staff.
– Learnt the skill of LISTENING to gain clear understanding of what’s really happening with staff and the operation.
As well as these skills that I have already adopted are a host of other skills and techniques that will further assist me in becoming a better Manager. Once again thanks for being my Coach and be sure I haven’t finished picking your brain yet!

– Clarke Scott (Scotty), Operations Manager, Shotover Jet Group

The coaching received really makes you think about what you’ve achieved in your job, what you want to achieve and how you can go about doing that. The time management aspect is a real eye opener and helps you strive to improve yourself and your productivity throughout your working day, week and eventually month. You can filter out the silly little things you get distracted by and learn to get important tasks prioritised and sorted out first before other distractions occur.
It’s really great to get an outside opinion and another view on things that you know go on, but don’t quite know the best way to deal with them. The way that it is put across makes you come up with answers yourself as if you always knew them already, so it’s quite empowering and really positive. Developing the organisational side starts to become a habit and part of your every day routine which helps to get so much more done. No more procrastinating around things that need to be done and just grow like a darker cloud over your head! You jump straight into them and get them out of the way meaning your day is more productive. Learning to take a step back too and reflecting on what you’ve achieved that day or even week is really rewarding. It’s so easy to get bogged down in the thick of it and not realise what an impact you’re having so it’s nice to learn to give yourself a pat on the back. The little hints and tips for delegating and saying no save yourself so much unneeded hassle too so overall it completely changes the way you do things…..for the better!

– Male, General Manager, Hospitality Industry

[button link=”https://xlcoaching.co.nz/contact-us/” color=”teal”]Contact Us[/button]to organise an initial conference call to discuss your needs.

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