But before I get to that answer, let me preface this with my core belief about business coaching, and that is, we don’t business coach, we business-person coach. Like a sports coach, we work more with the business minds, rather than the business parts.  And our fundamental duty is to enable the business owner to realise their dreams, their vision, their why.

I say this because quite often coaching is confused with consulting.  And more often, there is uncertainty as to what coaching is, compared to mentoring, training, or consulting.  Hence, as a coach, it is imperative that we define the distinctions and ensure that expectations and outcomes are established and agreed upon early on, in the coaching relationship.

In brief, coaching is about bringing out the best in your client.  It is about enabling them to understand their deepest values and motivators, and then linking those motivators with their business vision.  Once that is established, the focus then moves to agree on specific business outcomes and goals, and then holding the client accountable to those goals.  We help empower them through specific techniques that enable the client to develop a high-performance mindset, influential leadership, and effective strategic communication.

In comparison, consulting is about actually completing specific work output required by the business or reviewing specific business processes and improving them. Training involves educating clients about specific processes or elements related to business.  And mentoring is simply passing down your experience in the specific area of expertise that your client requires.

An exceptional coach can often take on the mantel of mentor and trainer also.  In my opinion, it is best that coaching and consulting remain separate, because in my experience when you dive into the business as a consultant, you give up the objectivity and separation to be the most effective coach you can be.

Whatever the case may be, there is no doubt that coaching is an essential ingredient to all success.  Look into the world of the highest-paid athletes, actors and business people, and you will always find coaches, mentors, and guides in the background, helping them shine.  Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google explains it best “I had years of experience and was hired as the CEO, so I figured I knew what I was doing. Not only did Google make me realize I still had a lot to learn, but my coach, Bill Campbell, ended up being a tremendous teacher. In fact, one of my biggest self-critiques at the end of the year was not bringing Bill on even earlier to help me and my management team. Take it from me – everyone needs a coach. The sooner you find yourself one, the better off you’ll be.”

In light of that, let me list quickly what a coaching relationship seeks to improve;

• Planning
• Profitability
• Staff Retention
• Growth
• Productivity
• Efficiency
• Return on Investment
• Staff Quality
• Business Culture
• Business Communication

All that being said, let me zero in on the work that a coach specifically does.  And even though I do High-Performance Team Training or Success Culture Training etc, I won’t include these here because they relate to training, not coaching.  The list below is focused on pure business coaching elements of the work we do.

ESTABLISHING YOUR WHY

If you don’t know why, then you’ll struggle to work out how, when, and what.  This is where my work with clients begins.  Uncover their values and motivators, and ensure they are in sync with the business values and vision.  Once they are aligned, everything flows more efficiently

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

The key to success is clear communication.  And successful communication is one that is understood.  To achieve the outcomes, you desire as a business, it is key that your communication with others as well as to yourself is clear and links precisely to your values.  In order for that to happen, I help my clients identify how language is affecting their outcomes and ensure they reframe their communication positively

REMOVING UNCONSCIOUS BARRIERS

We are all a result of programming.  Whether it be our innate personal program that we were born with, or that from the various influences in our life such as culture, parents, schools, etc.  These influences impact how we view reality, and how we decide what is possible.  They become our beliefs.  Consciously and sub-consciously, beliefs and the rules around them, are playing out all the time.  As a coach, we can quickly identify these, and assist in removing the unresourceful beliefs and replace them with beliefs that will serve you

ENGAGE YOUR CREATIVITY

All greatness comes from a moment or period of creativity.  When something is brought into existence that wasn’t there before.  Whether it is a new technology, or a new way of doing things, or art or music.  These creations help humans evolve and grow.  As a business owner, creativity is your secret weapon to success.  And quite often, business owners get stuck in the “technical doing” and they don’t create.  As coaches, we focus on releasing their creative side, which results in true growth in business sales and profits

BUILDING YOUR COURAGE

A drain to all businesses is lost opportunities and wasted time.  Often these are the result of being stuck in “fear” related behaviours.  Your coach works with you to grow your confidence, certainty, and calmness.  Through this courage, clarity of mind is present, which enables the business owner to discover opportunities and solutions everywhere.

ESTABLISHING AND GROWING CONNECTION

A business coach does their most effective work when they connect with their client.  That connection allows him/her to work through those limiting beliefs of the client to ensure the business vision is met.  And so, it is with business owners.  They need to identify the importance of connecting with others, such as staff, suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders.  And allowing that genuine connection to develop and grow so that positive results come from the interactions with those stakeholders.

WIDENING THE PERSPECTIVE

Our reality is a product of our perception.  And your success is limited to what you perceive is possible.  A coach can show you how and why anything is possible.  And more importantly, they can show you how to look at perspective not just from your view, but from the view of others.  That wider perspective allows for better strategic thinking, planning, and implementation.

HIGH-PERFORMANCE MINDSET

We are always engaged because the clients want better outcomes.  Perhaps their current outcomes are poor, or perhaps they are great, but they want greater.  Whatever the case may be, the client wants better outcomes.  And often, they seem to be stuck and can’t change the result.  Try as they might, they come back to the same result or worse.  In truth, the equation is simple, to get better isn’t always about doing more or doing things differently.  It is always about being different, being better.  And that means creating a high-performance mindset that will project you forward and upwards

AN ACCOUNTABILITY MODEL

Humans are by majority a better performer when they have someone or something holding them accountable.  For the very rare few, they hold themselves accountable to their values, and that drives them to amazing success, but for the other 99%, the accountability needs to be an outside source.  A great business coach will develop an accountability model to ensure that certain actions and behaviours are met, the ones that will lead to the outcomes and objectives agreed at the onset.

HAVING A CONFIDANT

A confidant is someone you can share things with, that you wouldn’t normally share with others.  In today’s western world, that person is becoming less and less evident as “independence and individuality” are favoured as a sign of strength.  And with families becoming less connected, it can mean that business owners find themselves alone, unable to share their fears and doubts.  That isolation can cripple decision making through anxiety and stress.  A coach can be that person on your side, have your back, and give you support and wisdom when you need it most.

There are other core elements that a coach will focus on, however, these are the fundamentals.  An International Coaching Federation (ICF) survey into client results returned the following data

• 70% believed business coaching is “very valuable.”
• 50% confide in their coach as much as their best friend, spouse, or therapist, 12% confide in their coach more than anyone else.
• 4% smarter goal setting
• 5% more balanced life
• 1% lower stress levels
• 4% more self-confidence
• 3% improvement in the quality of life
• 7% more income

Any business owner that experiences those improvements, will have higher profits, more growth, and more joy!

Returning now to my opening conversation with the prospective client.  After asking her more questions, I uncovered she was looking for a consultant.  A person that can implement the processes and systems into her business, including a CRM software.  And those are not my scope of works as a business coach.  Therefore, I recommended hiring an office manager experienced in system implementation in a medical practice.  That resulted in her getting an amazing employee who is now her right hand, who manages all things not “cosmetic” related.  She also decided to engage my service, and our work focuses on building a strategic mindset, as well as communication and leadership, which were not her strength.  Recently, she opened her second clinic and we are now making plans for expansion into Brisbane.

If you know that you would like to better your business, and you’d like to do that without throwing money away making solitary decisions, then hiring a business coach may be your best investment.

The post The Truth About Business Coaching first appeared on Leader House.

Investing in your leadership qualities can generate huge benefits.  Not only do you experience higher self-esteem and genuine satisfaction from your work, but so will your team members. The success of your business will, of course, be the real icing on the cake for everyone.

See the ‘qualities of a good leader’ and ‘an effective team’ below, but first I’ll cover the qualities of a ‘bleeding team’ and ‘an ineffective leader’.  Which camp do you see yourself and your team in?

Qualities of an ineffective team (bleeding team)

• Low morale
• Time wastage
• Work duplication
• Unproductive
• Conflict
• Blame game
• “I/me” focused rather than team and company focused
• Low quality work
• Lacking initiative
• Fearful
• Tired

Qualities of an ineffective leader

• Indecisive
• Disorganized
• Micro-manager
• Ego driven
• Unapproachable
• Authoritative
• Task focused
• Divisive
• Short-sighted
• Poor listener
• Emotionally disconnected

Qualities of a good leader

1.     Outcomes focused

People are all different and while many may want details on ‘how’ to generate the outcomes, a lot of self-motivated people will want to adapt and work out the best ways for them to reach the desired outcomes.  Being a leader who focuses on the outcomes and allows your team to work out the best way to get there allows team members to become creative, explorative and adaptive.  This leads to greater satisfaction for team members.

2.     Strategic

Being strategic in leadership requires the ability to plan for long term growth while maintaining short-term financial stability.

3.     Inspiring

A good leader is able to inspire passion within their team.  It is not enough to just be passionate as a leader, a good leader is able to inspire the whole team to similarly feel and enact on the passion for the business vision and mission.

4.     Effective communicator

A good leader is an effective communicator.  You’ll be an active listener, be generous with your time and be present, build trust and rapport – relationships, be clear and succinct, good at asking questions and providing feedback and most of all, be empathetic.

5.     Emotionally intelligent

Emotional intelligence is one of the most important qualities of a good leader.  Most successful leaders are skilled in this area.

Emotional intelligence is about having personal awareness around your own emotions and behaviour and having the self-management skills to positively manage your behaviour and tendencies.  It also includes social awareness around other people’s moods, behaviours and motives and being able to respond effectively to improve those relationships.

This article gives a good overview of important habits of highly emotionally intelligent people.

6.     Highly organised and systematic

Systems are essential for time, quality and efficiencies management.  They save time and provide for continual improvement and updating.  Without them, you’ll be continually covering old ground and fail to move forward.

As a leader, you’ll be in high demand.  Managing your time and being highly organised around your tasks is imperative.  Otherwise, you will be thrown from one fire to the next and drift away from your most high value and strategic tasks that you should be focused on.

7.     Consistent

A good leader maintains consistency around actions and behaviours within the business and relationships.  This is particularly important when dealing with individual team members.  All team members are treated the same – consistently.

8.     Has an open door policy

A good leader is approachable.  An open-door policy is essential for team mentoring, skill-building, systems improvements and relationships.  A good leader is also mindful of how to manage their open-door policy, so it doesn’t interfere with their own productivity.

9.     Confident

Being seen as confident provides a calming effect on your team.  You may not always feel confident, but your team needs to feel that you are.

A confident leader is decisive and even if those decisions turn out to be wrong decisions, you’ll confidently admit to your mistake and go about making new decisions to move forward.

Building self-confidence will help you become a more confident leader.

10.  Informed

As a good leader, you’ll stay up to date with facts and information and feed it through to your team.

If you are demonstrating the qualities above, then you are an effective leader and your team should reflect the qualities of an effective team, below.

Qualities of an effective team

When your team is no longer running around leaking time, chasing their tail, unsure of their role, etc. they become a much more effective team and these are the qualities that you can expect them to be demonstrating:

• Proactive
• Collaborative
• Confident
• Supportive
• Productive
• Motivated

How do you shape us a leader?

After assessing yourself and your team against the qualities outlined for a bleeding team, an ineffective leader, an effective team and the qualities of a good leader, how do you stack up? Where could you focus to improve your qualities of a good leader?

If you are unsure and would like more information on becoming a better leader, please contact us.

The post What Type Of Leader Are You? first appeared on Leader House.

As leaders, our primary task is to ensure that the team is performing at it’s best.  That way, the results are achieved for the team members and for the club, household or business.  Simple right!? Of course not, as most leaders know, this is a challenging journey that requires the combination of technical, emotional, logical and spiritual skills in order to achieve high performance. 

Before I continue further, let’s define the main term here, High Performing Teams (HPT).  What does that look like? To keep it simple, let me bullet point some of the characteristics of a HPT, and you can then gauge whether your team is ticking the boxes;

• Communication flows easily and openly
• Goals and targets are clear and often met
• Values and beliefs are shared, and commonly agreed
• Trust and support is felt by all
• Conflict is accepted and resolved without toxicity or damage
• Acceptable behaviour is agreed and respected
• Non negotiable deliverables are set and respected
• Self-regulating and autonomous behaviour is the norm
• A strong feeling of energy, creativity and positivity is present
• Everyone is accessing their strengths, and getting training to overcome their weaknesses
• There is an excellent balance between technical and emotional intelligence
• Leadership traits are based on mutual encouragement rather than dominance

As you read this list, your either thinking “great, we’ve got this” or your now calling someone to get some help.  Because without these characteristics, the goals and outcomes you desire as a leader, business owner or parent, are going to be very hard to achieve.  

And here’s the interesting part readers, most business owners and leaders focus on targets, skills, tasks and processes.  Many companies fail to train their leaders on this subject matter, and choose instead to focus on training which relates to product output, rather than human behaviour. A 2016 Gallup poll found a shocking 82% of executives aren’t very good at leading people. Gallup estimated that this lack of leadership capability costs corporations up to $550 billion annually.  The good news is, the solution is simple.  Focus on having a training program within your organisation or even for yourself which teaches you about leadership and how to create high performing team members.

To give you a little head start, here are some of the techniques I train the leaders that work with me or how to create a HPT culture.  Through workshops I run, and through the one on one Effortless Leadership Program , I teach them the following;

• Understand how people create reality and interpret events differently
• Learn the different ways people communicate 
• Learn about emotional intelligence 
• Master influential body language 
• Be aware of what rapport actually means 
• Create a coaching culture within your organisation 
• Have several simple goal setting and decision making models that you use consistently with your team
• Communicate in a manner which is Towards goals rather than Away from issues 
• Implement systems and techniques for conflict resolution and trust creation
• Getting buy-in for your ideas and strategies
• Building relationships based on helping others grow and develop 
• How to get consensus on targets and non-negotiable deliverables

Quite often, when they begin, the leaders feel anxious and often fearful of their role.  Even experienced business owners and managers will express that they hate being the boss or leader.  They feel it’s lonely, unappreciated and grinding work. Once they learn, implement and master these behaviours, they find that achieving goals and targets becomes easy and enjoyable.  They become energised because they are no longer trying to get people to do something. Instead they are helping those around them find their strengths and develop fuller and happier lives at work and at home.  Let’s face it, we all perform at our peak when we can see how it makes our lives better right?

The post High Performing Teams first appeared on Leader House.