Executive Coaching: Bringing Out Greater Leadership

Everyone has had the experience of being a follower. Everyone. Because from the time you were a tiny toddler you were a follower of the adults around you. It’s inescapable and universal.

However, seldom do people get training for being a manager, an executive, a leader until they’ve been hired and/or promoted into that position for the first time. That’s one of the reasons executive coaching is utilized more and more by companies and by individuals themselves.

One of the universal drawbacks presented by executive coaching clients, whether in the United States or around the world, is their difficulty with owning their actual and rightful qualities and talents. Routinely people underestimate or downplay their:

  • intelligence
  • creativity
  • achievements
  • ability to manage groups
  • speaking ability
  • capacity to influence
  • and more....

So, what kind of leader will someone be who is leading from behind, doubting their own abilities or at best underestimating them?

Obviously not nearly as good as they can be when they have the encouragement and guidance to explore the causes of their misguided, diminishing self-appraisals.

Most often these unconscious holdbacks, beliefs that are far out of everyday awareness, are caused by:

  • inaccurate information about intelligence in general
  • inaccurate comparisons with others that position themselves as inferior
  • bestowal onto others of undeserved excellence
  • beliefs in modesty, humility, and downplaying rank
  • concern about becoming arrogant and acting superior
  • worry that advancing professionally will finally reveal their "true" lack of value
  • and more....

Living with these false assessments and beliefs about themselves, countless leaders suffer from confusion about what they actually want from and for their careers. They are constantly on guard and routinely fearful that they will be "found out" and are seen by others as tense, uptight, and anxious. As long as they live inside the relentless belief in less-than-ness neither praise nor promotion has the power to contradict their deeply ingrained illusions.

This is why addressing topical leadership skills rarely addresses the true problem. Without the confidence and wisdom to know how to help the executive coaching client explore and investigate and ultimately leave behind false beliefs about themselves, they can only patch together a collection of devices and strategies rather then grow into the true leader they can and want to become.

As a leader, ask yourself this question:

*** How well do you OWN your ability to manage, inspire, motivate, and promote the people who work for and with you?

As you explore this issue of ownership, become aware of any niggling beliefs that want to take you down. Where did they come from? Why do you still let them influence you? Who would you be if you betrayed them and claimed your true leadership?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Photo: Kristian Sekulic / Getty Images

*****

Judith Sherven, PhD and her husband Jim Sniechowski, PhD http://JudithandJim.com have developed a penetrating perspective on people’s resistance to success, which they call The Fear of Being Fabulous. Recognizing the power of unconscious programming to always outweigh conscious desires, they assert that no one is ever failing—they are always succeeding. The question is, at what? To learn about how this played out in the life of Whitney Houston, check out their 6 book: http://WhatReally KilledWhitneyHouston.com

Contributors to the Huffington Post and currently working as consultants on retainer to LinkedIn providing executive coaching, leadership training and consulting as well as working with private clients around the world, they continually prove that when unconscious beliefs are brought to the surface, the barriers to greater success and leadership presence begin to fade away. They call it Overcoming the Fear of Being Fabulous http://OvercomingtheFearofBeingFabulous.com

Dr. Stan Turbeville

Marketer | Educator | Servant Leader | Data Analytics Fan | Life-long Learner

10y

Most are leaders simply because of position and nothing more. I very much agree as I have seen very few real leaders in my lifetime. It is very unfortunate.

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Dr.RATNESHWAR PRASAD SINHA

ARS Group's Of Company-owned PATRON/CMD/CEO at ARS Group's Of Company CAIIB,FRM,GARP

10y

i like it

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Darlene Zangara, Ph.D., LPC

Executive leader. Advocate. Coach. Consultant. Trainer

10y

Do you own your qualities? Great read!

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