A few months ago I wrote an article with this title to summarise the results of a survey about leadership development pre and post recession. I was talking about it last week with a colleague and I realised that this statement is more broadly reflective of my philosophy on leadership coaching, and that I have some energy to say more about it.
Coaches often describe their coaching as transformative, developmental, performance improving, or whatever. But I wonder whether these categories make sense to business leaders. Do they want to set out to transform themselves? Or just to develop a little bit? And what is the disctinction between this and performance improvement as a leader? My frustration with all these terms is that they can make coaching seem like something for when you're not under too much pressure. Which, of course, is when it may actually be of most value.
I find it much simpler to see all coaching as about "being the best you can be right now". That is about recognising when you are at your best and increasing awareness of how unconscious beliefs, emotions and thoughts can make you less than your best in some contexts. Often it is also about bringing more of yourself (your whole self) to your leadership. Which is usually performance improving, even if you are performing well. And over a period will be developmental as the increased awareness and self-management becomes habitual. And will become transformational if it leads to breaking the hold of previous habitual patterns.
In the drive to classify and control coaching as a developmental tool, we may have missed a key point, which is that for leaders, just like for top sportsman, coaching may be most valuable at those crunch times when the pressure is most intense.
