The Leader and The Coach

Being one-hundred percent human has been the state of being for organizational leaders and their teams for all time. Despite this obvious and undeniable fact, humanness as a principal factor in leadership has historically not been the top priority.

Seeing and hearing team members as wholly human is not only relevant to talent attraction and retention but is an asset which astute and courageous leaders can leverage for improving communication, bettering collaboration, enhancing creativity, and achieving greater prosperity.

In this book, explore these opportunities from the perspectives of a leader and a coach of leaders. We believe that the leaders with traditional skills who add skill in one-on-one coaching, can create powerful transformations for individuals, teams, and whole organizations. To help their team members increase their contributions, leaders must first embrace these more humanistic skills themselves. Simply put, the best leaders must infuse their leadership with some feeling.

A McKinsey study, including 18,000 people in 15 countries, addressed the question of how workers might "future-proof" their skills and attitudes to be more valuable today and tomorrow. Several of the specific skills identified were in the realm of exhibiting greater humanity in the workplace. Some of them included, being empathetic, inspiring trust, showing humility, and offering more sociability in the "work" context.[1] The findings also concluded that skills relating to inclusiveness, collaboration, empowerment, conflict resolution, and coaching are needed for contributing greater value..

Whether a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a local hardware store, an executive director of a non-profit or the president of a school board, a Girl Scout volunteer leader or a high school sports coach, a pastor or parent, or coaching one-the time has come for new approaches in developing the people and culture for which leaders are responsible.
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[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/defining-the-skills-citizens-will-need-in-the-future-world-of-work The research identified a set of 56 foundational skills that "will benefit all citizens and showed that higher proficiency in them is already associated with a higher likelihood of employment, higher incomes, and job satisfaction."