Executive Coaching Books: THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE

A Must Have Book For Executive Coaching

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE is one of those very few “must have” executive coaching books for aspiring managers and leaders, irrespective of their background. It may now appear dated, given its nearly 30 years since it was published, but at its heart is a modern concept – that human beings are driven by subjective internal values and determined by external principles. Covey sets his seven habits on the premise that given there are enough resources to share with all, then there are benefits of pooling and sharing successes and recognition, and by sharing those successes and recognition it will in turn bring in more successes and more recognition.

Seven Habits Helps Combat The Overworked As Much As The Under Successful

“I’ve set and met my career goals and I ’m having tremendous professional success. But it’s cost me in personal and family life. I don ‘t know my wife and children any more. I’m not even sure I know myself and what’s really important to me. I’ve had to ask myself – is it worth it?”

“There’s so much to do. And there‘s never enough time. I feel pressured and hassled all day, every day, seven days a week. I’ve attended time management seminars and I’ve tried half a dozen different planning systems. They’ve helped some, but l still don’t feel I’m living the happy, productive, peaceful life I want to live. ”

Inside Out

In response to such sentiments, Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People defines powerful principles for joyful, effective living. His book is saturated with advice on leadership, life management and relationships, all centred around the “inside-out” concept — behaviour is learned, it is not instinctive. Old habits can be discarded and replaced by new and more effective habits.

Until 1930 or so, most success literature was based on the Character Ethic – the belief that there are basic principles of effective living and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they integrate these principles into their lives.

Then shortly after World War 1, the central view of success shifted from the Character Ethic to the Personality Ethic. Success became a function of persona, of public image, of positive attitudes and behaviours, human-relations skills and techniques.

The Personality Ethic is still in wide favour today. And adherents often do find temporary help by practicing these techniques, but sooner or later most realise that the underlying obstacles to happiness still persist.

Paradigms

A paradigm is a model or graph of the way we “see” the world – in terms of perceiving, understanding, and interpreting. A paradigm can be compared to a map. Improving behaviour, doubling your effort, or thinking more positively would have no effect if you were given a map of Chicago and asked to find an address in Los Angeles. The frustrations you would face would have nothing to do with behaviour or attitude: they would arise out of having the wrong map.
When principles — fundamental values, like fairness, integrity, human dignity and service – are internalized into habits, they empower people to formulate a wide variety of practices to deal with different situations. This involves developing an “inside-out” paradigm – maps and models generated of both the way things really are and the way we want them to be – then following the maps and living the models. We cannot change all situations, but we can change ourselves — inside-out.

Before detailing his seven habits, Covey quotes Ezra Taft Benson’s words on the need for inner, spiritual training: “The Lord works from the inside-out. The world works from the outside-in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums… The world would shape human behaviour, but Christ can change human behaviour.”

HABIT 1: Be Proactive (Initiative)

Four main characteristics separate humans from animals: imagination, conscience, independent will, and self-awareness. In humans there is an interval between stimulus and response; we have the freedom to choose, not just to react. Being proactive means making this conscious “choice to choose”; being responsible for our own lives; taking the initiative; acting instead of being acted upon. Proactivity empowers us to create circumstances. Effective people truly lead their lives. instead of saying, “It’s hopeless,” they say, “Let’s look at the alternatives.” Instead of, “If only . . . ” they say, “I will.” Each of us possesses a circle of concern, which includes our state of health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. . . It is apparent that we have a great deal of control over some of these concerns and very little influence over others. The events we do have control over constitute our circle of influence. Proactive people focus their time and energy on their circle of influence — those things they can do something about.

HABIT 2: Begin With the End in Mind (Creativity)

All successful endeavours are created twice. There’s a first, mental or spiritual creation, and a second, physical creation to all things. For example, if you were going to build a home, you wouldn’t simply start hammering away. You would look at your budget, carefully plan what you wanted in the house, make a blueprint, and then develop construction plans. The same is true with parenting. If you want to raise responsible, self-disciplined children, you have to keep that end clearly in mind as you daily interact with your children. Effective leaders envision what they want and how to get it. They habitually pick priorities stemming from their basic values. In our personal lives, if we do not develop self-awareness and become responsible for our own “first creations,” we empower other people and circumstances to shape our lives by default. Living “by default,” we merely react to the scripts given to us by our family, associates, et al.

HABIT 3: Put First Things First (Productivity)

Habit 3 sparks the second, physical creation that fulfills habits 1 and 2. It entails the idea of management, or using our four human endowments self-awareness, imagination, conscience and will) to accomplish important things. In a time-management matrix, there are four quadrants”:
Quadrant 1 includes the affairs that are urgent and important — crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects. We react quickly to urgent matters’. However, if we focus on Quadrant l, the urgent list tends to get bigger and bigger and we seem to go from one crisis to the next.
Quadrant 3 includes matters that are urgent but not important — some interruptions, phone calls and meetings. Many people spend much of their time reacting to things they deem urgent, assuming that they are also important. Quadrant 4 consists of activities that are not urgent and not important such as busy work and some recreation. These could be thought of as the ‘escape” portions of our lives.
Quadrant 2 is at the heart of effective personal management. It deals with concerns that are important but not urgent – building relationships, long-range planning, exercising . . . things we know we should do but seldom get around to actually doing. “Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, more proactivity. We must act to seize opportunity, to make things happen.” We become Quadrant 2 persons by learning to say no, by defining our roles in life, and by deciding what we want to accomplish in each of these roles.

HABIT 4: Think Win/Win (Interdependence)

Win / Win thinking is a frame of mind that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions — agreements or solutions that are satisfying to all involved. Most people are inclined to think in terms of competitive dichotomies: strong or weak, win or lose. But Win/ Win thinking centres on the paradigm that there is plenty for everybody, and that one person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of another person.

HABIT 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood (Empathy)

Suppose you’ve been having trouble with your eyes and you go to an optometrist. After listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you: “I’ve worn these glasses for years now and they’ve really helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can wear these.” Would you thank him for his generosity? In the communications process, how often do we prescribe before we diagnose? We have a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with “good advice,” but without deep understanding. Habit 5 involves fostering the habit of empathic listening – making deposits in the other person’s “emotional bank. ‘ account“ by sincere validation and appreciation.

HABIT 6: Synergize (Valuing Differences)

“Synergy” implies that the whole is greater than the sum of its Parts. Synergistic Communication begins with the assumption that cooperating individuals will share insights and open their minds and hearts. Then, if of all parties are valued, momentum will build and new alternatives will emerge where there were only roadblocks before.

HABIT 7: Sharpen the Saw (Consistency)

Habit 7 entails preserving, renewing and enhancing the greatest asset you have – you. It enables you to move on an upward spiral of growth.

Formulate a personal programme to keep in balance the four dimensions of your nature – physical, spiritual, mental and social / emotional. To do this, again begin with Habit 1 – be proactive. Taking the time to regularly “sharpen the saw” is a definitive Quadrant II activity.

The physical dimension of saw-sharpening involves caring effectively for your body – eating the right foods, and getting sufficient res, relaxation and exercise.

The spiritual dimension gives direction to our life. Find inner peace through daily prayer, meditation, reading from scripture, communing with nature, or habitually immersing yourself in great literature or music. Get up early (“mind over mattress”) and live in harmony with the “still small voice” within you.

The mental dimension is central to life-long development. Education is a vital source of mental rejuvenation. Sometimes it requires the external discipline of the classroom or a systemized home study program; often it does not.

The social/emotional dimension embraces Habits 4, 5, and 6, which centre on the principles of ‘ interpersonal leadership, empathic communications, and creative co-operation. This dimension is developed through service to others and self-discipline.

View of Life with Seven Habits

The inside-out, upward spiral, self-renewal concepts of Seven Habits revolve around becoming more self-aware. Only by knowing ourselves can we choose high purposes and principles to live by and find similar unity in our relationships with others. Developing the seven habits won’t eliminate mistakes from our lives, Covey insists, but it will make us more able people. To quote Emerson: “That which we persist in doing becomes easier — not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do his increased. ” And habits centred on correct principles can increase our ability to live peaceful, harmonized, loving, effective lives.

Setting SMART Objectives In Executive Coaching

Objectives Are Important In Executive Coaching

Setting objectives for oneself and with your coach are important in Executive Coaching. It sets out what both parties accept, what they will deliver together, what they will need,  and how long it will take to deliver. Setting the objectives early allows for a clearer executive coaching contract between the coachee / client and the executive coach.

Clear objectives also help reduce any potential complication that might arise where the coachee is not the client, that is to say where the executive coach is being paid by the company of the coachee. The company of the coachee wants to be clear what it is getting for its investment in executive coaching, and evidence from academic studies, show that having clear objectives result in higher Return On Investment (ROI) from executive coaching.

What are SMART objectives

When setting objectives, a good reference tool is the acronym SMART, standing for Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic & Relevant, Time bound

Specific

The objectives need to be Specific. Make the objectives pinpoint clear on what success looks like.

Measurable

The objectives need to be Measureable. Make the objectives clear enough that success can clearly be proven to have been achieved. Set out how it will be measured.

Ambitious

The objectives need to be Ambitious. The objectives need to be stretching from the current behaviour or current attitude, otherwise there won’t be growth

Realistic and Relevant

The objectives need to be Realistic and Relevant.

If the objectives are too ambitious without any realism, then the objectives won’t be achieved, and the objectives will probably kill the will power of the coachee, as they will feel the objectives will never be met, so what is the point of the coaching sessions.

The objectives also need to be Relevant, as if they are irrelevant, then the objectives being alien to the coachee / client, and undermine their motivation for change.

Time Bound

The objectives need to be Time Bound. The objectives need to clearly state when the objectives should be achieved so the objectives don’t drag on and so we can focus on a deadline.

SMART Meaning Debate

Different people use different elements for the acronym. We’ve seen Ambitious become Achievable, or Time Bound to be Trackable. These are perfectly valid and depend upon the individual concerned. Our interpretation of SMART allows us to focus our executive coaching sessions

Executive Coaching SMART Objective Examples

The following are hypothetical examples of Executive Coaching. We are governed by our Executive Coaching Code of Ethics, which sets out the importance of confidentiality with our coachees.

  • By the end of the third coaching session, be confident in asking challenging questions to peers and senior leaders who do not adhere to clear and agreed company policies and procedures.
  • To develop a commercial strategy for the business, which the business commits to and executes with pace, by having collective agreement by 31st July 2016.
  • To develop a clear pathway for my business, which sets out a vision for the next 3 years by the end of February 2018, and motivates my employees and stakeholders.

Change Management

What is Change Management?

The clue is in the name…Change Management is about helping people, groups or organisations change. The “change” may be something small, such as a different supplier of certain goods through to a huge change such as an acquisition or a reorganisation. Whatever the change, the impact of dealing with that change can have an impact on an organisation’s performance.

What is Change?

Change is a process we all have to go through at some points in our life, sometimes it is forced upon us and sometimes we actively want to make a change. In fact for some people change is seemingly constant.

At the heart of change are two things…

First a motivation to change, a reason to move from the current to the new. Without that motivation, whether at an individual level or across an organisation, change will simply not happen. And the motivation to change has to be real and held by all those involved. It requires clear communication & absolute alignment.

There are a number of change management tools that can help not only find and understand the reason to change, but also to gain alignment across the organisation.

Secondly, the ability to change. The ability to change is having the skills, behaviours, attitudes, beliefs required for the change to happen and also the confidence in being able to apply those changes.

Without both simultaneously, change will not happen, and the organisation will flounder through that change.

How Can We Help Your Organisation Through Change?

We can help you or your organisation through a change by helping develop a detailed and effective change management programme.

In addition, sometimes specific individuals or roles in an organisation require more support during a period of change.  Executive Coaching is especially effective in helping support individuals through a period of change as the rapport in the coaching relationship allows clients to safely explore the challenges and opportunities in the new and changed organisation.

Join the dozens of others who have called us to find out more on how we could help you change.

Leadership Training

“Leadership is a lot like love. Everyone thinks it is special but hardly anyone agrees on a definition”

No Universal Theory Of Leadership

The lack of leadership definition in the research fields of social science such as politics, management, psychology and sociology mean that developing a universal model for training leadership is currently impossible.

Leadership Cannot Be Taught

Unfortunately leadership is not a skill that can be simply learned and taught unlike a musical instrument. Instead, as executive coaches we support leaders to develop not only the leadership skills but also the knowledge & confidence in applying those skills to specific circumstances.

As executive coaches from one of Europe’s leading business schools, we are familiar not only with the various theories of leadership but also, more importantly, in the application of those theories in an organisational context.

Develop Leadership Potential

Our aim as executive coaches it to support our clients’ needs in developing their leadership potential with a client centred approach to leadership training.  This means we see our clients as individuals and help them assess their own needs for leadership training and work with them to develop leadership skills.  We work with them, helping them develop their own leadership solutions and help them develop their own responsibility for their own leadership training.

As executive coaches, we use a number of techniques in supporting our clients in their leadership training.  We highlight books that may be appropriate for clients.  We summarise leadership theories and their results (we also discuss these on our blog).  We rehearse different leadership styles which may be new for some clients. We work with clients for them to see how different leadership styles & skills may affect their team and wider organisation. We work with clients to see their leadership training as less of a destination and more of a journey.

Join the dozens of clients who have developed their leadership training with us by using the contact form opposite.

Executive Coaching = CPD

How does Executive Coaching and CPD work together?

Executive coaching provides a powerful framework for personal development, and as a subset of personal development, continuous professional development (CPD).

CPD is a fantastic resource to keep on top of the leading thinking & innovations in your field. However CPD is wasted if you are not looking at implementing the thinking and innovations back into your business and also developing yourself to become a leader in your field.

Combine A Wide Range of CPD With Executive Coaching

Executive coaching is an ally to traditional CPD methods and it counts towards your points as well. We recommend using a combination of traditional CPD with courses, complimented with executive coaching to help drive your own performance and your organisation’s performance.

Unlike the traditional classroom style events of CPD, executive coaching offers you the flexibility to bring your own experience coupled with the new ideas & innovations of CPD together to form an implementation strategy, whilst also giving you the confidence in your own ability to take the strides necessary to bring this strategy to life.

Maximise Value From Your CPD

Executive coaching offers your company an opportunity to get full value out of your CPD, by allowing you the time to consider how to apply what you have learnt through CPD and keep in the vanguard of your industry.

Flexible and Personalised CPD

Executive coaching allows you the flexibility to tailor your CPD to your needs, whether it be about a particular work challenge, helping your team learn & develop through comprehensive & bespoke training, developing your teams’ leadership or developing your career through personal development.

Accredited CPD Provider

One of our Executive Coaches, William Harte is now an accredited CPD coach and by working with him you can gain CPD credits from your coaching sessions. Please contact him for more details.

Learning and Development

What is Learning and Development?

Learning & Development (L&D) is the strategic ability to grow the overall organisation’s capability and therefore its competitive advantage.

Learning & Development starts by seeking out what the capability is required for the organisation to meet its strategic objective and the current level of organisational capability.

Capability Review

From this strategic capability review, a capability framework can be drawn up for key roles in the organisation and individual’s matched to this capability framework.   By doing this, it enables the organisation to understand what capability is required by each role and the current level of capability in each role, and most importantly, what action needs to be taken should there be a capability gap, that is to say where the organisation requires a higher capability than currently in role.

The learning & development function is focussed on understanding the current & future capability and the level of skill enhancement that is required by role.

The learning & development function will offer a range of different interventions to enable capability to meet the strategic requirements including training and coaching of incumbents and any future internal candidates.  The L&D function may also look to recruit specifically to fill strategic capability gaps.

Value of Experiential Learning and Development

According to a study by Sir John Whitmore, experiential learning & development is more than six times effective than traditional classroom style “tell” learning, learning & development functions focus on training that is more experience & on the job focus, such as executive coaching.

So to ensure your Learning & Development programmes are fully experiential, consider using executive coaching as one of the key elements in you L&D toolkit.

Join the dozens of other clients who have contacted us about L&D by completing and submitting the form to the right.

 

Leadership Development

Leadership is important to organisations and high quality leadership, both in organisations and also in society at large, seems to be rare. Developing leadership is a strategic imperative for most organisations.

Leadership Development Requirements

Developing leadership is not simply about dressing differently (taking off the overalls and putting on a suit and tie) or reading some leadership books.  The real development is in the client’s understanding of what it means to be a leader: what it means to be a leader in my organisation; what it means to my team to be a leader; what it means in my team to be a leader; what it means to me as an individual to be a leader and how can I be a leader within my own boundaries of morals, ethics and definition of my own personality.  Rarely do books prescribe solutions to such ponderous statements.

Developing leadership is far from straightforward, it is challenging and it takes time.  It requires time & energy to understand the personal psychological aspects of developing the appropriate leadership behaviours.  Furthermore it requires the ability to be aware of others, their needs from a leader, and how a potential leader can meet those needs.

Leadership Development Through Executive Coaching

Leadership development is frequently the focus for executive coaching, as the contextual element of leadership requires a strong awareness of the context and the most appropriate leadership style & behaviour for that situation. Coaching by its very nature helps to build the awareness of the context and situation, helping the client develop their own authentic leadership for a range of different contexts, and supporting the individual through the change of developing into a leader..

Executive coaching is positively engaging with the aspiring leader to help them understand where they are in the leadership development, what changes they want to achieve to become a better leader and support them through their leadership development. Quite simply, as experienced executive coaches we take the time to support the developing leader to understand all the complex parts to become a leader and support them in becoming an authentic and credible leader in their organisation.

Contact us to start your leadership development today.

Leadership Skills

Leadership skills are an integral part of developing leadership. Unfortunately there is no such thing as a universal set of leader traits or skills that will be optimal in all organisations and situations. Far more important than learning the skills of leadership is the application of those skills into the specific environment, as the fit of those skills with the context seems to be the best indicator of leadership success (see our blog as to why all the available research only seems to indicate the importance of fit between context and skill)

Characteristics and Trait Theories of Leadership

Early trait theories of leadership highlighted key personal qualities and characteristics that defined their leadership skills. Amongst those traits were a strong desire to influence others, ambitious and achievement orientated, persuasive, energetic, self-confident, decisive, diplomatic, assertive, adaptable, dependable and creative. Despite such an exhaustive list of skills & traits, researchers found that “the relative importance of each trait depended on the situation

Recently, leadership skills have begun to focus on the Big Five personality factors (OCEAN) of Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism and how they correlate with leadership effectiveness.  See our blog for more details on this interesting piece on correlations between leadership effectiveness and personality traits.

Others have found a relatively small number of widely supported characteristics of leadership skills, including high energy, good stress tolerance, self confidence, internal locus of control, emotional maturity, integrity, power motivation, achievement orientation, need for affiliation, technical skills, interpersonal skills and conceptual skills.

General Skills

Given that great leadership is about fitting the right leadership skills to the right environment there are a number of general skills that seem appropriate for a good leader to have… These include self awareness; interpersonal skills  (e.g. listening skills, assertiveness skills, empathy skills to be able to read other people, language skills to be able to clearly communicate, appropriately skilled in offering & receiving feedback); wider managerial skills (e.g. delegation skills, team-building skills, meeting skills, coping with diversity in the workplace, planning skills, decision making, project management, conflict management, cultural competence) and problem solving skills.

Learning specific skills will not make you a great leader, but focusing the right leadership skill for the right leadership environment will more than probably work.

Executive Coaching to Develop Leadership Skills

Executive coaching is a great way to develop not only the leadership skills but also how to apply different leadership skills to different and specific situations. Executive coaching helps you become aware of the different skills available to you, what skills are most suitable to you and your environment, an opportunity to practise those skills before applying them in the workplace.

Join the dozens of others who have developed their leadership skills by contacting us using the form opposite.

Leadership Styles

Leadership styles is a theory of leadership that looks at the broad characteristics of what it means to be a leader and the style of the leader.

Ground-breaking research at the beginning of World War II by Kurt Lewin highlighted three styles of leaders and sought to understand what was the most effective.

Three Leadership Styles

  • Authoritarian / autocratic leadership style is where the leader gives clear and explicit orders, with the followers have no input to the goals or way of working. They were told to just do it.
  • Democratic leadership style  is one where the leader seeks input from followers about goals and how to proceed, and then guides followers with little external structures
  • Laissez-faire leadership style is where the leader leaves the running of the group to the followers, taking a hands-off approach and all decisions are made by the followers.

Leadership Styles Outcomes

Extensive research indicated a different follower response and output, with autocratic leaders having the highest output as the followers worked hardest when the leader was present but skived off when the leader wasn’t there. The level of creativity was the lowest in an autocratic group. An autocratic leadership style may be preferable when quick, decisive action is required but less preferable when creative or sustained efforts are desired.

Self-motivation and responsibility were highest in the democratic style, with followers continuing to work even if the leader wasn’t present. The group may have been less productive but the quality of the work was higher, with the highest level of creativity. Morale was also very strong.

The least productive style is laissez faire, as groups tend not to work cohesively and the work is disorganised.
Further studies indicated that people prefer democratic or participative leadership during times of low stress but favour a more autocratic style during a crisis.

Leadership Styles Legacy

Leadership styles was the first theory to explore the behaviours & traits of leadership, which overtime began to be seen as inadequate in fully explaining the universal effectiveness of leadership, although it is useful to understand the “what” in leadership. Leadership styles theory starts to highlight that different leadership styles are most appropriate for different situations, which were explored in situational theories and contingency theories of leadership.

Leadership styles is a great introduction to the complex topic of leadership & management, something we discuss more in our blog, going into more detail about various leadership theories, biographies of leaders and leadership development.

Developing leadership is a challenge both for the organisation and for the individual, and since leadership is highly contextual, executive coaching offers the best opportunity to develop different leadership techniques for differing different environments.

Join the dozens of other clients who have contacted us to find out more how to develop their leadership skills by filling out the contact form on the right.

Leaders And Leadership

Are Leaders born or bred into Leadership? This ancient question is no closer to being answered, as there is no single, adequate, or universally accepted definition of the concept of leadership itself. This makes leadership hard to research and difficult to teach or evaluate in any logical way.

To recruit or train leaders?

And answering that question matters for organisations… if leadership is a quality that is born in some people, then resources should be spent on effective recruitment and selection rather than training. If leadership is a skill that can be learned, then training should be prioritised within the organisation. And can a leader who is trained in one industry or culture be an effective leader in another industry or culture, because if so then that has implications for recruitment & development of leaders in any organisation.

The smart money is on the interaction between nature & nurture – it is probably in the boundaries of being able to learn to be a leader but only if there is an innate desire to be a leader.

Anyone in an organisation can be a leader, irrespective of hierarchical position.  Countless times a day, every employee will display leadership in some form or other by influencing others in their group.

What Leadership Studies Show

Numerous studies have been conducted into the behaviours & traits of leaders, but there is no universal traits that will ensure good leadership across the spectrum of organisation contexts. Instead, it seems leadership – situation fit is key, by assessing the leadership demands of the specific organisational context and match them.

Not everyone is well suited to be a leader. In fact not everyone is interested in being a leader, being in front, providing the vision, energy, taking risks. Few people want to have others depend upon them relentlessly. As Steven Sample said “Many people want to be leader, but few want to do leader.  If you are in the latter group you should stay away from the leader business altogether.”

An important part to consider in Leaders & leadership is the role of the followers, and their behaviour towards the leader and the organisation.  Are the leaders’ followers clear on their role by following?

We devolve into more detail on a number of topics we raise here in our blog, discussing a number of theories & concepts or leadership, including leadership traits, situational leadership theory, contingency leadership theory, why leadership is less important than we probably think and biographies of famous leaders.

Since leadership is highly contextual, learning to be a leader is well suited to Executive Coaching as coaching allows you to develop different leadership skills and techniques, and work with a coach to understand what leadership skills and techniques would be more appropriate in which circumstances. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you develop your leadership skills.