Spiral Dynamics in Coaching

Spiral Dynamics Integral

An explanation of Spiral Dynamics Integral (SDi) courtesy of Clare Graves, Don Beck, & Ken WIlber. A must read for those involved in human development work.



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Unleashing Leadership - Leadership Self Actualisation - Feedback from participants

Hi there.

Jay here.

At the heart of The Coaching Room's corporate offering is our "Unleashing Leadership - Leadership Self Actualisation" program.

Below is some participant feedback from our recent programs. If you would like to speak with any of our clients about their experience, we would like you respect their privacy and make contact through us.


Naomi Brugger, Griffith City Council

I just wanted to pass on my gratitude to you & Joseph for the session in Griffith. I am dreaming about the training every night & can't stop thinking about it during the day! I even went to the library today & got The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell & have promised myself that I will read 2 chapters at minimum per day.

It's been a long time since I have been this excited, enthusiastic & inspired when it comes to work - and the first time I have felt that I have the ability & confidence to inspire & positively influence my team - thank you both for giving that to me.

I hope to have the opportunity to work with you both again and until then, here's one last thank you!

Peter Craig, Griffith City Council

Excellent program! I owe Jay and Joseph for a life changing experience

Cristal Davies, Executive Officer, Newcastle Airport Limited

I thoroughly enjoyed the program, thanks so much for my new found self belief as a leader. Priceless!


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Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong | Video on TED.com

This is a wonderful talk on the vulnerability of be OK with being wrong. In our view it is an essential for the new leader to be able to embrace their humanity and surrender to their vulnerability. This video is well worth the time.



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Do you need a Leadership or Executive Coach?

Do you really need a coach?

By Joseph Scott of The Coaching Room

The 'why work with a coach?' question is most often (in my view) driven by the frame of reference of 'what can a coach do that I can’t do by myself?'.

Well, my view is this, if you can be and do the following 7 things with and by yourself, you don't need a coach.

However, if you cannot do all of the following, and you want to ‘be or do’ things differently, be better, move to a higher place or move faster etc. Then I suggest you get yourself a coach. Take a look!

The 7 things a coach can facilitate that you my not currently be able to do, be or see. Can you:

1. Hear and detect your own limiting beliefs? These are the beliefs that hold you back from achieving your potential. Can you hear and understand the distortions in your own self talk that leash you to your current reality?

2. See and understand your own (self-reflexive) consciousness as you create (positive and) toxic frames of mind from which you deal with reality? Can you master them so that you can self-author your own life story, over the one you’ve inherited from others?

3. Apply actual change to your life that is systemic and lasting?

4. Hold yourself fully accountable to empirical benchmarks of performance and development?

5. Engage yourself in actualising your own development, across recognised psychological aspects of self, to live and operate at better states and stages of being?

6. Perform your meanings and mean your performances, as you realise and release your innate propulsion (motivation) system toward achieving your fullest potentials?

7. Ask yourself a range of simple questions that allow you to live beyond scarcity & deficiency, into a place of giving and abundance?

If you can say yes to the above, YOU DON’T NEED A COACH.

If you cannot say yes to all the above, and self development, transformation and performance both personally and professionally are important to you and you intend this… Then my advice is to GET A COACH!.

If you already have a coach and with your coach, you are not experiencing the above, GET A DIFFERENT COACH.

For more information on how The Coaching Room can help you, your team or your organisation, call us on 1300 858 089 or use our handy contact form. We’ll call you back quickly, listen to your needs and together work through what we can do to help you get what you need or want.

3 minute Leadership Coaching Video

It's not what you expect!

It's about Leadership and how you lead.



Cheers Jay

Wil Smith on Leadership, Talent and Success

The video below is a powerful, yet simple expose on Leadership, Talent and Success by Wil Smith (actor).

For me this is Leadership.



Jay

Women in Leadership Breakfasts - WIL You Lead

Hey Jay here,

Recently I took on a new partner in The Coaching Room business. I did this because I realised some time ago that I couldn't build a world class business on my own. I would, will and do need help from others. I found a meeting of the minds when I met Joseph Scott years ago and after working together for the past 6 months, over the recent Xmas break, we decided to take The Coaching Room to next Level.

In our conversations (during that time) we discussed who we would 'love' to work with going forward as we built the business. What came out of our conversation was the birth of an idea, of a passion, that resides deep within both of us. We love working with Women Leaders!

70% of our preferred clients are women. Women make more personable, powerful, insightful and elegant leaders.

There is an imbalance of women to men in the role of Leader in the business world.

So from those thoughts and buoyed on by our existing clients, we developed the WIL breakfasts - in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart (and soon to be Brisbane).

If this excites you too - read on!

WIL YOU LEAD

Women in Leadership Breakfasts (Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart)

Women in Leadership (WIL) is a monthly breakfast meeting in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart created and sponsored by The Coaching Room.

Having coached Leaders in organisations for almost a decade, our experience of the opportunities (including support and networking opportunities) available to male and female Leaders has often seemed unfairly balanced toward the male Leaders.

It has been a concern at the forefront of The Coaching Room’s mind for quite sometime now, and so this year rather than just thinking about it, we have decided to do something about it.

We have created something that will provide Women in Leadership with a real and genuine space to develop deep and accelerated relationships with other like-minded women (also in Leadership positions), as well as the opportunity to grow, feel supported, learn, make friends and have fun, whilst making a difference for other Women in Leadership.

Add to this the support of our world-class Leadership coaches, and you have a very powerful opportunity for sustained Leadership growth.

Some of the intentions of the breakfast are:

· To provide a confidential and safe environment to be ourselves

· To recognise and have a voice for our Leadership opinion

· To gain vitality in our way of being as Leaders

· For everyone invited to connect, develop their Leadership capabilities, authenticity and friendship with other female CEOs and senior leaders in Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney (We will also be expanding to Brisbane over the coming months)

· For each of us to give of ourselves to those at the breakfast, in support of our Leadership growth, understanding and challenges

· For each of us to bring our challenges and successes - to share, so that others in the breakfast may celebrate with us and support us

· To have some timeout with like minded people in similar professional situations

· To make a stand for women in Leadership in what is a top heavy male dominated Leadership environment

· To connect us all in pursuit of Leadership excellence

This means:

· An opportunity to grow, to learn, share, smile and have fun in knowing and growing each other

· A sense of shared order and structure in our Leading

· That you will have the opportunity to actualize your leadership value as a human being

· That you get time in an informal setting with world-class leadership coaches aiming to give and add value to you

· You will learn from each other and we from you

· It will ultimately mean you will have a space in which to give and receive honour and dignity with leading colleagues

Timing and place:

· The breakfast will run once per month (on or close to) the same day each month

· Our first breakfast meeting in Sydney will be at 9:30 - 11am on Friday the 5th of March, 2010 at our offices at MLC - Level 57, MLC Centre, 19-29 Martin Place, Sydney.

· Our first breakfast meeting in Melbourne will be at 9:30 - 11am on Friday the 19th of February, 2010 at our offices in Collins St – Level 27, 101 Collins St Melbourne.

· Our second breakfast meeting in Hobart will be at 9:30 - 11am on the 17th February, at T42, Elizabeth Street Pier, Hobart Tasmania.

· This is a breakfast exclusively for Women in Leadership positions, those invited or that join us in the future will be mainly in the role of CEO of their company, in the process of becoming a CEO, or are in an explicit Leadership role within their organisation.

Energy:

Does the opportunity to be apart of this growing and exclusive group generate energy, motivation and intention within you?

If it does, and you are prepared to commit to being apart of this monthly breakfast meeting, we would love to have you join us. Our vision is to have 24 of us in the breakfast by mid 2010 (or sooner) and for those in the 'Women in Leadership' breakfast to significantly grow and show, develop and demonstrate what world-class Leading can achieve!

The Cost:

Your time and your commitment to 'give and to take' from this group.

The Coaching Room will be picking up the bill for your breakfast!

Next Steps:

The first WIL session will be intentionally small. We are doing this so that we can successfully set a positive framework to help us move forward more effectively.

To be part of this exclusive group, please reply by email to Jay Hedley (jay@thecoachingroom.com.au) or Joseph Scott (joseph.scott@thecoachingroom.com.au

Thanks, Jay

Leadership Development - Maintaining Balance Between Leading and Managing - A Leader's Article

Maintaining Balance Between Leading and Managing

by Dr. Mike Armour

It's increasingly common for companies to refer to everyone in management as a leader -- whether they genuinely function as leaders or not. In our last issue we looked at this trend and outlined a three-point litmus test to determine whether someone is truly a leader or merely a rechristened manager.

As we noted in that issue, we cannot fully separate leadership and management. Truly great leadership always includes a certain element of solid management. But from my experience and observation, it's a relatively easy matter for the management task to consume the leadership task. That is, we end up spending so much time on management that we no longer act as leaders.

The "Gotta Know" Test

So how do we avoid this pitfall? How do we keep from subverting the leadership task by spending too much time on the management task? And similarly, how do we keep from subverting the leadership task by spending too much time on the wrong management tasks?

The answer, obviously, is to maintain the proper balance between time given to management and time given to leadership. For me, finding that balance begins with this question: "How much do I feel compelled to be 'in the know' about everything that happens in my organization?"

The more intensely I feel a need to be 'in the know,' the more likely I am to devote too much of my energy to management functions. I will be spending too much time with my fingers in the pie. I will slowly gravitate from being a leader, because my focus is on management.

At lower levels of leadership it may be possible to lead well while also staying fully versed on what's happening below you. But the higher we climb on the leadership ladder, the less time we have to stay fully informed. This happens in part because our responsibility is so much broader that expanded duties simply take more time.

But there are also other contributing factors. Most of them relate to three decision-making realities that change as we move higher in leadership.

First, our decisions must focus on longer time horizons. Lower level managers rarely need to look more than a few weeks or a few months down the road. Upper management, however, must constantly anticipate what lies several years down the road.

Second, this longer time horizon means greater ambiguity in the data on which we base decisions. We must often rely as much on forecasts and estimates as on solid data, which adds to the difficulty of confident decision-making.

And third, our decisions have far greater collateral impact on people and corporate processes. We must develop a keen instinct for anticipating this impact and factoring it into our decisions.

The Leader's Management Priorities

All three of these changes greatly reduce the amount of time we have to be "fully up to date" on the details within the organization we head. Learning to feel comfortable without being fully "in the know" is the most difficult stretch for many leaders aspiring to senior executive positions. I work regularly with executives who are struggling with this very challenge. Here's what I tell them.

To begin with, your management energy should center almost entirely on three concerns:
Having the right processes in place.
Having the right controls on the processes.
Having the right people in charge of the controls.
Once you satisfy these three criteria, you can trust your organization to do the right thing and to do it consistently. Trust is the key. An obsessive need to be "in the know" usually points to deep-seated distrust. When we can trust the processes, the controls, and the people responsible for those controls, we can be at ease, even if we are not completely "in the know."

Which then leads to a corollary. When things go wrong, our management duty as leaders is not to fix the problem. If we have the right people in place, they have the know-how to fix the problem.

No, our task is to determine where the breakdown occurred. Was it a breakdown in one or more processes? Was it a breakdown in control? Or was there a miscue on the part of those who manage the controls? These should be our primary management concerns as leaders.

And again, once we have determined the nature of the breakdown, it's best if we let our people design and implement the fix. There are exceptions to this rule, to be sure, particularly where the fix entails personnel changes. But to the degree that we get drawn into fixing problems that others can handle, we are sacrificing precious time we need for the leadership task.

Reviewing the 'To-Do" List

Our first priority, then, is to put the proper processes, controls, and people in place. The second is to "stay out of the way." A massive list of "to do's" is often an indicator that we are becoming a bottle neck. When my to-do list starts mushrooming, I have to ask whether I'm injecting myself too deeply into the process. It's easy to do.

And it often happens insiduously, incrementally, over time. It may begin innocently enough with the identification of a problem and the guidance we give for overcoming it. The guidance should build around desired outcomes, not instruction on how to fix the problem. Too much "how-to" guidance is a step toward injecting ourselves into the process.

But another subtle trap is lurking at this point. Once we empower our people to find solutions to a problem, it's almost natural to say, "Just keep me informed." As leaders, of course, we need to be informed on the progress toward resolving problems in processes, controls, or interpersonal relationships.

But from "keep me informed" we typically move next to "run your solution by me before you put it in place," which easily turns into "be sure I sign off on the key steps before you implement them." Little by little, with the best of intentions, and always under the guise of having "empowered my people" to solve problems, we put ourselves in the middle of the process.

Sometimes, when the problem is considerably complex, when the solutions stretch our people to the outer limites of their experience or competence, or when the economic or political consequences are extremely high, we need to have "sign-off" as leaders. But when "my sign-off" becomes a routine part of a process, "my sign-off" is soon likely to be routine in multiple processes. I'm on the way to becoming a bottle neck.

So the key is to minimize the number of issues that need our sign-off, then ridding the process of my sign-off requirement as quickly as possible. Remember, one of our three critical tasks as a leader is to design good processes. And execessive dependence on "my sign-off" is carte blanche evidence that either our process is not good or that we do not have confidence in the controls and people we've put in place.

Copyright 2007 - Dr Mike Armour
Used with permission and respect.

Leadership Development and Executive Coaching