With this question we usually get the spontaneous answer in the first conversation: „Yes, of course, I have found my leadership style.“ And due to time pressure and operational obligations, very few managers subject themselves to critical self-reflection. Consequence: „Executive coaching? – No thanks!“

Which „of course“ do you mean?

Did you, “of course”, find your leadership style in the nature of things through your long professional experience? Is your leadership style authentic, i.e. informal and not artificial, thus natural? Do you pursue a value-oriented management style that is oriented towards the natural individual needs and abilities of your employees?

Leadership influences performance

As a manager, you have an influence on the performance of your employees, among other things through motivation and the working atmosphere in your area. The goals by which you are measured are to be achieved through the optimal completion of day-to-day tasks. However, leadership does not mean that entrepreneurial success can only be equated with economic value creation but should also be ethically reflected against the background of social and economic developments.

In conversations with leaders, it is repeatedly expressed that many of them sometimes feel trapped in their tasks like in their hamster wheel. However, the operational nature of everyday life does not allow an adequate solution to be found for your technical problem. Young managers in particular despair of the inappropriate behavior of an employee and the stubbornness of decision-relevant stakeholders. Those affected often wrongly interpret admitting this as leadership weakness and thus „successfully“ repress it. It is absolutely natural to reach one’s limits in the meantime and not to take reprehensible advantage of the support of a coach who can view and accompany the situation soberly and yet with empathy and above all with different cross-comparisons.

Executive coaching is not tuition

Coaching is not about categorically evaluating a lived leadership style as right or wrong. Rather, it is about showing, exploring and reflecting on the possibilities and approaches in order to choose the best and most successful long-term leadership styles and methods for the person and the environment. The managers or those who are to become managers learn from coaches with practical experience at a pace adapted to your needs and your environment. In doing so, individual consideration is given to the content and depth that corresponds to your level of knowledge and experience. Everything is possible, from the implementation of your personal goals, to support in changing the company organization, to the accompaniment of selected activities in daily business. The decisive factor is the recognition that an adequate and value-oriented management style represents an added value for the company, the manager and the employees, which is usually reflected in the improved results within the respective area of responsibility in the short term.

Finally, the following quote from the playwright, politician and Nobel Prize winner Georg Bernard Shaw, who summed up the situation very well, does not hold on to outdated views:

„The only person who behaves sensibly is my tailor. He takes a new measure every time he meets me, while everyone else always applies the old standards in the opinion that they still fit today.“

 

Gregor van Ackeren

Managing Director, ADCONIA GmbH

Sinja Krauskopf

Consultant, ADCONIA GmbH