Best Leadership Coach in India
Leadership is a widely misused term ~ especially with Corporates. Everybody in a given organization, from Senior executives, HR personnel, Leadership development heads, Organization development specialists etc., who have defined it or have hired external consultants (who perhaps themselves have never been in a Leadership position) to define it for them ~ are defining “Leadership” in a manner they deem fit!
Before we move to understand the characteristics of a Leadership Coach (more so from an Indian scenario wrt being the best leadership coach in India) let’s explore leadership a bit more, and understand some of the trends attached to it.
The definition of a Leader is rather simple ~ “Someone who demonstrates skills of managing (mental state & work attitude) themselves at work while ensuring their work is of excellent quality. This person treats everybody fairly, brings out the best in others (peers, people above or below them in a corporate hierarchy), and is walking the talk and acting like a leader (they demonstrate characteristics which qualifies them to be called a Leader). This reminds me of the book, ‘Lead without a title’ by Robin Sharma which states that Leadership is a choice, and everybody can be a Leader ~ provided they want to act like one!
The Indian business environment is undergoing a rapid change. Manufacturing industries which were the primary industry segment 30+ years ago, have been replaced by leaner service sectors (IT, Banking, ITES, and Insurance etc.). With the inflow of multinationals setting up a base in India, the company culture has also seen a major change. Leadership is in focus, with the spotlight on developing leaders within an organization.
Management Consulting firms are busy churning out consultants who are 20+ years old, who are defining the Leadership terminology as well as Leadership development programs (which either way do not make sense when they are rolled out in the organizations) ~ leaving most of the organizations confused about Leadership!
The Indian business Industry is shifting from Leadership development programs (only training based) to a combination approach of Leadership development training + Leadership coaching, which is a norm in most Western countries where Leadership Coaching is widely used.
According to Marshall Goldsmith (World’s number one Leadership Coach), bringing in a personal change is not easy as it takes strong will power to follow through. The planner within a person is great in planning, but the doer is the one who is not able to follow through what the planner has planned. Ample number of distractions and factors around a person (Triggers) ensures that the person continues to behave the way they have been conditioned to behave.
A person of importance in an organization who is responsible for a Business Unit (Senior Vice Presidents, CXO level, Directors, etc.) needs a Coach to improve in areas that will result in Business improvement, relationship improvement, and an overall improvement in the working environment of the organization. Having said that, the focus on bringing in a Leadership Coach to coach Leaders is gaining momentum in India, with an organization‘s stakeholders busy searching (as per Search engine trends) for the best leadership coach in India to bring about that change.
Let’s explore some of the factors that stakeholders must consider when they are looking for Leadership Coaches in India, considering Leadership Coaching is a relatively new entrant wrt the Indian scenario.
1. Coaching Methodology
The most critical element of Leadership Coaching or for that matter any other form of Coaching is the Coaching Methodology that a coach intends to use. A Leadership Coach is going to coach a person {Leader as per the stakeholder(s)} on certain changes which are based on behavioral patterns. So a coaching methodology which is based on Behavioral Change is the most preferred when it comes to lasting changes. There are examples to validate the same. Marshall Goldsmith is a top Leadership Coach who has a Phd in Psychology, and uses Behavior Change techniques in his coaching. Tony Robbins {worked with Richard Bandler and John Grinder – Cofounders of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)} is the King of Personal Change, which is the most powerful way to coach as it creates changes at an subconscious level, by engaging the unconscious along with the conscious mind.
So make sure your Leadership Coach is an expert in the Coaching methodology, which is more Behavior based (NLP, Neuro Science, Neuro Semantics) and has spent enough years practicing it.
2. Flexibility
Leadership Coaches must be flexible in their approach. Meaning that their coaching must be based on flexibility where it does not follow a set written of tools or has a predefined approach (a predefined approach may work some times, but may not work all the time). Flexibility in coaching comes with practice, and more importantly it comes with a deep understanding of behavior level patterns while taking years of practice to identify these patterns and deliver pattern interrupts for lasting change in their clients.
3. Sensory Acuity
Among others, sensory acuity is one of the key skills to look for in a coach who claims to be the best leadership coach in India or anywhere in the world. Sensory Acuity (an NLP term) is the capability to utilize five senses in a manner that you begin to see and notice patterns that a person is demonstrating. These would primarily fall under ~ facial expressions, hand gestures and other physical movements, auditory skills (to hear more at a deeper level), behavior level language patterns, kinesthetic (improving the skills to feel the pulse of the situation by a touch or by noticing a kinesthetic movement) and how people use all of the above to create their experience.
4. Bring in Maximum Change
A coach must be able to maintain a zone where they are in their high sensory acuity state, and as a result they must be able to go for the chunk (language interrupt demonstrated by the client) which provides the maximum amount of change (breakthrough for the client) in the coaching session. Maximum change interrupt will be an interrupt of change that creates a shift in the thinking pattern, and allows the client to experience a breakthrough in the situation that they would be dealing with.
5. Non Judgmental Approach
A great coach will be in a “no knowing state”, which is a state where they are totally blank in terms of their internal dialogue with themselves; where they are totally outwards, and their attention is on their client. Whatever they are listening to they are doing so without any interpretation to create a bias in their mind about the situation or about said client.
6. Staying Away From Solutions or Their Own Map
Generally it is human nature to solve problems, and that would mean a person who is listening to another person’s issues or problems will try to provide a solution from their own experience and perspective. A great coach will listen to his client’s issues and will not provide any solution ~ but will be more like a mirror in front of the client, so that client can see in the mirror what the reality is and their own resources that they can tap into and move towards finding a breakthrough for said issue.
7. It’s All About the Client
When it comes to bringing in the personal change, a top leadership coach would operate in a way that says ~ ‘It is all about the client.’ The methodology, the coaching session, the discussion, the tools & techniques, and the overall structure would be to bring in maximum change, by bearing in the mind that coaching is all about the client!
8. Rapport & Trust
The most important aspect of being the best in the business would be to have the trust of your coaching client. A good coach would be able to bring in this aspect as a pre-frame into coaching, and would ensure that their client is in a mental frame of total trust. Rapport goes hand in hand with trust, and is something that a coach uses to ensure transparency in the discussion, allowing for a space of maximum exploration for the client to move towards their outcomes.
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