Leadership development coaching

Insight Leadership: Leadership Development Coaching

How effective is coaching in leadership development?

Over the last 15 or so years this has been my most active area of work and it has provided amazing success stories as my testimonies show.

I have coached managers and leaders at all levels in service industries, and have considerable experience working with senior leaders in health, education and the blue light services.

I have also trained people in management and leadership skills over the years to improve their professional competencies and effectiveness.

In my own career, I have worked in management and leadership positions at various organisations in the public service, third sector and charitable sector.

As an accredited partner of AQR International, I can offer my clients access to their industry-leading psychometric instrument, the ILM72.

How can we assess leadership styles and/or abilities?

The ILM72 assessment is a reliable psychometric measure which assesses two important elements: Adopted Leadership Style and Leadership Effectiveness in terms of Leadership Behaviour.

Effective leadership motivates people to give up their discretionary effort and do it willingly and enthusiastically.

Discretionary effort refers to a level of effort an employee is capable of giving, but one that exceeds the bare minimum that’s required of them. So good leaders motivate, encourage and reward their staff / followers to exceed what is required and help them achieve the team / organisational goals.

What are the benefits of improving leadership?

For organisations, this translates into better, more competitive performance and the development of a positive culture. For individuals, it translates into a sense of growth, a sense of belonging and a sense of self-esteem. They are less likely to leave an organisation where leadership is evident.

With effective leadership, issues such as absenteeism, poor customer service, ineffective team working and resistance to change simply evaporate!

Leadership is also a cultural issue and can be developed at all levels of an organisation. Those at the top must provide leadership, but everyone can be a leader and play a part in motivating colleagues.

What is the leadership style assessment?

The ILM72 is the result of a major study carried out by AQR International in association with the Institute of Leadership and Management. It looked at over 50 leadership models and found that all had their origins in the same components – six scales which represent different aspect of leadership style.

All leaders adopt a preferred way of working. There is no right or wrong style. We know that style is situational. Usefully, ILM72 profiles can be aggregated to form a picture of the leadership style of a group.

What are the ILM72 Global Scales – Core Leadership Competencies?

The details set out below refer to three criteria known as: Scale, Scale Description and Poles.

GOAL ORIENTATION

How important achieving goals is to the leader.

The Means v The End

MOTIVATION

What the leader believes is the prime path to motivation.

The Task v The Person

ENGAGEMENT

How leaders will engage with others.

Flexible v Dogmatic

CONTROL

The extent to which leaders need to be in control.

De-centralised v Centralised

RECOGNITION

The leader’s preferred approach to recognition.

Reward v Punishment

STRUCTURE

How important structure is to the leader.

Structured v Organic


Further research shows that there are three core competencies which are crucial for leadership effectiveness.

Many of these attributes can also be developed by working on your mental toughness development.

DETERMINATION TO DELIVER

This describes a single-minded determination to achieve. Most satisfaction (for the individual and their followers) is derived from this.

ENGAGEMENT WITH INDIVIDUALS

This describes enhancing the capability, confidence and commitment of individuals to enable them to perform and to fulfil themselves.

ENGAGEMENT WITH TEAMS

The emphasis is on cross-functional team working: a leader knows and supports how people work together across the organisation.


How do we measure leadership style and effectiveness?

The ILM72 is a unique online 72-item high quality reliable psychometric measure. It is normative, which enables users to assess leadership style and effectiveness before and after an event such as a training and development or coaching programme.

The ILM72 provides a highly effective and user-friendly set of reports designed for optimum impact in a wide range of scenarios.

How do I become a better leader?

If you’ve ever wondered what you can do to become a better leader, how people become leaders, or about ways of improving leadership, then let’s chat.

Further reading: check out my blog posts here.