Catherine Finger

Stepping Out into Your Irresistible Future with Him in 2023

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Each new year ushers in the opportunity to refresh, recommit, and transform “destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future.” Faith traditions offer various routes to transformation of the mind, body, and soul. My own Judeo-Christian faith beliefs lead me to a “constructive thoughtfulness” as laid out in Romans 12:1-2, (NASB version) as follows:
I urge you therefore, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.

Transformation begins by examining our day-to-day habits and routines. How is your physical health? How is your nutrition? Are you getting enough rest and relaxation? How is your daily physical movement coming along? If you could take two daily steps to improve your physical vitality in the new year, what would they be? Our physical selves reflect our Creator—we can honor the Divine by treating our bodies with respect and implementing healthful habits.

“Presenting ourselves in a manner acceptable to God” can be as simple as beginning your day in prayer and meditation. Inviting God to lead you and asking Him for the strength to live according to His will for you today is a “spiritual service of worship.” God is in the business of connecting, speaking, and leading us if we would but turn to Him with the slightest nod of even the hardest of hearts. Offer yourself to Him as you are—and incline your inner ear to His still, small voice. If you’re willing to stop and listen—you will hear His call to you. James 4:8 (NASB) says: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” Try it!

Renewing our minds has never been more critical than it is in today’s climate of constant distraction. Develop and reinforce positive mental habits by reading uplifting and challenging content every day—starting with the Bible or other faith-based information that will strengthen your daily journey. Starting each day with a practice of gratitude, prayer, meditation, and reading or listening to something uplifting and thought-provoking can help set you on a positive path for the day. Writing your intentions for the day and then engaging in a quick review at the end of your day reinforces your habits and helps you renew your mind by engaging in new practices as you explore new mental models. Transformation is the result of inner renewal. Renewal is the result of engaging in positive spiritual, mental, and physical health habits and behaviors.

How do we know we are on the right path—or how do we know the will of God for our lives? I love the simplicity of the will of God as listed in Romans 12:2 (NASB:) “that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.” Boom! That’s how we prove the will of God. Is the practice in which you are engaging good, acceptable, and perfect? Is the relationship you are considering good, acceptable, and perfect? Are your current habits and practices of day-to-day living good, acceptable, and perfect? For me this is a simple test—if something in my life doesn’t even reach the threshold of “good,” it surely won’t grow into the categories of “acceptable or perfect.” And so, I receive the invitation to change, to renewal, to transformation.

I encourage you to be on the lookout for subtle invitations to growth from the Divine as you step out into your own Irresistible Future with Him in 2023.

Happy Endings–Bold Beginnings

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How will you say goodbye to 2022—and what would you like to be able to celebrate in one year’s time? Endings and beginnings can be powerful transitions in our lives. As we approach the end of 2022, I encourage you to take some time to consider what you want to release—and what goals or milestones you want to reach in 2023.

Make space for reflection over the holiday season. Walk through a set of questions and spend a little time journaling your thoughts. Writing is a powerful tool for reflection as you identify what isn’t working and open yourself to activating more of what works well for you.

Reflection: Take a quick look at this year’s greatest hits.  Scan your year month by month, week by week, day by day—whichever way best serves you. Be mindful of your highs and lows—spend more time on your highs. What went really well for you this year—and how can you leverage that success as you look into 2023? What didn’t work so well for you—and what tweaks do you need to consider moving forward? Don’t let yourself get bogged down in maudlin memories—just acknowledge what you want to let go of to make space for what you want more of in your life. Think of it as cleaning out a closet, or a garage. You can’t park that Maserati if your garage is full of a year’s worth—or more—of outdated detritus. These are some of my framing questions:

  • What did you love about this year? What worked really well for you? What should we be celebrating in your life?
  • What did you hate about this year? What didn’t work so well for you? What do-overs would you give yourself?
  • What were your most joyful moments this year? What do you want more of, looking forward?
  • What were you most painful moments? What do you want less of, looking forward?
  • What did you learn about yourself?
  • What was the best decision you made this year?

Ritual: I call my favorite end-of-year ritual “Burn Baby, Burn!” I’ve done this activity collectively to celebrate the end of a New Year’s Eve party, at workshops and retreats, and sometimes all alone in my backyard. It begins with a brief period of reflection. Guests receive small squares of paper and pens/pencils and are invited to consider what they loved and didn’t love about the past year.  I ask them to think of one thing they want to release, say goodbye to, remove, delete from their lives forever—and to write that down on a piece of paper.  Questions I like to ask include:

  • What do you need to do to clear your own runway for takeoff?
  • What barriers stand between you and success?
  • What are you dying to unload or unleash in your life?
  • What’s holding you back?
  • What habit or practice do you need to stop doing? What do you need to get rid of and eliminate from your life?

Write them all down—and get ready to cast them all off—this is where the fire comes in! I start a small bonfire in my backyard (are my country roots showing yet?) and invite my guests to join me in the frigid winter air. One by one, guests approach the fire and are invited to hold up that piece of paper and proclaim (either silently or out loud) what they are releasing—and then toss it into the fire. Or rip it up into tiny pieces and then toss it into the fire. There will be some tears and there be a lot of rejoicing as the fire builds and your guests experience the freedom of letting go!

Reframe: The last step of my annual reflection and renewal process—and the perfect ending for the “Burn Baby, Burn!” experience—is to breathe in the new. Invite everyone to reflect on what is good, acceptable, and perfect about their lives. I like to encourage my guests with the ancient wisdom of St. Paul: “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead.” Invite your guests to release what has been turned to ashes and to commit to a new habit, practice, promise, or way of being. Have them write down this renewal pledge as a way of saving it in their hearts and minds.

Real change is possible—and transitioning into a new year is a great time to double down on what you want to invite more of in your life. Give yourself the gift of clarity and support as you move toward your own challenges and commitments with renewed intention. Find a friend, hire a coach, sketch out your action plan and post it where you’ll see it every day, invest in an online program—give yourself whatever you need to support the changes you seek. And get ready to celebrate your success at the end of 2023!

Catherine Finger Earns 2022 CEO Today Executive Coaching Award!

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CEO Today announced the full list of winners of their 2022 CEO Today Executive Coaching Awards–and Catherine Finger is featured on page 79! You may see the listing from the CEO Today journal here: https://executivecoachingawards.ceotodaymagazine.com/winners-edition/79/

The following excerpts are from a press release issued by CEO Today  earlier this week: Every month, CEO Today Magazine features perspectives from business leaders at the top of their field. Though they may now be running S&P 500 and FTSE companies, they came from more humble beginnings. Often, their inspirational leadership and management skills were shaped by the expert training of an executive coach.

This new publication aims to celebrate professionals whose work in the world of business is less visible, but no less crucial for it. Every great figure of the modern business world, from Jeff Bezos to Larry Page, has benefited from the work of a coach to sharpen their acumen and perfect their leadership style – an advantage that even SMEs the world over are now beginning to recognize.

The 2022 CEO Today Executive Coaching Awards honor coaches including the likes of Navid Nazemian, Peter Baloh, Borut Jeglič, Tracy Clark, Mercy Situmbeko, Victoria Hepburn–and Catherine Finger. All are shining examples of leadership and emotional intelligence whose insights will fascinate any CEO with ambitions of industry-leading success. We at CEO Today are proud to present this special publication. Congratulations to all of our winners and finalists.

 

 

 

Lessons Learned from Hitting the Wall

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“I hit the wall, Doc. I need your help.”

When one of my highest-performing leaders opened a recent session with this plea for help, it surprised us both. Think Top Gun-era Tom Cruise and ratchet it up several notches. Wildly successful by any measure personally and professionally, this top-of-his-game, prime-of-his-life leader found himself unable to get out of bed and unwilling to engage with anyone other than his wife, his children, and me.

After exploring his experiences and identifying his immediate needs, together we crafted a step-by-step plan designed to support him through this tough time. Part of our planning included prioritizing rest—for his body, mind, and spirit. Once we addressed his immediate physical needs (including a medical review) we moved on to thinking differently about his priorities, scaling back for the moment, and reframing his hard-hitting schedule.

  1. Recognize the wall—and the gift behind the wall. It is shocking to discover our humanity—especially when faced with limitations and needs. Your wall of exhaustion and your faltering body may be trying to get your attention. What is the message behind this wall? What gifts might be waiting to emerge during this debilitating experience?
  2. NOW. Stop, drop and REST. Body, mind, and spirit. I know this is hard for leaders. But not resting and continuing to ignore what your body is trying to tell you can be much, much harder in the long run. And here’s a bonus: as a leader, taking care of yourself in front of your colleagues gives them permission to take care of themselves. What would you tell your best friend if he were experiencing the same symptoms that you are experiencing right now? Give yourself that same stellar advice and follow it.
  3. Reframe your idea of priorities. That urgent work pile is not likely to go away while you are still working. Don’t fall into that trap of “when I get this done, then I’ll…” Peak performers are NEVER done with those urgent projects and initiatives. Learn to manage the anxiety that comes with increased workloads and heightened responsibilities and learn to trust yourself. Change your inner messaging from “I’ll never get this done” to “I’ve got this.” Each day has enough troubles of its own. Keep your focus on the present, and trust that the future will be handled when it arrives.
  4. Reaffirm your faith—including faith in your family, in your ability to bounce back, and in your organization’s ability to survive without you having to run faster than a speeding bullet. Lean into your belief system and trust that there is a larger purpose for your momentary suffering. Who knows what fruit might be developing in your life through this difficult period? You have to go through the wall to get to the other side—but you get to choose whether or not to keep going through that wall. No one else can make that decision for you.
  5. Recognize the talent and power in colleagues around you that may have been waiting for their moment to shine—and give it to them. Empower others to step in and pick up some of your leadership responsibilities—who knows, you may realize that you should have delegated more to your colleagues long ago.
  6. Recruit trusted supporters and invite them to help you recognize the key indicators you missed along the way while heading toward that brick wall. In my client’s case, he’d grown accustomed to being the fastest, brightest, shiniest bulb in any marquis. Whenever people questioned his level of responsibilities and commitments, he would smile and embrace the load—making it look far easier than it actually was. His wife, however, did not. She would question him and offer her advice about his need for solitude and rest—which he routinely ignored. During the quiet moments of recovery from his hitting-the-wall reality, it was her voice he heard in those still small moments while reflecting on what early indicators he might have missed. Going forward, her questions are now a part of his early warning system, as are noticing his emotional state and taking care of his physical need for rest.
  7. Reap the lessons learned and integrate them into the way you work. Several years ago, I was struck with a bout of vertigo at an airport while traveling to speak at a national women’s leadership conference. I remember pushing through my panic and allowing myself to wonder whether this is the time my life changes and no longer includes routine travel to serve others in my leadership journey. I gave myself permission to stay; permission to leave; permission to wait and see what happens next. Several canceled and rescheduled flights later, I arrived at the conference center with a little less vigor than I’d preferred having learned a valuable lesson: I can build enough margin into my schedule to make room for the unexpected. And, if I do have to cancel or reschedule an event due to illness or unforeseen circumstances, I can do that as well. Life doesn’t have to fit inside of our limiting “all or nothing” perspectives. By the way, I did give that speech and I had a wonderful time with a fabulous group of women—and I made it home just fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn The Great Resignation Into Your Great Reframing

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I am delighted to share my first official article published today after being named an Executive Contributor for Brainz Magazine!

Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.

The compelling question of whether to join the masses and jump off the cliff of commitment into the Great Resignation has been cropping up in coaching sessions quite a bit lately. I understand the allure—and I am a big fan of challenge and change in general, so my clients find a strong ally in me when grappling with this question. Today I offer you five questions and perspectives my clients and I consider when addressing the issue of whether it is time to resign—or reframe.
A beautiful photo of blue sea and a cliff.

1. It’s never too late to quit.

Do you have to quit today? Many work-related problems fade rather quickly. Give yourself time to manage the event that might be tempting you to cash it in. Dropping the mic and walking away can be tempting—but what’s the rush? You don’t need to decide whether you’re going to stay or walk away today. Give yourself the luxury of time and perspective.

2. Make sure your choice to leave is your choice to leave.

Sometimes catastrophic work-related events color our vision, squeezing out all that is right and wonderful with our worlds at work until the only option we can see clearly is an exit sign. While there are certainly times when we may need to leave—sometimes our emotions run wild and prevent us from seeing our own distorted thinking. Is there a habit, practice, or initiative that you need to start or stop doing that could make a big difference in your world of work right now? Maybe personal growth in your current workplace is what your brain is trying to push you toward. And that ‘stay and grow’ door sits right next to that ‘exit sign’ in our minds. Make sure you don’t mistake the call to stay and grow in the glare of a pulsing exit sign.

3. Clarity is your friend.

Walk yourself through the questions you would ask your best friend struggling with the ‘should I stay or should I go’ decision. What’s driving your desire to resign? Do you want to leave—or do you need to change something in your current setting right now? Do you need to go—or is there something that no longer serves you in the way you are seeing and experiencing yourself at work?

4. Is the grass really all that green on the other side of the proverbial fence?

While there certainly are many benefits to embracing change professionally and personally, we often underestimate the impact of transitions. How will shifting into a new job impact you, your family, and your career? What if your shiny new job turns out to be a pit of vipers wrapped in a “grass is always greener” veneer? What is your game plan for addressing the unintended consequences of the challenges and changes that transitioning into a new job—or no job—brings?

5. What if you could be happy/happier/happy enough where you are?

What would it take for you to become content with your current circumstances? What are the three best things about your current workplace—and how can you capitalize on them? What are the three worst things about staying in your current workplace—and how can you orchestrate improvements? Perhaps advocating for yourself financially and asking for additional compensation is in order. How can you contribute to your own personal and professional growth while remaining where you are for the time being? Perhaps joining or starting professional development opportunities could help you stay refreshed. Engaging in a life-affirming hobby can do wonders for your energy and perspective both on the job and at home. Another great way to expand connections and broaden your perspective while staying at the same job is to become actively engaged in professional organizations at the state, national, or international levels.

You’ve got my permission to stay. What will it take to permit yourself to stay in your current role? Here’s to the courage to dig deeper, listen to the desires of your heart, and allow yourself time and space to reframe instead of joining the great resignation.

Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

Award-winning author Catherine Finger contributes to the well-being of others by offering executive, personal, and author coaching services. Throughout her career as a public-school leader, mentoring current and emerging leaders was one of her greatest joys. This experience, coupled with her passion to instill hope for leadership, love, and life led her to launch Loving the Leading, an executive coaching and consulting business in 2020. Her years of successful experience as an educational leader, board member, adjunct professor, award-winning author, law enforcement chaplain and community leader equip her with unique insights and deep intuition on both organizations and individuals.

Executive Coach Catherine Finger Named to 2022 Top 15 Coaches List by Influence Digest!

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I was delighted to be included on the Influence Digest 2022 Top 15 Coaches list for the greater metropolitan Detroit area–and so grateful for my Detroit area clients! This award was made public on August 30, 2022 and included a profile and bio in the Influence Digest edition available at this link: https://influencedigest.com/coaching/top-coaches-detroit-2022/

What Would You Do if You Knew You Could Not Fail?

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Being the cool, growth-oriented professionals that we are, I’m pretty sure most of you engage your clients and colleagues with a question of this sort now and then. When’s the last time you asked this question of yourself? What would YOU do if you knew you could not fail? In your leadership practice? In your relationships? In your personal and professional growth?

Today is a great day to open your heart to the possibilities of challenge and change that may be incubating deep within. While we want to always maintain a personal posture of loving self-acceptance and contentment, personal and professional growth are key contributors to well-being. How are you doing in terms of your own personal and professional growth?

What are some of your Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (BHAGs?) Jim Collins coined that phrase way back in 2001 in his renowned corporate strategy book Good to Great. I can tell you I am at my best professionally and personally when working to realize a BHAG or two in my own life. This year one of my very challenging goals has been to further develop my coaching practice by expanding my advertising, writing, and networking platforms. Doing the work is at once energizing and terrifying—and it is leading to connection, community, and great growth.

Becoming more involved in professional coaching communities is another goal that leads to great growth and connection in my life. This year I am delighted to be able to engage that goal to a new level by actively participating in the Midwest Coaches Conference. This will be my very first in-person professional coaching conference and I am already committed to serving in the ICF WI booth and to attending the Progressive Ethnic Meal with other ICF Wi colleagues. Additionally, I am delighted to be able to attend the International Fellowship of Chaplains national conference in a few weeks.

How about you? Would generating your own BHAG spur you to greater connection and challenge you to deeper personal and professional growth? I’d love to hear about it—and support you along the way. You’re welcome to share your journey with me here: catherine@catherinefinger.com

Executive Coaching for Educational Leaders

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What attracted you into the field of education in the first place? Educational leaders cite deeply held beliefs about the critical importance of a quality education to “level the playing field” and provide and equip students with opportunities and options throughout their K-12 journey and beyond. Many of us were drawn to education because we love children—and we love watching the discovery process through their precious minds and hearts. We have had the privilege of tending to the first embers of a student’s life-long enchantment with the arts. We have walked amongst struggling students and shared their joy as they first found meaning in texts, signs, symbols and found their voice through the power of the written word.  We witnessed the powerful transformation that only education can bring, empowering students to leap into new ways of thinking, seeing, and believing as their words became worlds.

Loving the Leading is a call back to what drew you into education in the first place. What values and beliefs do you hold that fuel your commitment to your work as an educational leader? How could engaging a certified, professional coach support you professionally and personally as you begin another challenging school year?

Engaging with an executive coach supports you as you shoulder the burden of leadership in today’s complex environment.  The coaching process provides a confidential thought partnership designed to guide you through research-backed information, practices, assessments, and conversations emerging from your unique areas of interest.  Together we will generate professional and personal growth goals and develop action plans to achieve those goals while providing accountability and support.

Ready to Learn More? Schedule a 30-Minute Free Consultation

 

Six More Reasons Why All Leaders Need Coaching

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I’m delighted to share Part 2 of coaching expert Dr. Relly Nadler’s articles on coaching for high performance with you today. Article appears in Psychology Today, January 2020 and is shared with permission.

In today’s world of increased performance demands, most leaders are underperforming.

One reason is that the leader is focused on the tasks and results, where the people they lead are looking for connection, contribution, and recognition for good work. This is a big disconnect, where the manager’s default is to find fault. They overlook the successes, as those are expected, and don’t take enough time to develop the next-level leaders.

Executive Coaching affords a “forced focus” on development topics, skill-building, and empowerment to help get results. When the leader takes a coaching approach versus a directing style with their direct reports, there tends to be more engagement and better performance. High-engagement companies are more profitable because of increased productivity, lower turnover, and lower healthcare costs. (Zak, 2017)

BlessingWhite (2016), in “The Coaching Conundrum,” states that the top coaching behaviors wanted by direct reports include: 1) Communicating clearly and candidly; 2) Establishing clear performance objectives and milestones; 3) Delivering on promises made; 4) Respecting their ability to make decisions; and 5) Being an advocate for their development and career growth.

A leader receiving coaching can quickly learn these skills and behaviors to better coach their direct reports. Once they experience this, it is easier to use this approach with their team members.

In a previous post, we went through six reasons why leaders need coaching. Here are six more.

1. We don’t think deep or long.

Reflection is becoming a lost art. Leaders are good at fast thinking, but they all need to get better at slow thinking when there is not an emergency. Slow thinking (of the sort described in psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow) is defined as the deliberate type of thinking involved in focus, consideration, reasoning, or analysis.

A coach can help you think deeper and longer to help you improve your decision-making by challenging your thinking and mindset. Can you focus on a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset? What would be a proactive response versus a reactive response?

A coach adds clarity to your input about yourself and others and thus enhances your output on your decisions, communications, solutions, and results.

Coaching is a slow thinking process unless there is an emergency. There is always time to check in with your intentions, values, and strengths, and ask yourself and others powerful questions.

Our formula for top performance that we share with leaders is:

Empathy x Insight x Clarity = Top 10% Performance

Empathy is about others, insight is about yourself, and clarity is knowing how best to use this information for good.

2. You need to increase your self-awareness and self-management skills for better performance.

Awareness and self-management are two sides of the coin. How can you manage what you don’t see? Coaching helps raise self-awareness and contributes to your self-management and performance toolbox.

Korn/Ferry searched a total of 6,977 self-assessments from professionals at 486 publicly traded companies to identify the “blind spots” in individuals’ leadership characteristics. They found poor-performing companies’ employees were 79 percent more likely to have lower overall self-awareness than those at firms with robust ROR.

A coach helps you master the moment by putting a spotlight on your inputs about yourself and others, so your outputs, which are your decisions, communication, strategies, and results, are the best they can.

Often a coaching focus is on accepting yourself more in a friendly and kind way rather than a harsh or critical way.

3. You need to build and broaden your strengths and identify derailers.

Whether it is in training or coaching as a leader your first focus is to gain more clarity into your strengths, which is not natural to do on your own. We all have a negativity bias, so when we are on autopilot we go to “what is wrong or could be wrong” as a protective mechanism.

Your coach helps identify your strengths, increase them, use them more, and broaden them to weakness areas. This is often done by holding the strength focus longer when a magnetic pull from the client brings them to focus on their weaknesses. This is another example of “forced focus,” where the coach compels the leader to stay with a strength or what is working.

A variety of assessments and coaching tools help this process of building on your strengths, competencies, and skills.

If a person has some derailers also called “fatal flaws” those must be addressed first and the coach can help to build awareness and management of them. This may involve bringing covert strengths to the derailers that were probably invisible to the client.

4. You are the emotional thermostat, enhance your influence.

Most leaders I have worked have underestimated their influence. This is because they are focused on their tasks and results, while their direct reports are focused more on their contribution and recognition. This is a major disconnect between leaders and followers in their needs and wants from their conversations.

The leader is the emotional thermostat for the team. Their mood is the most contagious. If they are irritated, stressed, and short, other people catch it. If they are optimistic, encouraging, and empathic, so are their team.

Dr. Anthony Grant of Australia and a coaching researcher has found his “clients’ experience that for every executive coached, hundreds of others are positively affected, including their manager, their peers, their direct reports, and those employees’ direct reports as well. This extends to hundreds of people, and even more if one counts customers.”

In Helping People Change, Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Ellen van Oosten state “…given the role of emotional contagion, being able to effectively manage the emotional tone of the coaching discussion also requires having an awareness of one’s own emotions and recognizing the impact that they can have on the person being coached.”

What are you sending out to your team that they are catching? Optimism or pessimism, challenge or threat, proactive or reactive, slow thinking or fast thinking? If you are calm, cool, and rational, they will be too.

5. Your sense of power leads to less empathy.

Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, speaks and writes about the power paradox: Once we have it, we lose the capacities we used to gain it.

Sukhvinder Obhi, a neuroscientist at McMaster University in Ontario, recently found a similar phenomenon. While Keltner studies behaviors, Obhi studies brains. In his experiments, he had people who were powerful and others not so powerful under a transcranial-magnetic-stimulation machine. He found that having power, in fact, impairs a specific neural process, “mirroring,” that may be a cornerstone of empathy.

This may explain the neurological basis to what Keltner has termed the “power paradox”: Once we have power, we lose some of the capacities we needed to gain it in the first place.

Leaders with power end up thinking they know what is needed in almost every situation and don’t need to hear from others. They think they are the “smartest person in the room.” They value their ideas over all others. Keltner calls this an “empathy deficit.”

6. You are creating your leadership legacy.

A coach can help you with slow thinking by spending quality time having conversations about how you are developing each of your direct reports uniquely. This in turn prepares you for quality conversations and coaching with your people.

A leader’s focus is usually on getting results. Having a coach compels you in a “forced focus” to focus more on developing your team and emerging leaders.

This where the leader can have their greatest legacy. The best practices of their leadership can be passed down to their direct reports and their direct reports after they are long gone. Leaders impact all their people, their families, and can increase their life quality.

A 2013 study by Anthony Grant found that executives who received coaching experienced effects that transferred over into the executives’ family life, including heightened work-life balance and improved relationships with family members.

Your direct reports expectations of your coaching include:

1) Communicating clearly and candidly; 2) Establishing clear performance objectives and milestones; 3) Delivering on promises made; 4) Respecting their ability to make decisions; and 5) Being an advocate for their development and career growth. (BlessingWhite, 2016)

That means you can’t take short cuts to deliver on their hopes and expectancies. You need focused time to think deeply and slowly and that is best done with an experienced coach to act as a thinking partner with you and for you.

Relly Nadler Psy.D., M.C.C.
Relly Nadler Psy.D., M.C.C.

6 Reasons Why All Leaders Need Coaching–by Dr. Nelly Radler

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Today I am delighted to share Part 1 of an article written by renown coaching expert Dr. Nelly Radler and published in Psychology Today.

In today’s world of increased performance demands and extreme busyness, most leaders are underperforming.

Leading with Emotional Intelligence (EI) helps upgrade your performance by integrating self-skills and developing talent skills to be your best in the moment.

Research from Blessing White Consulting found that the top three leadership skills for the future were: 1) communication, 2) collaboration, and 3) coaching. These are all a part of the EI competency model.

They stated: “If communication skills are the foundation of a leader’s future home, collaboration and coaching create the ground floor. Without a strong foundation of trust and communication, leaders run the risk of directing or deciding instead of collaborating and coaching. Employees will be quick to see this, and despite leaders’ good intentions, fail to inspire and empower their teams to the performance they seek.”

Key Leadership Research

The manager has a key role in the organization. Gallup has found that managers have 70 percent influence over the climate of their team. Sixty percent of employees who left their job said the manager was the reason. Turnover has cost organizations $223 billion (Blessing White, 2018).

Good to great boost: By increasing the number of high-performing leaders, the organization gains great strength… it is tempting to fix low performing leaders, but the greatest gain appears to come by helping more leaders become truly great. Leaders in the top 5 percent had 76 percent of their employees highly committed, where leaders at the 90 percent had 54 percent of their employees highly committed. (Zenger and Folkman 2020)

So a leader considered in the top 5 percent versus the top 10 percent increases employee commitment by 22 percent. That is a huge difference when many can think that the top 10 percent is good enough.

Just like in professional sports, corporate leaders can get a boost and be even better with focused time devoted to their craft with executive coaching.

Coaching can be the quickest way for leaders and managers to manage complexity and improve their communication, collaboration, and coaching skills for the future.

What Is a Coach?

A coach is a thinking partner who works for you and with you to help you reach your best vision for yourself. These are the goals that you want for yourself and think about all the time. The boosting components a coach brings are: 1) A depth of thought to what you think is important; 2) the resources and tools to reach your goals; 3) the motivation and accountability for what you want to accomplish. Coaching encourages a “forced focus” on what is most important to you versus the constant distraction of the urgent.

After 25 years of executive coaching and integrating Emotional Intelligence strategies with top executives and emerging leaders, below are the main reasons why every leader could use coaching.

Why Hire a Coach:

1. Coaching works. You will be a better leader. Here is what we know from the research:

Ninety-eight percent of coaching clients said their coach “provided practical, realistic, and immediately usable input” and helped them “identify specific behaviors that would help me achieve my goals.” (Center for Creative Leadership study, 2016)
Strengths are maximized, and research has shown that 66 percent of those receiving effective coaching report a positive impact on their performance and job satisfaction. (BlessingWhite Consulting, 2015)

Nearly two‐thirds who received coaching said it had a significant impact on their performance and job satisfaction. (BlessingWhite Consulting, 2015)
88 percent of managers said coaching helps them achieve their goals. (BlessingWhite Consulting, 2015)

A 2013 study by Anthony Grant found that executives who received coaching experienced effects that transferred over into the executives’ family life, including heightened work-life balance and improved relationships with family members.

All signs indicate that executive coaching is a sound investment. Studies report an impressive ROI of 500-800 percent. A study conducted by MetrixGlobal LLC, for example, reported an ROI of 689 percent associated with executive coaching (and this finding accounted for the entire cost of coaching, including the opportunity costs associated with the time leaders spent not on the job in coaching sessions).

Citing similar results, the International Coach Federation (ICF) has presented a body of research demonstrating that coaching tends to generate an ROI of between $4 and $8 for every dollar invested. (Greiner, 2018)

2. You have blind spots. We all have them, but if you don’t know what they are, you will continue to undermine your success. Marshall Goldsmith is one of the top executive coaches with Fortune 100 executives. In his research with executives, he says 70 percent of people think they are in the top 10 percent. We all think we are better drivers, cooks, and leaders than we may really be. You don’t know what you don’t know. In some of the organizational literature, this is called “Unconscious Incompetence.”

Executive coaches use validated leadership assessments, 360-degree feedback, and interviews with stakeholders to bring to light others’ perceptions of you. The gap between your perceptions and others’ can establish your blindspots.

This gap can result in some of the hardest conversations for a coach and coachee. A leader says, “I think I have empathy, good problem-solving skills, and good interpersonal relations.” The coach has data on how other people see them and may say, “That is different than how your boss or direct reports see you, let’s look at their perception and talk about the gaps.”

I had a leader who was an ex-Navy Seal, who took a 360-degree assessment, and his self-report had him higher on every competency than did his team or manager. Ouch! That was a challenging conversation to hold the tension and come up with effective strategies that he could accept and focus on.

3. You get less feedback. The higher up you are in the organization, the less feedback you get. As leaders move up the corporate ladder, there is less feedback they get from others in the organization for many reasons. Their direct reports are afraid to give honest and direct feedback for fear of retribution and how that impacts their reviews.

The leader’s boss has high expectations, and it is common only to give feedback if there was a mistake or complaints.

So senior leaders don’t get the feedback they need to continually improve. A coach can not only give you feedback but also help integrate the feedback for specific actions.

4. Change is hard: People want to resist it. In every organization, a major challenge is change, whether it is changing a personal behavior or helping your team deal with constant change. Most leaders are inundated in change scenarios.

Getting people to accept change is a leadership challenge. Coaches can bring best practices on leading change, focusing on behavior change using neuroscience, the psychology of motivation, and performance research to the leader.

5. You are on autopilot and easily distracted. Most of us operate on autopilot much of the time. We take short cuts rather than thinking hard or long about things. Working on your leadership entails taking a hard look at your capabilities and getting off automatic to be more intentional, have a clear focus, and make great decisions.

Researchers tell us we operate out of our habits about 95 percent of the time. If you had the time, what would be your best focus? Coaching is a “forced focus” to stay with what’s important.

There are times I know leaders are not thinking or focusing much on their development or their direct reports unless they are in a coaching conversation. We know that we are interrupted almost every three minutes, and 44 percent of the time, we do it to ourselves. (Mark, 2006) Autopilot and the tyranny of the urgent rule the day and leaders’ focus.

Blessingwhite (2018) Tomorrow’s leaders today found the most valued leadership actions are: communicating effectively at all levels, coaching and developing the team, developing and executing the strategy, and building effective relationships with team members.

6. You tell rather than ask, as it is quicker and more efficient. In the desire for speed, efficiency, and alignment, leaders easily fall into telling their direct reports what to do versus asking or dialoguing with them.

This is the manager’s default. It is the path of least resistance and ensures more certainty for the leader. The unexpected results for the employees can be feeling undervalued, insulted, or put down for their ideas.

One of Gallup’s Q12 questions that lead to more engagement and high performing is answering, “My opinion seems to count.”

Ask and Drain Before You Tell and Fill

The direct report has a bucket full of ideas, and so do you as the leader. It is best to ask and drain their bucket of ideas first before you tell and fill from your bucket. Then individuals feel heard, and it gives you more time to think, and when you are ready, you can deliver a better solution.

Asking your direct reports their thoughts first:

Builds rapport
Increases the quality of decisions
Gets more buy-in for the decisions
Empowers the employees
Trains them to really think
A coach can help you focus on strategies to ask the right questions and do it in a constructive way that empowers others.

If the three key leadership skills for the future are communication, collaboration, and coaching, an Executive Coach can help you get better at all of these skills quickly.


Relly Nadler Psy.D., M.C.C.
Leading with Emotional Intelligence