The idea of using coaching as a leadership style to drive and navigate change is all well and good, but some of the fundamental principles of coaching (e.g. questioning, using silence, not providing answers or direction based on experience) don’t at first seem conducive to leading a team through ambiguity. Many organisations have a desire to be coaching-centric in their culture or leadership style, but the reality is that managers often find themselves ‘too busy’ to use a coaching-style and default to micro-management or a more dictatorial approach when navigating change at pace.

I’m training for a marathon, my first ever marathon, but it’s just been cancelled. However, that’s not going to stop me. My training has been going well, so rather than defer my place to 2021, I’m almost ready to run a virtual marathon instead (which means I cover the distance myself, but I run the race alone, at a time and date to suit me).

I’ve noticed that sometimes, when leaders progress through their career, skills which were once important to them seem to disappear. Senior leaders often feel that they must know all of the answers, no longer have anything to learn (or can’t admit to what they would like to learn) and become simply 'too busy’ to respond to emails or support others.

This week I attended a two-day (virtual) Positive Psychology course, via the British School of Coaching. As I’ve developed as a leader and coach, so too has my interest in Positive Psychology, so it was great to dip my toe into the water and hear about some of the principles behind it from an expert in the field, our course tutor, Ana Nasif.

As leaders, most of us know and accept that we need to have empathy for the people we lead. Whilst this is absolutely vital, and I’m one of the biggest proponents of this, we might benefit from looking at this from another angle which explores instead how essential it is to have empathy for the person who manages you.

‘Must be comfortable / highly skilled in managing ambiguity’. Could this be the most standard prerequisite when a company is looking for new employees? In years of managing and hiring, I’ve rarely encountered those who tell me they struggle to deal with ambiguity.

We’re at the time of year where in many businesses, mid-year performance reviews are about to happen. For most, feedback is an important part of reviewing performance, but, particularly in the UK, whatever we say, feedback can be a tricky subject, conducive to anxiety and self-judgement.

I am currently spending 3 days a week as Interim Global CMO at ClearScore, a fast-growing FinTech in London. I had never previously considered that a 3-day week might be for me, but, like many people who embrace ‘part-time’, it came from necessity rather than curiosity. I needed to reduce the days I was working as CMO (which was already demanding at 5 days), so that I could fit in the learning, writing and coaching I had previously committed to for my ILM Level 7 diploma in Executive Coaching and Mentoring. I’m 8 weeks into this new regime… and I’ve learned a lot.

I’m right in the middle of reading around the subject of ‘coaching in an organisational context’ for my mammoth dissertation as part of ILM Level 7 Diploma in Executive Coaching and Mentoring. It sounds perhaps a little dry and academic, but essentially, I’m unpicking the environments and context of successful coaching in business today. It’s a really interesting subject which I think deserves some discussion, so I’m breaking off to write about it.

Difficult conversations are ones we tend to avoid because they can often make us feel uncomfortable, anxious or self-conscious. Let’s face it, what can be perceived by our brains and bodies as conflict doesn’t come naturally to most people, and for this reason they’re not easy; but once you master how to have difficult conversations in a way that feels authentic to you, they become second nature, satisfying or even enjoyable! Relationships improve, self-respect and respect from others grows. Better outcomes follow.