COACHING FORLEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT 123
ideas, values, edge, and energy that will make the organization successful.
The coach works with the CEO to develop that clarity. What’s the leader ’s
business theory for ringing the cash register, that is, developing goods and
services that win in the marketplace? What are the concrete values that sup-
port and shape those business ideas? What tough decisions about people,
products, businesses, customers, and suppliers will the leader need to make
for the organization to succeed? How can the leader best energize and moti-
vate others to embrace the changes that are necessary? Some CEOs need lit-
tle guidance to articulate and tell their story, while others must build their
teachable point of view from the ground up. The coach questions, prompts,
and helps shape the story until the coach has a rough focus that he can be-
fore the senior team.
Typically, the top leadership team—10 to 12 members at most—goes off-
site for the serious debate necessary to refine and become aligned with the
leader ’s teachable point of view. The coach is present to help the leader
guide the process and facilitate the debate. Each member of the team shares
his or her individual thinking, pushing and pulling at the strategy, ideas, and
values, until agreement has been reached.
It can be difficult for a leader to finesse this process. The leader cannot
have all the answers, nor can he or she expect consensus to emerge without
the appropriate expression of power. Typically, leaders who fail at building
support do so in one of two ways. Either they are autocrats, using a mega-
phone to blast a point of view without making anyone around them smarter;
or they are abdicrats, allowing the democracy of ideas to become an anarchy
ofmisalignment. The paradox of power is that it is top-down but interactive,
command-and-control but participatory. As in the best coaching, learning is
always two-way, although organized around a firm point of view.
Second Month: Leaders Coaching Leaders
A top leader understands that one of the most powerful tools is the calendar.
That’s why the leader mandates that each member of the senior team spend
the requisite amount of time personally coaching and teaching the next lead-
ership level.
In the beginning, the senior team leads 2-to-3-day seminars with 50 to 100
people at the next leadership level. Again, the teaching and learning is two-
way, even as it is aligned to the top leader ’s teachable point of view. By en-
couraging open debate and sharing of ideas, the teachable point of view
becomes real for each individual—something he or she can pass on to the
next level in turn.