An Odd Question From A Leader

“Do you think I am a weenie?” a client asked me at the completion of a leadership coaching session.

I was surprised by the question because the client is an incredibly accomplished fellow who started and has managed a professional partnership for some thirty years. In my response to the intriguing question I realized that, if you are willing, leadership coaching can take you places in which you perceive yourself to be a “weenie”…and that’s a good thing.

If Leadership Coaching Makes You A Weenie, It’s Working

Executive coaching is a place to let your hair down, be yourself at your very core with full knowledge you won’t be judged. That’s an important part of the process. The truth is that to be successful, leadership development should be bold and push you into uncharted and challenging waters that might even make you complain. It is the leadership coach’s job to put the clients into situations that make them uncomfortable and get them to stretch themselves. 

An Example

Recently, I was coaching a woman who runs a successful business – a quiet powerhouse.  During a particular session, we got to work on how she wanted to handle a senior business development guy on her team who wasn’t delivering the numbers and it was time to do something about it. She had been stopped from taking action.

She used the leadership development session to get clear about what and how she wanted to move forward. The coaching pushed her to confront the situation and acknowledge she didn’t like the guy, which was one of the reasons behind her inaction. We looked at the situation from several different perspectives and brainstormed strategies for the conversation she would have with him.

Takeaway

The truth is we are all “weenies” in some areas of our lives. The gift of leadership coaching is that it gives us an opportunity to take that part of ourselves out for review, have some discussion and then determine how we want to move forward gracefully.

Are you ready to be a weenie?

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.

–Victor Hugo