The Top 4 Ways Leadership Coaching Benefits Leaders & Their Businesses

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In navigating digital transformation, the remote work revolution, the Great Resignation, and a stronger cultural emphasis on positive work culture, business leaders are required to adapt to rapid change now more than ever.  Coaching helps.

Coaching is typically sought out when a leader recognizes that there is a problem, whether it’s an unmet goal, increased conflict in the workplace or personal relationships, or the realization that their current approach is a sure-fire way to burnout.

What is Leadership Coaching?

Effective leadership coaching is one of the most powerful methods of supporting business leaders through navigating change, reducing stress, and improving resilience. It provides a confidential, judgment-free space for them to talk through complex problems, reflect on personal and professional challenges, set goals, and improve their leadership skills. Leaders are then able to implement these techniques in their businesses, creating organizations built on a solid foundation of trust, respect, and adherence to mutual objectives. 

How Leadership Coaching Benefits Leaders & Their Businesses

Improve Your Communication Skills

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Effective communication skills are a vital asset in any business. Poor communication has the potential to lead to confusion around priorities, foster distrust within your team, and ultimately create barriers that make it difficult - or even impossible - for an organization to rally behind a common goal. 

Whether it’s negotiating with suppliers, leading your organization through a significant transformation, or facilitating a positive outcome in an interpersonal challenge, the ability to adapt your communication style to various situations and people is a crucial leadership skill that is often overlooked.

Beyond positioning you to react productively as unexpected situations arise, effective communication skills enable you to:

• Resolve workplace conflict

• Improve company culture

• Align your company’s objectives

• Provide clear, actionable feedback

• Ensure vital information is interpreted correctly

Influence Coaching’s leadership training enables you to objectively understand your communication style, provides guidance on where it can be improved, and sets actionable goals that you can work towards. Throughout the process, we demonstrate utmost respect for your perceptions and learning style, while championing new behaviors and strategic risk-taking.

Harness the Power of Your Unique Leadership Style

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Great leaders aren’t born - it’s a cliche because it holds truth. Influential leaders are created with unrelenting passion, a forward-thinking vision, and a clear, focused mindset. But, for many leaders, by the time their business has grown enough to hire a team, their minds are already immersed in the next business challenge.

In the ever-evolving business world, moments to take a step back and consider your leadership style are few and far between. But, without understanding your strengths, it’s impossible to harness your full potential to motivate, organize, and develop your team.

In the 1980s, psychologist Kurt Lewin developed a leadership framework that is still used today in the most competitive business arenas. As an experiment, it might be beneficial to see which categories you fit into. Remember, leaders are multifaceted and you’re likely to see aspects of yourself in multiple leadership styles:

• Authoritarian: Authoritarian leaders excel in businesses with a clear hierarchical structure. They’re comfortable making decisions independently, providing clear instruction, and constructive feedback.

• Participative: Participative leaders have a people-first mindset and encourage their team to provide input, while retaining the final say on decisions. Lewin’s study found that these leaders are generally less productive than authoritarian leaders, but have higher levels of team engagement.

• Delegative: Delegative leaders leave critical decision-making to their team. This approach is often successful when utilized in highly-skilled teams with specialist knowledge, but can present barriers to progress when a team requires hands-on guidance.

So, which leadership style is most effective? No single leadership style is “the best”. Rather, the mark of an inspiring leader is the ability to remain agile and tailor their approach to the personalities and situations at hand.

At Influence Coaching, we empower you to identify and tap into your natural leadership style, while we work on developing styles that may not come naturally but are nonetheless critical in reaching solutions for conflict management, team culture and cohesion, and productivity. 

Unlock Positive Stress Management Strategies

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Stress is an inherent aspect of leadership. While it’s often thought of as something negative to avoid, stress can, in fcat, be beneficial. It can galvanize you into prioritizing your goals, while improving your cognitive function and inspiring new ideas. When people say they work well under pressure, this is usually the type of stress they’re referring to.

Conversely, chronic stress can have a range of negative effects that can impact you both professionally and personally. Along with exacerbating any existing conditions, stress can make you lose sleep, affect your clarity of thought, and wreak havoc on your interpersonal relationships. In its worst incarnation, it can even lead to complete burnout.

Sometimes, managing stress can simply be a matter of changing your perspective. In other scenarios, stress management requires deeper consideration, especially if you’re on your way to burnout. 

Influence Coaching champions the idea that self-care is the opposite of selfish. It allows leaders to do the crucial “self-maintenance” that enables them to continue to support themselves, their organizations, and their families. Our approach assesses your stress management style with a focus on time management, delegating tasks, beating burnout, and resolving conflict to equip you with clear, actionable techniques that lead to measurable results.

Create a Positive Work Environment

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The Great Resignation has brought conversations about the workplace environment to the forefront of our culture. While salary is one of the most cited reasons for leaving a job, a study by Pew Research indicates that there are significant additional factors that lead to low employee retention, including:

• No opportunities for professional advancement

• Feeling disrespected in the workplace

• Childcare issues

• Lack of flexibility

• Working too many hours

Poor employee retention has a major impact on businesses, and many business owners underestimate the financial ramifications of high turnover. These include:

• Hiring costs: From writing a job advertisement, to scheduling interview time, to onboarding and training, hiring a new employee has countless hidden costs. Of these, the most significant are lost productivity from a vacant role, and time spent by management and the business owner throughout the interview process.

• Decreased motivation: In an environment with high employee turnover, remaining employees are often tasked with an increased workload. In addition, high employee turnover makes continuity in relationships, workflow processes, and workplace culture difficult, further decreasing morale, motivation, and productivity.

• Loss of knowledge: All business leaders know that their best employees aren’t simply adept at completing their tasks. They have a comprehensive understanding of the business structure, goals, internal and external relationships, and processes. A loss of knowledge can have a destabilizing effect on workplace culture, leaving remaining employees less likely to take strategic risks, propose big ideas, and collaborate.

At Influence Coaching, we empower leaders to speak the same “language” as their employees - one of support and respect. By becoming more understanding and empathetic, leaders are able to cultivate collective buy-in from their direct reports, helping to build a stronger, more cohesive team that has the power to improve company culture, create sustainable positive change, and maximize results.

Begin Your Leadership Coaching Journey

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Founded by Dr Stanley J. Ward, Influence Coaching is built on the idea that the world needs more engaged leaders who are equally committed to maximizing results and creating positive, long-lasting relationships. 

Dr Ward is accredited by the International Coaching Federation, and has extensive experience in partnering with leaders to manage both their professional and personal success. 

Through his comprehensive approach, leaders regularly meet with Dr Ward to get perspective on their leadership challenges, are held accountable, supported in achieving their objectives, and are given actionable tasks to track and improve their performance.

Each program is personalized to the leader’s challenges and goals, and offers a free discovery session to ensure that the relationship is a good fit before moving forward. 

Read more on what to expect from your first coaching session here or book a free discovery conversation to learn how you can beat burnout, resolve workplace conflict, create a positive work culture, and improve your business.