How to Add Some Leadership Coaching to Your Life
A number of years ago I heard some people talk about why leaders (in this case, specifically pastors and church planters) need a leadership coach. I thought the idea was silly. Now, years later and 1.5 years into planting a church and a growing number of other arenas in which I lead, I no longer think leadership coaching is silly. I think it's incredibly helpful.Leaders, I'm writing this short post to persuade you to do one thing: Add some leadership coaching to your life.Note: If you don't like the title "coaching" or "coach" I don't blame you. For some reason I didn't like that language either, it sounded strange to me because I was used to having coaches in sports and mentors in life. So just substitute the word "coach" for "mentor" or "adviser" or "person with outside perspective who can help me do a better job at my job."Why?Why would it be helpful to add some leadership coaching to your life? Because your vantage point is limited. You lead whatever it is you lead from a limited perspective. You have blind spots. You can only see what you can see. A coach who is further along than you in the leadership journey has covered more territory than you and stands at a higher peak from which he (or she) can help you see things that you don't yet see.In short: You need wisdom to lead well and a coach can accelerate your growth in wisdom as a leader.The One BarrierWhat is the one great barrier that will keep you from adding some form of leadership coaching to your life? Pride.How?How do you add leadership coaching to your life? There is not one way to do this, there are hundreds of ways to do this. For the sake of simplicity, I'll just tell you the two ways I've added leadership coaching to my life.1. Informal Coaching. I have a handful of men who are older than me and more advanced than me in a variety of leadership arenas that concern me: manhood, marriage, parenting, church planting, writing/publishing, and outside speaking opportunities. Over the years I have built relationships with these men and from time to time (whenever I feel like I need it) I initiate with one or several of these guys and ask for their help with whatever it is I'm dealing with.Not all of these men excel in all of these arenas. For example, there are a few guys I contact for church planting help and there is one guy I contact for writing/publishing help.2. Formal Coaching. There is one older man who means a lot to me who decades ago planted and led a thriving church and who now leads a church planter training organization. He means a lot to me and when I approached him with some of my needs a while back he graciously offered to hold a monthly thirty-minute coaching phone call with me. This monthly phone call is scheduled out on my calendar to the end of the year and means a great deal to me.Each time we talk I'm blown away by how helped I am by an older man who cares for me, is wiser than me, and wants to help me flourish as a leader. Our coaching conversations are largely question driven. Almost every month this coach asks me four questions which, as we unpack them together, lead to great discoveries. Here are the four questions:
1. How is your heart?2. How is your marriage and family?3. How is your church?4. How are you navigating writing and speaking opportunities?
It's amazing what questions can do.ActionWhether you're a pastor, entrepreneur, teacher, CEO, writer, or whatever, I suggest you take action today to add some leadership coaching to your life. Start small. One idea is to find someone you respect and ask them to coach you once a month for a thirty minute session for the next six months. See what happens from there.