Coaches on the Yellow Brick Road

This week we continue on our yellow brick road as coaches.  A coach is a person who comes alongside us and asks the right questions to lead us in a process of self-discovery of answers that are within us.

As leaders most of us have reached a point on the road in our career where we have run into a brick wall with a challenging team we are called to lead.  We have to make critical decisions about which direction to go considering the options available or we have to create an option and then have the brains, the heart, and the courage to navigate the way.  Sometimes we search for the answer about which way to go just like Dorothy did on her journey by looking around us as opposed to within us.

We can mistakenly spend our careers as leaders looking for answers from everywhere except from among the people who work beside us everyday.  To be a good leader, we need to be a good coach.  To be a good coach to our teams we have to:  (1)  discover the gifts, talents, and abilities of our team members and make sure each person is working within their area of strength on the team, (2)  discover what motivates each person on our team and intentionally incorporate it into our daily interaction, (3)  discover the type of leadership style to which each team member responds and incorporate the necessary elements of that style in communicating with them and (4)  discover the needs of our team members based on their personality type and connect with them accordingly.

There are going to be some team members that we naturally find easy to lead and there will be others that will be challenging.  The better we are asking the right questions, the more successful we will be as a coach and in leading our team in the right direction.

Many times as leaders we have aspired to a title, a position, or a place only to find that the answers we need to move our teams forward are not in a title, position, or place.  It is critical as a leader that we have our own coach so that we develop the ability to effectively coach others.  People internalize and keep with them the things that they have self-discovered.  Who is coaching you in your life?  Who do you intentionally have beside you asking the right questions to help you see a new or different perspective?

If on your yellow brick road you have cast vision for your team but you are “stuck” in moving forward you need a coach.  The truth is we will not intentionally give what you don’t know we have.  As we grow in the process of being coached, we are able to coach others to success and experience the win-win which makes for an ultimate winning team.