Let’s talk about coachability. Are you coachable?
But before we begin talking about coachability, I want to first make a distinction that I think is really important.
If you are the kind of leader who is reading leadership books, listening to podcasts, and taking courses to become a better leader, to evolve and develop yourself, that is absolutely wonderful. It is so so SO important. (If you are not doing it, start doing it.)
I want to give you thumbs-up for that. But I want to distinguish between that and coachability, because they are not the same thing.
When someone is “coachable”, what does that look like?
They go through a few steps.
First, the proactive leader who wants to be coached is asking for feedback, inviting feedback, welcoming feedback. Tell me, tell me, how can I be a better leader?
You can already see the difference. The people giving feedback are front and center in your leadership. Whether they are in your organization or you’ve brought in an observer, they are looking at YOU. It’s not the teacher teaching the class or the author who has written the book sharing general leadership knowledge and strategies with you. These people are actually seeing your leadership in play. That’s amazing information to receive.
Second, coachable leaders are open to the feedback, the critique (the criticism even), the evaluation. They are open to thinking about how that aligns with their leadership. It can be uncomfortable. You can come in with a preconceived idea of what leadership is supposed to be, and this might be shaking that up.
Unless we’re talking about one squeaky wheel in a big organization, if you are getting the same feedback from a lot of people then you have to be ready to question your leadership. Question how well you really are doing. Challenge yourself. Stretch yourself. Do you need to adapt to this situation? Do you need to evolve as a leader?
That’s a really important step. We’ve all been in situations where feedback is asked from us, but you can tell that it’s more of a dance. It’s not that the person really wants the feedback, because they’re not open to it. When a leader is saying “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I’m doing it my way”, that’s not being open to evaluation.
The last step that is so important is taking action, actually doing something about it. ESPECIALLY if you want to encourage coachability in other people. We see leaders who want so badly for the people they are trying to develop and grow to be coachable and yet, they themselves are not coachable.
When you start to take the feedback that you got and are actually taking actions that people can see, you are modeling how to be coachable. Instead of just talking about being coachable, you are demonstrating the trait of coachability.
I invite you to ask yourself how coachable you are right now. If you truly are, then you already have an important characteristic of the Legendary Leader. If you are thinking that you could probably be more coachable, then I want to challenge you to pick an area where you are willing to stretch yourself a little bit.
Look around. It could be your family, your organization, even a small group.
- How can you ask for specific feedback?
- Can you be open to it and really allow it to challenge you?
- Then, take some action. Let the people who gave you feedback see that you are willing to evolve, grow, and adapt to the situation.
The more you practice, the more coachable you will become. You will grow even faster than you are now by learning from external sources like courses, books, conferences, and such.
This is such a crucial piece of being a Legendary Leader. I want to applaud you if you’ve got it. AND I want to applaud you if you are willing to work on it, as well.
I invite you to learn more about being a Legendary Leader. This is a class geared towards the leader who wants to evolve and grow. In particular, it is for the leader who wants to inspire and grow other people, who places importance on the culture and how people feel within their leadership.
THAT is who would be most interested in this course. Is that you?
October 2nd @Timberline High School in Boise, ID 6:30-8:30pm