The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching: 50 Top Executive Coaches Reveal Their Secrets by Howard Morgan

Author:Howard Morgan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 2005-09-25T07:23:40+00:00

COACHING FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

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sounding together.”6 Exceptional leadership demands a level of inspiration, perspective, courage, understanding, and commitment that transcends day-to-day management; twenty-first-century leadership demands approaches that transcend the accepted practices of twentieth-century organizations.

Artists and leaders face similar challenges: to see reality as it is, without succumbing to despair, while imagining possibilities that go far beyond current reality; to have the courage to collude against illusion while articulating possible futures previously unimaginable; and to inspire people to surpass themselves, individually and collectively, for the benefit of all. The world needs better leadership, and the people within organizations and communities are hungry for the change. They no longer want the narrow, circum-scribed leadership of the twentieth century, nor its outcomes. And yet those who choose to truly lead in this journey should not dismiss the risks. Whenever a paradigm shifts, those who have the most to gain from the old ways hold on extremely tightly.

A

lbert A. Vicere

Coaching for Leadership Depth

Dr. Albert A. Vicere is Executive Education Professor of

Strategic Leadership at Penn State’s Smeal College of

Business and President of Vicere Associates Inc., a con-

sulting firm whose clients span the globe. He is the au-

thor/editor of several books, including Leadership By

Design and The Many Facets of Leadership, and more than 80 articles on leadership development and organizational

effectiveness. His article “Leadership in the Networked

Economy” won the Human Resource Planning Society’s

2002 Walker Prize for the most inf luential article of the year. He can be reached by phone at (814) 233-1120, by e-mail at [email protected], or via the Internet at www.vicere.com.

Over the years, I have had the great fortune to work with scores of business organizations and to spend time with their leaders. The best of those leaders share at least one very similar perspective—that the essence of 138

50 TOP EXECUTIVE COACHES

their job is to get results and at the same time to build commitment to the organization’s culture and values. But there is little doubt that today’s leaders must carry out those responsibilities in an incredibly complex environment.

The current business climate challenges leaders to fulfill their responsibilities while directing their organization’s movement into a new economic order. This often requires not only the development and deployment of new strategies and business models, but also reformulation of corporate culture and values.

My clients tend to be business and HRD leaders from organizations like Cisco, 3M, Aramark, and Merck that are looking to build relevant leadership development initiatives to meet the challenge of today’s complex competitive environment. I work in partnership with those clients to design, develop, and sometimes deliver initiatives that help their organization to get results, shape culture, and develop leadership depth. As challenging as this work can be, there is nothing more inspiring or exhilarating than working in tandem with a team of clients to build momentum, ratchet up performance, and inspire renewed leadership commitment across an organization.

The number-one critical success factor in my work is having a team of clients—on both the business and HRD side—that is visibly committed to leadership development as a driver of organizational performance.

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