Leadership Coaching – Not Just for Christmas!

Today, my wife, who works in retail, came home saying she’d spent the entire day ‘clearing the decks for Christmas”. Yes, it is that time of year already where we begin to switch focus from completing this year’s challenges to establishing goals and targets for next year.

Those in the agency world will be familiar with the planning cycle: what financial and client goals are we going to set, how are we going to stretch resources to meet them, and how are we going to develop our people to meet next year’s challenges? It is the time to appraise progress and put learning and development plans in place for your teams.

But what about you? What are your development needs – how will you continue to grow and develop as a leader? Too often, leadership coaching is seen as a ‘nice to have’ or a perk to reward or retain key talent. But investing in leadership is perhaps one of the quickest returns on investment you can deliver. That means investing in yourself!

Invest in yourself

Leadership coaching can deliver improved self-confidence, inspire loyalty and commitment in teams and contribute to clearer, better decision-making. All of which can quickly translate to more business won and retained, better productivity and higher profitability. By providing the critical time and space to step away from the day-to-day and the transactional – to get out of the weeds – coaching plays an important role in allowing you to be the best leader you can be. As one commentator recently said to me – “you can’t read the labels from inside the jam jar!” Finding a thought partner to help bring perspective to your leadership not only builds confidence, but inspires you to try more, experiment more and seek out new options.

Sharpen the Saw

This creativity, refreshing and rekindling of purpose is essential not just as we enter a new year, but on a continuous basis. Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talks about “sharpening the saw” – when was the last time you had the chance to sharpen your own saw? A good leadership coach will encourage you to test, refine and recommit to your own leadership goals and strategies. Leadership coaching is not just a perk, or a Christmas present to yourself, but an important element in building capacity to meet future challenges.

So, before attention fully turns to Christmas parties and where to hang the tinsel, spare some time to think about what you want, as a leader, in the coming year and what investment makes sense to secure it.