Become the leader you are

‘Become the Leader You Are: Self-Leadership through Executive Coaching’ is a mini-manual to build high-quality leadership, self-leadership and self-coaching. Each chapter provides perspective, insight and practical suggestions on key topics for leaders to make part of their daily lives.

It emphasises authenticity and self-awareness, relationships and systemic thinking, and the value of diversity and self-management. It considers emotional intelligence, resilience, neuroscience and mindfulness as areas of knowledge and practice which offer additional particular benefit to the leader.

Content

1. Introduction
   1. High-quality leadership is the exception
   2. Executive coaching for self-awareness
   3. Executive coaching equips leaders to lead and self-lead
   4. Authentic leadership and self-coaching
   5. What’s in this e-book
2. Become the leader you are
   1. My coaching ethos: become who you are
   2. Leaders who could deliver more
   3. The link between authenticity and leadership
   4. The quality of authentic leadership
   5. Practical pointers
3. Leadership coaching
   1. Resources and resourcefulness
   2. The motivation for coaching
   3. How to gain the most from leadership coaching
   4. Challenges that leaders bring to coaching
   5. Coaching outcomes
   6. Risky thinking
   7. Self-coaching
   8. Practical pointers
4. Self-awareness and self-understanding
   1. Self-awareness: the heart of executive coaching
   2. Self-awareness is critical to effectiveness
   3. Coaching is developmental, not remedial
   4. The leader needs to care about their followers
   5. Connecting with others depends on connecting with self
   6. The difficult messages can be the eye openers
   7. Practical pointers
5. We’re all part of the systems
   1. We all function within several systems
   2. Bringing alive what’s not said or seen
   3. Individual and systemic awareness
   4. Acknowledgment: the key to the door
   5. Who or what has been excluded?
   6. Beyond apparent logic
   7. Practical pointers
6. Relationships and connection
   1. Leaders function in relationship to others
   2. Leaders’ effectiveness is linked to listening and connecting
   3. Mandela’s collaborative leadership
   4. A collaborative style of leadership strengthens the team
   5. Practical pointers
7. Managing your emotions so as to lead others
   1. How emotional intelligence shows up
   2. Choosing your response
   3. Stepping back emotionally
   4. Empathy and the exceptional leader
   5. Emotional intelligence can be learnt
   6. Leadership outcomes from emotional intelligence
   7. Practical pointers
8. Resilience, the bottom line and Ordinary Magic
   1. Resilience: a direct connection with revenue growth
   2. Building resilience is a constant
   3. Four factors for resilience
   4. Don’t just keep going: keep learning
   5. Ordinary Magic
   6. Practical pointers
9. Leadership development
   1. What kind of leadership are we developing?
   2. Leadership qualities
   3. Six mental stances for top quality leadership
   4. Practical pointers
10. Authentic leadership
    1. The struggle to inhabit our own authenticity
    2. The ideal organisation: diversity is encouraged
    3. Sir Richard Branson: an example of authentic leadership
    4. The rewards of authenticity
    5. The path to authentic leadership: self-awareness and ‘being’
    6. Practical pointers
11. Trust: a critical element of leadership
    1. Lack of trust on the front line
    2. Leaders who succeed through building trust
    3. Trust: an increasingly frequent coaching issue
    4. Trust is reciprocal
    5. Leaders get more from their teams
    6. Practical pointers
12. The global village
    1. What is ‘culture’?
    2. Complex, diverse workforces
    3. The systemic impact of culture
    4. Globalised responses
    5. Leadership qualities for a global culture
    6. Practical pointers
13. Leading across cultures
    1. Leaders need to be cross-culturally effective
    2. The executive’s reactions to their own impact
    3. Where cultural differences show up
    4. Self-understanding and self-awareness are key
    5. Cross-cultural clear-sightedness
    6. Taking multiple perspectives
    7. Practical pointers
14. Diversity
    1. Different types of diversity
    2. Self-awareness and acceptance
    3. Listening and valuing
    4. Respecting cultural values
    5. Releasing team potential
    6. Practical pointers
15. The multi-generational workforce
    1. Diversity of age and intellect
    2. Diversity of pace
    3. Slowing down
    4. Speed-leadership
    5. Slowing down can mean getting to the heart of challenges
    6. Leaders play a crucial role in raising awareness of ‘slow’
    7. Can the coach enter the client’s world?
    8. Practical pointers
16. Career strategy
    1. Purpose and meaning at work
    2. Purpose: fundamental to career refocus
    3. Professional identity
    4. Values, beliefs, drivers, strengths – and obstacles
    5. Career – and retirement – direction
    6. Practical pointers
17. Career refocus: stepping off the treadmill
    1. Getting off the treadmill
    2. Resolving the dilemmas and tensions
    3. Feeling ‘a whole person’
    4. Handling difficulties – and refocusing the career
    5. Making decisions in awareness
    6. A new job – or something different in the current job
    7. Swapping organisational life for ‘the good life’
    8. Practical pointers
18. Factors in managing the executive career
    1. Choosing the path rather than the path choosing you
    2. A holistic approach brings the fullest value
    3. The Wittenberg Career Coaching Model©
    4. Career practicalities
    5. The executive experience
    6. Practical pointers
19. Your personal brand: a marketable identity
    1. What is your personal brand?
    2. Your passions
    3. Your values
    4. Your experience and achievements
    5. Your strengths and skills
    6. Your reputation
    7. Your personal vision and your goals
    8. Practical pointers
20. Creativity and innovation
    1. The various manifestations of David Bowie
    2. Treading a new path: creativity and innovation
    3. Collaboration
    4. Leadership, learning and the courage to pioneer
    5. The freak becomes the unifier
    6. Practical pointers
21. The neuroscience of learning and performance
    1. A direct link between learning and performance
    2. Why reflection works as a learning process
    3. Slowing down to reflect
    4. Why goal-based learning works
    5. Mastery is anathema
    6. Practical pointers
22. Mindfulness: coaching the leader
    1. What is mindfulness?
    2. Curiosity
    3. Non-judging: wisdom and compassion
    4. What next for the leaders I coach?
    5. Practical pointers
23. Conclusion
    1. Two fundamental principles: learning and self-awareness
    2. Self-leadership
    3. Self-coaching
    4. Become the leader you are
24. Bibliography