Leadership training has come a long way in recent years. It has grown rapidly as business leaders, CEOs, managers, and small business owners have realised its value. It’s so valuable that globally approximately USD 3.7 billion was spent on leadership development in 2020 alone.

What’s covered in this guide:

How leadership training can help you

Why choose leadership training?

What are the different coaching styles?

What should I expect from a leadership coach?

*I’m here to help you succeed with leadership training*

How leadership training can help you

Despite its name, you do not need to be in a leadership role to benefit from leadership training. So how can a leadership coach help, even if you have no desire to become ‘top dog’ in the office?

No matter where you stand in the pecking order, developing your leadership skills may well be your ticket to more fulfilling work life. And it may bolster your private life too. Whether climbing the ladder is part of your long-term career plan or not, a satisfying life and profession are on everybody’s wish list.

What is leadership training?

Leadership training is an intense tailor-made process of self-exploration, creation and transformation. It’s utterly rewarding, but it needs a safe and experienced pair of hands to guide you through the process. A professional leadership coach will guide you on the journey of discovery and teach you the techniques and skills you need to become the person you most want to be.

This type of coaching gives you space to work through what it is about the role that you enjoy and what you would like to change. It’s common to assume that you should look for a new job if you don’t like the one you have, but this is often unnecessary. Happiness and contentment can be found within your current role if you take the time to delve deeper into the source of your dissatisfaction.

Ultimately, the goal is to fall in love with your own life. Can you think of a better gift?

How can a leadership coach help you?

Learning the skills to help you live your best possible life is something we can all benefit from.

The idea that improving your leadership skills is only helpful when you are ‘the boss’ paints a very narrow picture of those in a managerial position versus those who are expected to ‘do as you’re told.

Our current work environment has changed dramatically in recent years. The days of a manager being the ‘one in the know’ have been replaced with a complex business situation: the entire team is expected to be adaptable, empathic, and accountable on a high level. These skills are no longer the sole domain of the CEO and the CFO.

On top of that, we are also never just a professional or a private person. Who we are transcends these artificial boundaries and it makes little sense to single out half of what makes up our day-to-day existence.

The skills you can deploy in your professional career are just as valuable when dealing with your partner, neighbour, or even your mother-in-law!

Leadership training deciphered

It’s true that we all long to live meaningful and fulfilling lives. Not just on a professional level but also in our private world. Unlike career coaching, which aims at figuring out your career path, working on your leadership abilities takes you on an inward journey:

Leadership training helps you answer life's hard questions:

Our busy lives mean we rarely allow time to pause and reflect on such core questions, even though they are the centre of who we are as a person.

“‘The unexamined life isn’t worth living.’”

— Socrates

Socrates famously declared that ‘the unexamined life isn’t worth living.’ The famous Greek philosopher was implying that by looking inward, we give our lives purpose and meaning. Gaining insight into our make-up is the key to unlocking our full potential.

And that’s something that should interest us all.

Why choose leadership training?

*Learn how to love work with leadership training*

You know you spend a vast amount of time at work, but did you realise it can be as much as a third of your life! Why then do so many of us forget to prioritise our work wellness? It’s because we’ve been socialised to associate work with civic duty and to earn a living – not with enjoyment and fulfilment.

We should wake up feeling excited when it’s time to work, but if we think that work is a chore, then one-third of our lives become a chore. And where’s the joy in that?

If this resonates with you and you would like to get more from your career, working on your leadership qualities could be just what you need. You don’t necessarily need a career change or to re-skill. All you might need is to change how you think about work, and a behaviour change will follow.

Leadership training benefits all levels in an organisation

Most larger companies employ coaches for upper management. But coaching at all levels in any organisation increases employee satisfaction and productivity. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the best advice he ever got was to get a coach. And Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates believes ‘everyone should get a coach’. So what makes developing employees’ leadership skills so attractive?

What do companies hope to gain?

The causes dissatisfaction at work

Sadly, in a 2017 study, one in five Australians reported being unhappy with their careers. Of these, 20% were dissatisfied with their level of seniority, and 13% disliked their boss. Despite this, only a small percentage of unhappy workers were taking steps to change their situation. Workers who oppose their roles may, nevertheless, stay for reasons including:

Being unable to afford a career change financially
Not being aware of a better alternative career
Feeling too invested in their current job.

There can be a wide variety of reasons for feeling dissatisfied with work. Professional relationships with colleagues may be strained, you may feel stuck in your role, or the job role itself may not offer enough of a challenge (or perhaps be too challenging). Demanding customers or clients can also make your working day more stressful. And if you feel underpaid, you are certainly not alone; in Australia, 13% of men and 19% of women thought they were paid badly.

Despite numerous potential sources of difficulty, it’s possible to find enjoyment in your current role by concentrating on your personal feelings and professional outlook. Alongside a leadership coach, you’ll be able to achieve more in your current job role whilst addressing any attitudes or behaviours preventing you from reaching professional contentment.

Personal development: A two-way relationship

Leadership training is a two-way relationship between the coach and employee. When you work with a leadership coach, you’ll benefit from having an experienced accountability partner who assists you with effective leadership, optimal performance and career advancement, as well as identifying blind spots and roadblocks. It also enables you to benefit from truthful, quality feedback, as the coach is not an organisation’s employee and therefore is impartial.

It’s future-focused and works from a conversation platform, using inquiry and deep listening to increase self-awareness. In one study, coaches were asked what primary skill they coached. The overwhelming answer was ‘self-awareness’ followed by other skills (which we’ll dive into below).

However, looking more closely at these skills, a picture of emotional intelligence is revealed. An increase in self-awareness leads to increased emotional intelligence, which is extremely important for leadership positions.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is ‘the ability to recognise your emotions, understand what they are telling you and realise your feelings affect those around you. It also involves your perceptions of others. When you know how they feel, you can manage relationships more effectively.

This means that your emotional self-awareness helps you understand the emotions of others, and you respond with empathy to their needs.

Interestingly, one study from Harvard University found that a critical trait lacking amongst upper management was empathy. Leadership training enables companies to address this key trait of successful leadership that it is lacking.

Benefits of leadership training and emotional intelligence

Leadership coaches work with clients to boost self-awareness and increase levels of empathy. The coach guides the client in acquiring skills associated with emotional intelligence. The following looks at some of the benefits of bringing emotional intelligence into the workplace.

Self-Awareness

As mentioned, one of the main topics coaches teach is self-awareness. People with high emotional intelligence are very aware of their own emotions. This awareness leads them to regulate their feelings.

This sounds simple, but it’s essential because self-awareness is the catalyst by which growth occurs. Research shows that most of us don’t see ourselves very clearly, but this matters because self-awareness in business leaders is closely correlated with organisational productivity and profitability.

Plus, people prefer to follow self-aware leaders. An effective leadership coach helps leaders develop the skills to see themselves more clearly and learn where they are strong and need to grow. Without that first step of self-awareness, people will blindly continue doing things in the same way.

Self-Regulation

Awareness of one’s emotions brings about an ability to control one’s emotions. This means the task of self-regulation is made more attainable. For example, imagine a scenario at work where you have to oversee a new employee, and you have feelings of inferiority. However, you’re unable to identify what those feelings or emotions are. That is, you’re not self-aware. You just know that you’re uncomfortable when you deal with that person.

Being self-aware is the first step in controlling your emotions and handling this situation with ease. People with high emotional intelligence have better self-regulation skills. Self-discipline is not limited to uncomfortable feelings.

As your leadership coach enables you to develop greater self-control, you’ll see greater self-regulation in your professional and personal life. You’ll also see improvements in time management, become better organised and have greater control over your work-life balance.

Developing Empathy

As mentioned earlier, empathy is something that’s often lacking in upper management. But it’s a critical human trait if we’re to get along and work together. It enables us to appreciate how another person feels and is linked to the hormone oxytocin (which also reduces our aggression and stress levels).

“Empathy is not a soft nurturing value, but a hard commercial tool that every business needs as part of their DNA.”

— Rene Schuster, former CEO of Telefonica Germany

Chances are, if someone empathises with a problem you have, you feel it. Empathy leads to improved interactions with business colleagues and subordinates. People will easily be led by you and seek your advice. Great leaders are empathetic.

Improved Cognition

Cognition is ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience and the senses’. If you think of your brain as a muscle, you can understand how cognition can improve through exercising your brain.

One of the key components of emotional intelligence is viewing situations from other people’s perspectives (where empathy comes in). You become open to different points of view, and you’re more open-minded and flexible in your thinking, which has obvious benefits when working with and leading others.

More Motivation

When you start to achieve success, motivation to succeed increases. When we succeed, it raises the level of dopamine in the brain, which makes us feel good. Dopamine also motivates you to act towards your goals (procrastination, self-doubt, and lack of enthusiasm are linked to low dopamine levels).

Your motivation is also linked to self-awareness. When you are self-aware, you discover motivation within yourself. With self-regulation, you can control and guide your enthusiasm in the right direction. We all know that if we’re motivated and achieving success, we’re also more satisfied with our work. It’s what makes us try harder to overcome those complex tasks.

Better Social Skills

Social skills are the skills we use to communicate and interact with each other, both verbally and non-verbally (body language, our appearance and how we present ourselves). Good social skills enable us to build and maintain a healthy relationships, both at work and in our private lives.

Leaders who have high emotional intelligence have advanced social skills. It means they work well within groups and can lead without dominating. It also means they are adept at negotiating outcomes and can win people over, satisfying everyone.

Leveraging your existing strengths

An effective leadership coach can help you identify and leverage your existing strengths. You may be aware of them but could be underestimating them. They can also help you see the value and uniqueness of those skills to learn how to use them more effectively.

Improved Leadership Skills

Leadership is the ‘action of leading a group of people or an organisation, or the ability to do this’. Leaders create a vision, set direction, and map out how the team or organisation can achieve success. They must also use management skills to guide people to the right in a smooth, efficient, inspiring and exciting way.

As we have seen, people with high emotional intelligence are more self-aware and better at self-regulating. They make better team members and better leaders, in part because they are empathetic. Good leaders listen. They let their team members know they have been heard and understood and that you care about the situation.

“Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.”

— Marshall Goldsmith

Be the best that you can be

As you can see, there are many benefits to engaging a leadership coach. These are only some of them. But it all starts with emotional intelligence and self-awareness, and you should see the positive effects of this quickly once you develop skills in these areas.

It’s also important to remember that coaching only works when you want to be coached. You must want to grow. Like anything new, working with a coach can be challenging and even a little scary as you confront certain things. But it can also be the catalyst you need to become the person you want to be.

What are the different coaching styles?

*We’ll work together to help you achieve your goals*

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to coaching. That’s why it’s essential to explore the multiple ways in which leadership training can be implemented. Whether an employee wants to thrive within their current role or transition into something more suited to their skills, leadership training will provide an opportunity to achieve this.

The strength of the relationship between a leadership coach and client is vital if desired coaching outcomes are to be achieved. Research developed by coaching psychologists Grant & Connor (2019) highlighted that a valuable coaching relationship with trust and transparency is the key to successful coaching.

But every person is different. At work, employees and managers have a set job role and hold unique values and perspectives about life, their career and their workplace and personal relationships. To achieve any goal, a person-centred coaching approach is needed.

5 leadership training models

1) A democratic approach

A democratic approach involves the active participation of the client to set and meet goals. The client works alongside the coach to identify any development needs and collaboratively create a pathway to success.

The personality type of the client plays a fundamental role in the success of this approach. The client should be motivated to change, productive, naturally creative and assertive. These attributes will help steer forward this coaching method and strengthen the coach/client relationship.

2) A holistic approach

A holistic approach can work well when a person is suffering in a wider context than just work. This means seeing the client as a whole person, with many different dimensions, strengths and vulnerabilities transcending various areas of life.

As a whole person, work progress can be impacted by many different factors, including relationships, money, family, self-esteem, health and upbringing.

A client who is open to enhancing their overall wellbeing to improve workplace performance would benefit from this type of training.

3) Cognitive coaching for leaderships

Cognitive coaching is based on the therapeutic style of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This style enables the client to become aware of how they think and develop within the workplace. The coach uses a series of specialist tools to reveal individual thought processes.

Methods like paraphrasing, pausing, posing questions, and positive challenge are primarily used. There may be a focus on ‘PITS’ (Performance Interfering Thoughts). Pen and paper can be handy for this type of coaching, helping the client logically see where their thinking is holding them back.

4) The positive psychology model

The positive psychology leadership training model focuses on positive solutions. The word ‘positive’ in this context is an acronym that stands for:

Purpose
Observations
Strategy
Insight
Team
Initiate
Value
Encourage.

Working through this process, the coach and client can pick apart any problem or challenge and solve it in a positive way. A client who enjoys structure and responds well to deadlines and goals will appreciate this coaching method.

5) Adult development

While we are all adults, we don’t all act like adults all the time. There are certain aspects of all of us that align more with adolescence or child-like thinking. In business, a leadership coach can help a person better understand where their development has ‘halted’ and how further to develop that area into ‘mature adulthood’.

This approach works best for those who say they feel ‘obligated’ to do something they don’t want to do. For example, a person is staying in a job role they hate or failing to address workplace discomforts because they feel obligated to be quiet, keep their head down and please others.

This is a child-like feature (a bit like when you want to please your dad by doing something he’d approve of). As adults, we must make choices that are sometimes uncomfortable for the greater good. That’s what adult development training is all about.

What should I expect from a leadership coach?

As a form of career coaching, we already know that leadership training can benefit you regardless of your career stage. Coaching aims to uncover your hidden potential by challenging you to reassess your self-belief and any unnecessary limitations you have placed upon yourself. Gently challenging your workplace attitudes can break down self-imposed barriers and avoid any career stunting that these behaviours might cause.

Successful professional relationships are vital to a happy and productive work environment. Improving relationships can be a springboard to the more senior roles you have your eye on. The work you put into your development can also benefit your personal life, giving you the tools to be creative, supportive and a trusted leader amongst your friends and family.

When we work together, we shift the focus from searching for professional happiness elsewhere to developing ourselves from within to find joy and satisfaction in our current role.

What to expect when you coach with me?

It’s time to deconstruct how coaching with me can help in more detail. While no one size fits all, there are some general steps that you can expect during the process.

Depending on your journey, it’s likely that some will get more attention than others, but as a rule of thumb, this is what lies ahead.

Who am I? In the initial stages, a leadership coach will take you on a journey of self-awareness. Seeing yourself with open and honest eyes is not an easy thing to do. Yet, there are some fascinating tips and tricks to connect with yourself on a higher level.

I see you! Nobody lives on an island. Just like the heedfulness towards yourself, the canvas we paint of those around us matters. What’s more, it’s a skill you can learn. Do we see our fellow human beings for who they are?

Do we unconsciously choose to only interact with kindred spirits? Has previous experience and trauma contributed to hindering thinking habits? Honestly, how good are we at understanding other people?

Talk: It’s a small step from ‘reading’ others to communicating with them. You’ll be introduced to some helpful and workable tools that will help you build trust, handle disharmony, and hammer out some suave deals. It’s all about learning methods that will lend a hand in sculpturing rewarding and productive relationships.

Diamonds and warts: We explore the uniqueness of your capabilities and how to lean into your strengths to make these competencies shine. Equally, we set you up with a toolkit to mitigate your weaknesses.

The land of hope and dreams: Last but not least, we explore your dreams and aspirations. Where do you want to go? We’re the support system on your journey. Embarking on a journey with a leadership coach is both scary and exciting in equal amounts. It takes a good dose of bravery, keenness, and curiosity. But a good leadership coach will help you chisel the road to your hidden potential in a safe, competent, and confidential environment.

Ready to take your next step to a more fulfilling future?

Whether you want to do better in your career, explore new avenues or overcome a workplace barrier, leadership training can help.

This is not about judging your performance but unlocking the many ways you can perform in a more satisfactory, fulfilling way.

Find out more about the Rachel HillLeadership Coaching
Programme

Or, if you’re ready to get ahead now, book a free 30-minute online chat with me.

Leadership Training: The Definitive Guide