THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Learning to be Internal coaches

Learning to be Internal coaches

"HELP me shift some of my appointments and meetings at the end of the month and replace them with eight sessions of coach training that I have to attend for the next eight months," says Alan to his secretary.

All committee members of the Coaching Culture are doing the same, which is to put priority on their “back in the classroom” activities to undertake learning over the next eight months. They are doing this because they intend to be transformed as new age leaders with formal credentials as certified coaches so that they can confidently lead the Coaching Culture initiative for their organisation. 
In this part six of the Coaching Culture series, we shall get into the classroom and see what leaders do to get into the learning process of becoming coaches or new age leaders for their organisation. 
There is no quick fix way of becoming a coach. No amount of managerial experience or academic qualifications can get you there. You really have to learn to become one, and the leaders from the Coaching Culture executive committee are doing just that. 
These few months will mean a lot of hard work for them as they unlearn old ways and learn new ones. They will be making conscious efforts to get into the new realms of thinking and behaving. Among them, they will learn to talk less and listen more. They will learn not to tell people what they should do too much and learn how to listen deeply to know what people are saying with their words and their body language. Linked to this, they will learn how to arouse their own curiosity about people so they ask questions that elicit answers. 
Learning these new behaviours will teach them to become real partners with their people instead of behaving like experts who feel they have the answers to their people’s issues. 
When they learn to adapt this to their natural behaviour, they will no longer push their views and make judgements, thus allowing their people the space to express themselves without fear or favour. 
They can do this because they have learned to be compassionate and understanding even when they are confronted with views that are in direct conflict with their own beliefs and values. They will have lesser mental blocks of thick filters, biases and prejudices. People therefore will be at ease and comfortable around them. This promotes healthy exchanges and engagement, which augurs well for cross learning from one another. 
One other learning area they will learn is to become thinkers of innovation to overcome the “mental laziness” in themselves and others. This will increase their self-awareness because they dare to challenge the status quo with questions like, “What else can you do? What is still possible? What is the opportunity here?” Doing this well will get them out of their comfort zones, take risks and arouse their appetite for better results. 
Connected to this is the ability to facilitate to become powerful facilitators. When they become one, they get great results because they have the power to stretch people’s minds for the best ideas to either solve problems or reach their goals faster and better. 
Ultimately, through these new learning approaches they will become powerful people connectors who can engage with their people, not at the “head” but at the “heart” level of a relationship. They will have the personal power to influence, persuade and inspire their people. They will truly become leaders of the highest distinction. They will also become people developers who can build people to be the next line of leaders, which every organisation wants to have. 
So these eight months are indeed very important to the leaders and their organisations. 
In part seven, we will cover in greater detail how the coach-facilitator supports the leaders in these learning areas. Through this, you will also know how the learning of coaching differs from the conventional training methods that are used to develop leaders
 
Corporate Coach Academy is a coaching school in Asia to certify leaders of all backgrounds to become manager-coaches or professional certified coaches in this region. Log in www.corporate-coachacademy.com or email [email protected] for details.
 
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