Coaching "Thinking" Leaders

Central to Servant Leadership is the ability to equip and empower people to be better thinkers. Thinking is what most of our employees are being paid to do. Becoming a better thinker is worth the effort because the way you think really impacts every aspect of your life. It doesn't matter whether you are a business person, teacher, parent, scientist, pastor, or corporate executive. Good thinking will improve your life. It will help you to become an achiever. One of the reasons people don’t achieve their dreams is that they desire to change their results without changing their thinking.

In order to coach "thinking" leaders, we must focus on process not content. Free people to trust their thinking and serve others by unleashing them to be a “thinking” leader. 

Stage 1 – Equip and Empower people to think. Focus on their thinking not the issue or problem.

Stage 2 – Listen to Unleash Potential (70/30 rule: 70% of interaction time spent on listening and asking questions, 30% speaking)  – Listen to hear their thinking. First understand, before being understood.

Stage 3 – Speak when necessary. (70/30 rule – Be like E.F. Hutton!)  Ask more questions, give less answers!

Stage 4 – Coach “Leadership Thinking." Unleash the potential of all around by elevating their thinking. Help them to focus their thinking on solutions not problems.

Transformational Servant Leadership

Equip and empower, don’t control! Transformational servant leadership cultivates the “bamboo fields” in order to ultimately see thriving self-reliant people who become servant leaders in their own right. Remember this: a transition to a servant leadership culture is not an episode, an event, or a program; it is a never-ending PROCESS of which you are the most important element. You have to walk the walk and talk the talk. Your behavior and the example you set are primary; in addition, you must never let the subject drop. 

Here are some practical behaviors and actions:

1.      Inspire others to peak performance. A transformational servant leader is one who inspires people to perform far beyond their own expectations of themselves. Transformational leaders practice certain behaviors that cause their people to feel stronger, happier, more confident, and more committed. Coach people through Caring, Complimenting, and Connecting. Cultivate trust and raise the bar through relationships.

2.      Delegate Responsibility.  One of the first of these behaviors is the delegation of high levels of responsibility for results. Transformational leaders pick the right people, match them to the right jobs, achieve mutual clarity on the desired results and then they get out of the way and leave the individual with maximum freedom to perform.

3.      Let People Do Their Work.  Lao-Tse, the great Chinese philosopher, had this idea when he wrote, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists…when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, ‘We did this ourselves.” In a recent study, thousands of people were asked to describe their best bosses. Over and over, the respondents said things like, “I hardly saw him” or “He left me alone” or “He gave me complete freedom to do the job.”                            

4.  Give Them Freedom. There is something liberating and empowering to know that you’ve been entrusted with a major responsibility and that you’ve been given the freedom to fulfill it. When the right person has been matched with the right job, the conditions for exceptional performance have been created.

5.      Confidently Expect Success. Another behavior of transformational leaders is their confident attitude of positive expectations. They radiate a belief in themselves and in the ability of their subordinates to succeed.They know that the leader sets the psychological tone for the whole organization, so they consciously project a positive attitude no matter how distressing the external situation may appear. They are in complete control of themselves and their emotions.

Why is "THINKING" So Important?

Why is thinking so important? Ideas, thoughts, systems of thinking, cultural beliefs, etc., over time become our "way" of thinking. Who or what is influencing, molding, and shaping our thinking? Therefore, ideas are vital because these "seeds" germinate and become philosophies, beliefs, doctrines, and cultures (family, social, work, community, and country.)

What are you thinking about?

We must be careful what ideas we accept, because they can either be 

helpful or harmful. Ideas can become either transformational or toxic!

Why is thinking so important? Our thoughts ultimately become our beliefs, and our beliefs become our philosophies or frame of "heart" then becomes the way we interpret the world and the people around us.

Leadership Thinking?

How do you respond to the following statement?  

"Trapped within the heart of every follower are the seeds of leadership." Dr. Myles Monroe

All human beings possess the seeds of leadership, but only those who capture the "spirit of leadership ever become truly effective leaders."  After years of research and reading through books, articles, journals, research on the subject of leadership, going to conferences and seminars in leadership development, I could never identify or was anyone else able to understand fully the mysterious key that separated and distinguished the leader from the follower. Until I came across a book written by Dr. Myles Monroe, The Spirit of Leadership on this very subject and there it was so "simple" and so obvious that at first I was skeptical!

However, genius is found in simplicity!  What separates leaders and followers?

(THE WAY THEY THINK!) 

"True leaders are distinguished by a unique mental attitude that emanates from an internalized discovery of self, which creates a strong posture and confident self-concept and self-worth."  p.14  The Spirit of Leadership