About Leadership Coaching: Strategies for Staying Coachable
Coachability is both a mindset and a stance, and most importantly a practice. So, how can you practice coachability?
Use the Playback Reel
Just like a team reviews the reel of the game they just won or lost, practice doing your own playback reel. Review the highlights and low lights of a leadership move or an event, and get feedback from multiple points of view. Practice owning the experience from a learner stance. It might feel weird at first, and that’s okay.
Try digging deeper with specific emotion anchored questions like “what are we proud of?” Let yourself be vulnerable by asking to “What would be different tomorrow if we had to do it again?”
Get to Know Yourself Better, On Your Own Terms
As a leader you get so much feedback from the world around you that it can be easy to assume that you are what people say you are. We are the sum total of our experiences, our impact on others, and the stories we tell ourselves and the world about who we are.
Practice listing out the elements of your identity, visible and invisible, that make you who you are. Is there anything you are ready to let go of? What parts of your identity are calling for more care? What is something that you know is a non-negotiable about who you are that you want to surface more in your leadership?
Most importantly, what are flashpoints in your identity? Flashpoints are the places where we go from 0-60 in a nanosecond. What are one or two things you can do to interrupt that tendency?
Practice Your Flex in Low Stakes Moments
A crisis is not the time to practice new skills. Flex and stretch your new skills and behaviors incrementally to build confidence and habit without unrealistic pressure.nThese are leadership drills that build your stamina and capacity.
Try setting daily or weekly goals like:
Ask three follow-up questions before sharing my opinion.
Own my impact out loud.
Coachability is a dynamic quality. It’s willingness + committed action over time + review and readjust that allows us to self correct and reach new levels of connection and impact with ourselves and others.
Reach out to me if you’re ready to build some new moves into your leadership portfolio. I am excited to work with you.
