With coaching to Extraordinary Leadership

Coaching has become a normality nowadays, a tool that is widely used by executives. And with good reason: Through deep reflection in coaching, executives gain a clearer understanding of their own potential, it serves for personal development - or to regain strength and utilize resources. However, that is not enough for me. In my understanding as a coach, it must always go beyond personal points to the question of how this executive can be led to outstanding performance for the company standing behind the coachee. Extraordinary Leader: highly sought after What actually defines outstanding leadership performance? What specific abilities must leaders have to become "Extraordinary Leaders"? And what outstanding goals can they achieve - after all, there must be a reason why the economy, why companies are looking for and needing such Extraordinary Leaders. This reason is always: better results. Better results mean: more revenue - with more satisfied employees. Big goals - with motivated people in the company. Higher returns - with lower turnover and respectful interaction. Developing a sustainable vision - and actually achieving the interim goals. Meeting the constant external pressure for change - while also ensuring the company's future sustainability. Self-critical executives These are high demands, which create pressure. And yet, German executives tend to evaluate themselves rather critically: Around 80 percent of the executives surveyed in a study by Nextpractice GmbH under the Initiative New Quality of Work (INQA) - funded by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs - were totally dissatisfied with their leadership work, their own standards, and their own abilities! And this study was actually aimed at identifying best practices, not critical points in leadership quality and self-perception of executives. Determining factors for leadership performance Certainly, outstanding leadership is a complex concept that encompasses many different factor groups. For example: Individual characteristics of the leader on an intellectual, psychological, emotional, and physical level The organizational context, including the culture, history, and structures of a company Structure of employee potentials: Were the employees led collaboratively or confrontationally? Is it an experienced and well-coordinated team, or newcomers due to high turnover? Market dynamics such as competitive positioning, growth, economic development factors that form the basic framework for leadership activities And then there is also the question of measuring the performance of the leader: How can the impact of the Extraordinary Leader be precisely measured and quantified? These and other factors work together to determine the success or failure of a leader. To address this complexity, we - Scheelen AG - have developed a scientifically based approach to leadership coaching based on numerous studies and a unique database. Over the past more than ten years, Dr. Joseph Folkman, a partner of Scheelen AG, has built and analyzed a fundamental database of over a million 360-degree feedback reports, correlated with around 100,000 managers from whom they were collected. The results of this research have also influenced our - my - approach to Extraordinary Leadership Coaching. This coaching develops the crucial core competencies Some results from the research based on the data: Being an extraordinary leader, an "Extraordinary Leader," does not mean being pretty good at 34 things, but being exceptionally good at three or four things. Our research has clearly shown that strength in a relatively small number of competencies has propelled individuals into the top levels of companies. The implications of this almost trivial-sounding discovery are revolutionary: First, executives achieve a much higher ROI when they develop only a few, already well-developed competencies into absolute core competencies, rather than investing a lot of time in improving their weaknesses. A small personal note on this: Wherever we present these results, managers approach us and are delighted: "This result means I have a chance to get where I want to go. Because I don't have to be Superman, I just need to develop three or four extraordinary core competencies." And secondly: Not just "any" competencies can be developed into "super competencies" - they must be competencies in areas that have leverage, that really make a difference: Leadership core competencies. For example, punctuality was never a distinguishing feature of the best leader. They must be qualities, traits, or behaviors that others can easily recognize and that have a strong positive impact on how an organization functions. Through our research, we have identified 16 such crucial - differentiating - core competencies and behaviors. It is recommended that outstanding leaders develop three or four core competencies from this list to excellence. Five Core Competency Clusters To illustrate the results of our research with a simple image, we have chosen a classic tent shape: The central pole represents the cluster of leadership qualities related to character, honesty, and integrity. We believe that this is at the heart of all effective leadership qualities; recent years have also clearly shown the high price companies have to pay when their leaders lack these qualities. Entire industries have perished, losing the trust of their customers. The pole in one corner symbolizes intrapersonal, personal skills such as technical skills and knowledge, problem-solving skills, innovation, and the strength to take initiative. These are all skills that should be acquired and developed very early in one's career path - even before reaching a leadership position. They are closely related to the leadership personality and cannot be overlooked. The pole in the second corner summarizes all skills and abilities related to results orientation, such as setting high goals that drive the team forward and taking responsibility for the overall performance of the workgroup. Here, too, the manifestations of the respective leadership competencies can be directly measured by the results achieved for the organization. The third corner pole represents effective interpersonal skills. These include being a powerful and productive communicator, being able to motivate and inspire others, and collaborating with other individuals and groups. While some organizations may tolerate leaders with limited interpersonal skills for a short time, very few can do so in the long run. The last corner pole, "Innovation Strength/Change Enthusiasm," deals with how well change can be led. This cluster includes mastery in adapting to constant change, forming the interface of the company and employees with the rapidly changing external world, and having foresight about what lies beyond the horizon. It is about what the company will need to prepare for. In short, the tent metaphor underscores some central results at a glance: None of the tent poles alone will produce a particularly great tent There are probably very few perfect tents in the world - in reality, one pole will always be longer than the other If there is a total failure in one pole ("devastating error"), a usable tent will never be built The tent can be strengthened during construction by reinforcing the outer poles around the centrally important "competence pole" in the middle. This is where my coaching based on the "strengthening strengths" approach comes in, so that my client can develop their core competencies along the five scientifically evaluated clusters. As one of the few coaches worldwide who have received certification as an Extraordinary Leadership Coach, I work with my coachees in leadership development to turn the truly essential competencies into absolute strengths, into core competencies with leverage. For more information on Extraordinary Leaders and Claudia Scheelen, please visit: [https://www.trainers-excellence.de/redner/claudia-scheelen-stresspraevention.html](https://www.trainers-excellence.de/redner/claudia-scheelen-stresspraevention.html)