My Journey of Transformation - Becoming a Leader as Coach
Being encouraged by comments on my recent posts and via personal messages and conversations, I’d like to share how I came to coaching and why coaching is not only a skill set but also a mindset for me.
“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It’s helping them learn rather than teaching them.”
Getting started and learnings
I came to coaching shortly after joining Bosch in 2012. A trainer in the leadership development program offered me a session to get clearer about my thoughts and goals for myself. That came in quite handy since I had changed to Bosch after a 17 years officer’s career in the German Army. Experiencing the impact of listening, questioning and the process of coaching, I wanted to know more. I was convinced that coaching skills can help me to become a better leader.
My first attempt was a failure. Although I found myself a good training, spent some weekends on courses and was inspired by the learnings, I missed to bring it into practice. And practice is the key to learn new skills and become a good coach.
After moving to China in 2015, I dared to start my journey again. Attending classes in Shanghai, collaborating with my classmates and engaging in coaching style conversations at work. The challenge at the beginning was to explain my changed behavior and to explain coaching to my peers and my team.
About that time, Bosch China started with trainings about Coaching Practices for Leaders to spread the idea into the Bosch World. What started as a one-time engagement in the pilot session to co-facilitate and bring in my experience, ended up with more than ten times joining as a co-coach and finally giving these trainings by myself across China and Japan.
The network that developed through my engagement and by sharing my passion for coaching with others, led me to do more coaching for peers and their team members and to introduce the idea of coaching to teams in the organization. In parallel, it increased my hunger to learn more and know more about coaching (roughly 200 hours of training - mainly outside of work and more than 500 hours of coaching individuals within the last three years).
From skill set to mindset
I don’t know exactly when it happened but at one point in time, I realized that coaching is more than just a set of skills that you develop and that you use among other. Coaching is a mindset! It’s a way how you engage with people. I think of my counterparts as resourceful, as unique and extraordinary.
I believe in their unlimited potential and their creative genius. (It’s like digging for gold in a huge gold mine. You have to remove tons of soil, but you know you will finally find gold because it’s there). I see myself as their partner and companion on their journey of development. Exploring with them and draw out their potential by asking questions and sometimes challenge their thinking and believes. Support them to act upon their insights. Always with the intention to create and grow for their benefit and that of their environment and organization.
Within the last three years, I came across many moments that touched me. Whether it was by supporting a counterpart to realize what is her true calling and how to pursue her ideals, seeing young talents engaging in coaching conversations and leveraging each other or seeing my team in the manufacturing department grow in terms of maturity and self-confidence as individuals and as a group. I learned and transformed as much from these engagements than my counterparts did.
Seeing this happen in people from various backgrounds and cultures makes me believe that coaching is universal. Of course, there are cultural differences as many as there are individual differences. What is common is that the person in front of you is another you, a human being. If you are able to see beyond differences on the surface, you create a relationship of trust and connect with your mind and with your heart. This will allow you to co-create change in the individual and the organization.
More coaching style leaders
Especially when we talk about transformation, whether it is for Bosch globally or any other organization, I see a need for more coaching style leaders that can integrate coaching in their leadership and apply when needed. Leaders that are able to connect to people and to deliver results. We might have been very successful with a more transactional style of leading. In an ever-changing world, where solutions don’t come easy, we rely on our people, their knowledge and initiative. A coaching mindset helps to engage with our teams and to transform our business. Because a coaching mindset is about building relationships through conversation for the benefit of the individual and the organization. I’m convinced that the quality of an organization is defined by the quality of its relationships which are defined by the quality of the conversations. Coaching is working on all these levels and is a good companion.
I don’t know where this journey will lead me, but I’m glad that I started.
