Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s pandemic fatigue. Maybe it’s just that leading change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is really, really hard and exhausting and fraught and often thankless. But February 2021 has been a tough one for me. And for others, from what I see so many sharing on social media. (I see you!)
And when it gets hard, we need help persevering. And thus my #BIOBG inspiration today is simple: be a coach, get a coach.
Coaching others is a core element of kick-ass leadership. Even those of us who lead absent explicit power and authority can coach others up to do and be the change we need.
And if you’re leading change in any capacity whatsoever? You need coaching. You need help to stay in the #makelawbetter game, friends.
So, herein I offer a coaching mini-playbook for you, my fellow #makelawbetter leaders.
Be a coach. To others. And yourself.
By coach, I mean someone who provides support and guidance, with the purpose of unlocking others’ potential to improve and thrive. It looks like asking questions (instead of immediately offering answers), supporting (instead of judging), and facilitating someone’s unique journey (rather than dictating a set course of action).
I observe that coaching can be a leader’s most effective superpower—by coaching those around them, they can amplify and multiply and scale change capacity in a way that is hard to accomplish otherwise.
So what does it look like to be a coach? As always, what’s required will be context-specific. Not every situation requires the same elements and figuring out which to use when is part of your decision-making process as a leader. With this said, I offer a framework you can have ready to use as the situation requires:
It all starts with helping others unlock their own knowledge and insight. When you have the opportunity to share your “wisdom” with someone, how can you pivot to instead ask probing questions that help pull out and unlock the person’s own insight? In some ways, this is the opposite of mentoring, which often takes the form of handing down advice to a mentee, who seeks to learn from your wisdom and experience.
Coaching involves probing with directed inquiry to help others discover insight, resolve challenges, and move forward based on their own discoveries. Instead of telling them simply, “Do this!”
I aspire to balance directive advice to students with active coaching, probing them to exercise their creativity and judgment to figure out solutions to the many challenges we wrangle with throughout our coursework.
Leverage the GROW model. Honoring my immediate goal for this to not be a super-long post, I refer you to this helpful HBR article that sets out the GROW model in greater detail. And, I offer this brief synopsis to get you started.
GROW offers 4 action steps to guide the leader as coach. While I suggest you consider how you can leverage GROW with others, I also challenge you to think about how you can use GROW to coach yourself. The 4 steps:
Goal: What do you want to accomplish right now? If you’re coaching someone else, ask them what they want to walk away from the conversation with. Help them set a small, immediate goal for the conversation. If you’re coaching yourself, perhaps because you’ve reached a point of exhaustion or confusion or frustration, ask yourself: what is one small thing I can accomplish right now that moves the ball forward? Help yourself set a small, immediate goal.
Reality: With a goal identified, ask questions rooted in what, when, where, who — direct queries to focus on specific facts, identify key elements, and not overlook pertinent points while also being grounded in reality. This works the same whether you’re questioning someone else or yourself. With yourself, you take the extra step of answering the questions honestly and fully.
Options. Empower your coachee — or yourself — to look beyond the obvious Options A and B and think creatively and nonjudgmentally to broaden perspective and consider new options. Ask, “If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” Go broad with options before you begin to narrow down to specific action steps.
Will. The final step translates options to action. Ask your coachee (or yourself): “What will you do? What is the concrete action or series of actions to take?” Then ask, “How likely is it that you will take this action?” As we all know, the will to act can be a terrific barrier to realizing even our best-laid plans. Help your coachee assess how committed they are to the action plan. If coaching yourself, assess how committed you are. If commitment is lacking, then double-back around to one of the prior steps. Maybe the goal isn’t really the right one, right now. Or options need further exploration.
Get a coach.
Great leaders have coaches. They have people who do the things I describe above. They get help so they can grow and learn, constantly. I both coach and get coached and I can say with complete candor, I don’t know how a person with significant leadership responsibilities manages it all without a good coach.
Most days, I’m simply trying to lead myself through this Liminal Age of Legal1, and perhaps bring along a few others with me. And of course, I seek to lead my students in the (virtual) classroom. And, none of this rises to the level of significance that denominated leaders have. And, I can’t imagine navigating all of this without someone to coach me along the way.
You can start by coaching yourself. This was my path and it helps us keep the eye on the prize and find the motivation and inspiration to keep going.
And, consider #BIOBG your pocket coach! I most certainly intend these posts to operate much as a playbook created by a coach to guide your unique journey into and through leading. In fact, how amazing would it be if the growing #BIOBG community coached each other, by sharing our challenges and seeking insight and inspiration via the brilliant inquiries we could make of one another? (If you’re interested in this, ping me.)
Finally, consider finding a leadership coach to work with directly. I’ve evangelized for a while, and I’m not alone: I learned a lot from law professor Susan Jones in her talk at this law and leadership event. She wrote a great piece on why lawyers need leadership coaches and while she doesn’t use my phrase the Liminal Age of Legal, this is the world she’s describing and it’s a primary reason we need leaders in the law right now.
Seeking a coach can be as simple as an informal relationship with someone you already know and trust, and who can fill this role for you. And if you want to explore a more formal coaching relationship, seek out a professional. I find coaching similar to therapy — you need to find someone who is the right fit. Start by asking people you know if they’ve used a coach and who they may recommend before you do a google search.
#tinychallenge
Starting today, I will end each #BIOBG post with a #tinychallenge, something small yet meaningful you commit to doing, to develop and support yourself as a leader to #makelawbetter.
#tinychallenge no. 1: each week, students in my Leading in Law class at Vanderbilt journal in response to a prompt we share. This week, we asked them to compose their “This I Believe” essay, 500 or so words exploring and explicating their leadership values. What do YOU believe? What are YOUR leadership values? Carve out 30 minutes and write it down in 500 words.
The next step? Sharing it with those you lead, to establish authenticity and transparency, which in turn establishes high levels of trust—the currency of leadership.
Onward!
Cat
28 February 2021
c.moon@vanderbilt.edu | @inspiredcat
P.S. Once again, I will leave the final word to Mary Oliver. 👇
On March 1, 2021, I’ll be sharing the debut post of Design Your Delta, explaining the Liminal Age of Legal, and will update this post to include a link.