I recently passed the ICF’s exam for Professional Certified Coach. Among requirements are; completion of coach-specific training, a minimum of 750 professional coaching hours, a written exam a recorded and live coaching session assessed by two examiners against 11 competencies.

The process was involved but rewarding because I have now had my coaching skills bench-marked and validated and have a clear path to ongoing mastery.

The majority of my Singapore and International coaching clients are corporate at the executive leve;l and until recently have cared more about referral or established brand than credentials. Things are changing and many of my larger client’s, especially the banks, have been setting up internal business processes that require coaches to be credentialed. To this end I am happy to comply with and uphold the highest level of professional behaviour.

As a leadership consultant and executive coach living in Singapore and working across Asia, I am often asked; “is there is a difference between Western and Asian Leaders?”

The answer is “yes” and “no”. Leaders worldwide need to ask the same questions:

• Where are we going?
• What is our strategy? (how do we get there?)
• How do we execute?
• Is our team ready? (learning and development)
• Do we have enough bench strength for growth and sustainability (succession planning)

In addition leaders must be able to engender trust and effectively communicate their messages.

The difference between East and West is a matter of focus and style. In the Asian managers and companies tend to focus on execution, whereas in the West, creativity and innovation are more valued. In the East there is emphasis internally on command/control, the ‘how’ the do things, whereas Western companies tend to look externally at their customers and clients.

Asian employees are more likely to do what is asked whereas western employees are more likely to be free agents and independent thinkers .

Of course these observations are all generalisations but I think the key take-away is that both styles have merit and if we can appreciate and take the best of both we can be better leaders.

A lot of my work in the last couple of years has been equipping leaders with an understanding of different cultures. Western managers in Asia have needed to learn how to get the best from their employees and up and coming Asian leaders have needed to learn how to communicate in a style that is valued in Western companies.

There is currently an imbalance, more Westerners are heading up operations in Asia than there are Asian heading up operations in the West; it will be interesting to see if this tips in the next few years. What do you think?

Leadership Development in Singapore
Executive Coaching in Singapore

I have just experienced three transformational days at the first Asia Pacific Coaching Conference held in Singapore, and before I share my learning’s and take-aways I wanted to publicly acknowledge Foo See Luan and Nancy Hughes Verhoeven and their team of dedicated individuals for bringing together 300 coaches from across the region to talk, listen, learn and collaborate.

The theme of the conference was ‘Coaching for Sustainable Mulitcultural Communities’ and the attendees were certainly diverse; I met fellow coaches from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Australia, India, Brazil, USA, Norway and of course Singapore.

Coach Denise Wright and team facilitated a World Cafe on the conference theme. I am a fan of facilitated processes such as World Cafe and enjoyed the dialogue around, whether coaches themselves are a community that can model multi-culturalism? And what an opportunity we have to influence the leaders we coach by encouraging listening without judgment. One concept that was floated was that we are a ‘Coaching Nation’ in as much that we are united in our passion to facilitate positive change.

I witnessed coaches preparing for their credentialing with the International Coach Federation, which represents coaches to the rest of the world in terms of their ethics and competency and I saw new and experienced coaches eager to learn methodologies and approaches to  better serve their clients.

Presentations that I attended included; the Neuroscience of Coaching and how the brain resists change and yet can learn new strategies very quickly when coached to do so, how to assess Cultural Intelligence and plan a coaching approach to better equip executives to work effectively and how coaching and coaches are developing based on research of the profession.

A keynote from my fellow Certified Speaking Professional, Marcia Reynolds invited the audience to consider first looking for similarities in people rather than difference. Marcia shared strategies on how to do this which I personally found particularly useful.

Omar Khan, who I have had the privilege of meeting before, gave a powerful presentation on the importance of effective communication from his own multicultural background and his early influences including, Neuro Linguistic Programming and the mind of Dr. Scott M. Peck. The proceedings were kept moving smoothly by Rob Salisbury, CSP with his excellent MC skills allowing speakers and participants alike to enjoy themselves.

Over and above the presentations were the informal conversations I had with old and new friends in the hallways. If you were in Singapore and attended the conference you will know how important such an event is for the coaching profession in this region, if you were not then be sure not to miss the next one. And if you want to  get a view of what the conference was like then it was captured by professional photographer Zurina Bryant (yes, my wife) who will be posting pictures on her website.

If you attended do let me know your experiences.

If anyone is interested in meeting me to discuss your leadership or executive coaching requirements feel free to contact me via the Self Leadership website contact page www.selfleadership.com.

Look forward to hearing from you – Andrew Bryant

Please come and visit us at our exhibition booth to find out more about our Leadership Development, Executive Coaching and Business Communication programs.

Mark Liew an Executive Coach and Leadership Trainer from our team will be speaking about ‘Creating Behavioural Lasting Change’ in the Corporate Learning Stream.

See you there?

I was recently asked to contribute to a book on executive coaching by Dr Susie Linder-Pelz who wanted me to share my perspectives on Executive Coaching in Singapore and Asia. To get the full scoop you will have to buy the book but here are a few things that might interest HR professionals or those looking to engage an executive coach.

Executive Coaching for expats who work for multi-national clients is no different from coaching in the USA, Australia or Europe. They face all the usual challenges of leadership such as how to get the best our of their team/s and how to manage their own time and get some balance particularly if they are travelling a lot. They may have some issues around navigating different cultures particularly  if they are new to Asia.

In my experience executive coaching for the Singapore and Asian manager falls into two categories, those who have been educated and worked overseas and those that haven’t. The former category are usually much more comfortable separating themselves from their actions and can receive feedback as a tool to improve. The latter category often struggle with this, as the concept of ‘Face’ is all important to them. Feedback is often perceived as criticism and they can become defensive. Obviously this is a generalisation but if you look at the resistance of Asian companies to tools such as 360 degree online feedback you will see where I am coming from.

How we overcome this at Self Leadership is to pace the client’s current reality and establish a deep level of trust and rapport. Our executive coaches are trained to help their client’s to step back from the day to day tactical demands and take a strategic look ate themselves and how they lead.

In this time of ‘readjustment’, taking time out to really think about how we think and act is not only smart but essential.

As I write this blog I have a sense of relief and excitement as a package has just left my hands in Singapore, and headed to Australia via the post office. The package contains evidence of my professional development for accreditation by the International Federation for Professional Speakers (IFFPS). The accreditation of Certified Professional Speaker (CPS), should I be successful, will in some way validate the work I have done as a professional speaker in the last 10 years – But most importantly the process of accreditation forced me to look at my competencies and business practices and make sure they were of the highest standard.

This is just one of the professional development goals I set for myself this year. I am also undergoing credentialing with the International Coach Federation (ICF) for the level of Professional Certified Coach (PCC). Why am I doing this? Well because at the beginning of this year I had a bit of time due to the downturn and I set the intention to make sure I was aligned with the fastest growing professional body for executive coaches. Do I need the credential? Probably not as my coaching practice is pretty healthy with regular referrals from satisfied clients, but the process of meeting the requirements has caused me to step back and consider how I engage as an executive coach and how I run my business.

A component of Self Leadership is self-directed learning. John F. Kennedy said, “Leadership and Learning are Indispensable.” By challenging ourselves to read more, connect with peers or mentors, we constantly grow and develop and this growth makes us more marketable.

Have you set a goal to be at the top of your field? What would it take?

Remember there are no prizes for excellence in goofing off!

It works great in Firefox, and Explorer bugs such as blog feeds are being fixed as I write this post. On the website you will find all the information you need on our Leadership Development, Business Communication, Executive Coaching and Self Development programs.

The navigation has been totally re-worked so all pages have new URL’s. This makes the site easier to use but we have lost Google rankings because our incoming links are now broken. So if you own a website or a blog and find the information useful, we would really appreciate you adding a link to www.selfleadership.com or any of the pages you find interesting.

Cheers – The Self Leadership Team.

Harvard Business Review (HBR Jan 09) has just published a review of the field of executive coaching and makes some significant points on how to effectively use executive coaching as a self-leadership or business tool.

Coaching used to be used to address toxic behaviours, some of which clearly needed therapy such as narcissism but most of which fall in the category of poor people management. Now coaching is seen as ideal to facilitate the development of high potential employees.

Quoting HBR:

• 48% of coaches surveyed were engaged to coach high potentials or
facilitate a transition.
• 26% to act as a sounding board, and
• 12% to address a derailing behaviour

I was speaking today to a coach in the finance sector who reports that, as organisations have let a large number of older (read more expensive) executives go; the remaining younger managers need help to rapidly upgrade their leadership skills.

Because of the fluid nature of the coaching profession the prevailing question remains, “How to choose the right coach for the right coachee.”

Starting with the coachee – they must really want to be developed and be prepared to take some constructive feedback. Many coachees will pay lip service to the process but are not yet ready to change – a good coach will not take on such a coaching assignment, I know I won’t.

As for the coach, there must be some ‘chemistry’ between the coach and the coachee; after all they are going to spend quite some time together. But this chemistry should be a catalyst for change not a validation of the status quo. As for a buyer guide, according to HBR here are the top reasons for choosing the right coach:

1. Experience coaching in a similar setting 65%
2. Clear methodology 61%
3. Quality of client list 50%
4. Ability to measure ROI 32%

Personally I have experienced numerous ‘interview the coach’ sessions and I agree with HBR’s findings. If you are looking for an experienced executive coach feel free to drop us a line.

Here are a few definitions:

• “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance.  It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.  Clients say coaching brings out their best by helping them focus, break down tasks and clarify their values.”- Fortune Magazine
• “Coaching is a  managerial  methodology that  seeks to maximize  employee performance by conscientiously considering individuals and their unique talents and abilities.”
• “Coaching is a form of accelerated learning that supports and facilitates enhanced performance. The coach applies specific principles of success in a way that creates experiential learning that translates great ideas into actual skills.”
• “Coaching is a conversation,  a  dialogue,  whereby a coach and coachee interact in a dynamic exchange to achieve goals, enhance performance and move the coachee forward to greater success.” Zeus and Skiffington

The common themes from these different definition are;  conversation (dialogue), learning, values, potential, performance, focus, goal and  success. Therefore we could say that,

“Coaching is a dialogue in which the coach facilitates the coachee, to learn, clarify values, release potential and increase performance by focusing on goals to achieve success.”

Coaching takes many forms, life coaching, executive coaching, business coaching, manager coaching employee, to name a few; and it has been my experience that different people have different ideas about what coaching is and what it is not.

Because coaching is associated with sport,  many people think of coaching as the teaching of skills, but coaching today is most definately NOT TELLING, coaching is ASKING.

The trained coach is equiped with the skills to build rapport and ask questions that create self-awareness for thier clients. A key principle of coaching (taken from NLP) is that people have all the resources to solve their own problem. With this principle in mind the coach does not try to ‘fix’ the coachee but rather to bring awareness (self leadership) to factors such as frames of mind (beliefs, values, feelings,  identity etc) that might be limiting performance.  Good questioning skills also allow the coach to facilitate the coachee to focus on what is important to them in terms of values goals and success. With this clarity the coach and the coacee can plan together a strategy to acheive the desired outcome.

Some people are natural coaches but most good coaches learn to hone their skills and avoid imposing their own mental maps on the coachee.

Do you need a coach? At Self Leadership International we have a team of highly skilled executive and leadership coaches that can help you achieve success.