Karen Morley - Lead Like a Coach: How to Get the Most Success Out of ANY Team

Copyright 2018, 2020 by Karen Morley

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Originally published as Lead Like a Coach in 2018 in Australia by Major Street Publishing.

Contents

Introduction: The Best Leaders Are Also Coaches

Everyone these days seems to need to get more done. The pace of life has increased, and we have much higher expectations of what we should do with our time.

After school, my step-grandson attends reading lessons and a raft of different activities. His social calendar is shockingly full too. We sometimes need to book three weeks in advance to spend a weekend afternoon with himand hes only five and a half years old!

Expectations on all of us but especially on leaders are increasing. Leaders are expected to get more done. They are expected to be available 24/7, to respond as if all information is always at their fingertips, and to work across multiple time zones.

In our twenty-first-century world of abundance, paradoxically, we seem to have fewer resources. We are captured by everyday pressures to do more, be more, know morenot to mention be more resilient and happier!

The challenges magnify further. Not only is it important to do more and be more, leaders need to help their team members to do the same. And that is no mean feat.

Many leaders I meet and coach feel these pressures like a weight on their shoulders. Its hard to be inspiring when youre weighed down by a heavy load.

The core proposition of this book is that leading like a coach will help you to lighten the burden you feel and give you more energy. By refocusing the way you engage with your team members, you can double their engagement and get more and better work done.

This book is for leaders who:

care about the people they lead,

care about their own success, and

want to make a positive impact on their stakeholders, their families, and their communities.

Many leaders are still hesitant about coaching. They are not confident in their coaching ability.

Occasionally, a leader will confide in me that coaching feels risky. It feels as if you are giving up control. When you feel that you are under huge workload pressures, giving up control seems like the last thing you should do.

Underneath it all, theres a common fear that if your team does all the workworking at their maximum capabilitywhat will you be doing? What will be your value? You are good at doing the work, you were promoted because you are, and now you have to stop doing the work. So what do you do?

You coach, of course!

Part 1: Why You Should Coach