Take your leadership future to the next level (England)
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Help with your leadership career
I’m in a dilemma and I need your help. How much do you want to take your
leadership career to the next level?
I need to know if you want more videos, as well as online assessments and whitepapers.
And, frankly, I also want to know if I am on the right track here? What do you think?
Click play for the full story and pay close attention round the 6 minute mark.
(Especially if you’re having difficulties with company politics.)
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8 comments
Hey Steven,
Yes you are on the right track. There are many people out there who need and want what you are offering. I am one of those. I graduated in Biomolecular Science, entered the contruction industry and had a nervous breakdown at the ripe old age of 38 having found no support whatsoever to help my development as a leader or manager. I joined a DMS program at Kingston and then later the distance learning MBA program at Warwick, both of which I had to abandon due to work pressures and wasted a lot of my own money in the process. I left my career to retrain as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, worked in IT for 3 years, then spent a further 3 years as an ebusiness analyst, advising blue-chip companies on online behavioural marketing and analysis. I have now left THAT to pursue a career as a coach, again at consisderable financial cost, because my burning desire is to provide leadership coaching. The dilemma I face is this: How can I, having achieved very little (by way of what could be recognised as leadership success) in my own right, prepare and present myself as a leadership coach? What is leadership? What are the different challenges facing people as leaders at home, at work or in their communities? How do I work in tandem with people like you so that we collectively take out the same message of education, empowerment and awareness? Most of all, the question is this: as a leadership coach, what are you doing not only to train others, but to “disciple” those who will take your message to those you want to reach? What can people like me do to not only learn from you and replicate what you do, but also to support you and to honour your vision? When I tell people I am working to become a leadership coach, they want to know what kind of leadership I am refering to, and the answer is never easy because I want to be able to talk to the single mother who is facing family leadership challenges as well as to the corporate executive who wants to implement a change program. I am curious about your journey because at the moment I am wondering where my journey will take me, who I will bump into, and what I will become, do, have and give along the way. What I am wondering when I look at you is whether you are the role model, mentor and coach that people like me, other leadership coaches, want and need. Right now both my head and my heart are telling me that you are. What do you say? Will you work with other leadership coaches or are you only targetting practising corporate leaders? I want to help, I want to be part of the story. What can I do?
Steven Sonsino reply on July 8th, 2008 11:21 pm:
Hi Hardeep and thanks for being so open. And on so many issues. This is possibly not the place for a detailed response, but let me just say that your instincts are right on almost all counts. But let me stick to two points here.
First, I’m convinced that the trials you’ve been through will make you stronger - as a leader, as a coach and as a person. However, I’d like to challenge your assumption that you haven’t achieved much. (Who’s measuring? And how?)
I also sense, between the lines of your post, a leadership stance of your own beginning to emerge. Let’s pick that up offline. Drop me an email and we’ll carry on the conversation.
Second, there are a good many coaches, consultants, speakers and business school professors who I’d love to work with in the future. Some I know very well. Some I don’t know at all - yet. Together we can provide a phenomenal resource to each other, to our our colleagues and to our clients.
For instance, I’ve been lucky enough to get a fabulous grounding in all kinds of things which I am prepared to share - like how to develop a unique coaching philosophy and a practical leadership message. But there’s more we could do together.
For example, I strongly believe that treating what we do as a business, rather than a hobby, is just as important as what we do. Getting ‘The Seven Failings of Really Useless Leaders’ to the top of Amazon was not an accident. Nor was getting our first leadership podcast to the top of iTunes. Maybe other coaches and professors would find this practical knowledge helpful, too.
But this site isn’t the place for that conversation either. If other coaches and professors are interested in this, post a quick line to the blog, folks. I’m up for the conversation if you are.
As someone who currently works in leadership development on a college campus with traditional aged college students, I would love to know how to 1) sharpen MY skills as a leader in a field that doesn’t seem to offer professional development in that area 2) build myself as a professional without building myself as a leadership scholar and 3) how can i begin to potentially do work outside of the realm of academia when I don’t have “professional facilitation skills”
Steven Sonsino reply on July 12th, 2008 2:52 pm:
Hey Justin and thanks for your thoughts. I hope there are some unusual leadership materials here that might help you personally - you’re a long-time subscriber to our sites so thanks for staying connected!
But there’s much more to come, both free and - eventually - private. So stay tuned.
I also think there will be mileage in my opening up on the professional development side. While there is a lot of development available, it’s either tied to particular business schools or consultancies, and there is not much available across the world - not much that I can recommend, anyhow.
So I will preview a new project round this in a few weeks. What I’m trying to do right now is assess how much demand there is for that kind of material. Professional development for specialists like us and business development strategies to help professionals break into new or different markets.
If you have any further questions or suggestions feel free to comment or post right back.
Take care
Steven
I want to thank you for your videos - it shows that you love what you do and are enthusiastic about it. I need some assistance to revive my team. My team seems disconnected, not alive, not cohesive and although I know I can’t do it alone - I tried it and failed miserably. This is why your website is giving me some helpful tips on how to recognize a lifeless team and what to do about it. I need my team to feel recognized and feel it but the action of our boss and inconsistencies tells another story and has a different outcome.
Please continue to provide us Managers with helpful tips and advices as we are always looking for ways to improve our Managerial practices for our team and the benefits of our business.
Thank you,
Bertha
Steven Sonsino reply on July 28th, 2008 11:34 am:
Hi Bertha and thanks for your comments. It’s very helpful to see that the leadership videos we’re producing are providing some value. And you’re not alone, by the way. Around 30% of the questions we’ve received from managers so far are about mobilising and motivating teams. It’s not that managers are not trying to lead brilliantly - they are trying - it’s just that there are some invisible things that seem to be getting in the way.
Jackie Moore and I have been planning and developing some more material for you, including a free webinar coming up in the next few days, so come back soon!
I love the death of leadership website and it has given me a lot of insights. I need some advice from you.
I found it difficult to have junior staff of my team to talk to me openly. Our conversation work well during one on one but that’s all about career development, goals and objectives, etc. How can I get them to talk to me about their likes or dislikes openly? How do I get them to talk to me like a friend?
Hi Mary and thanks for your feedback. Thanks too for your question. With news like the collapse of banking as we know it ringing in our ears I suspect folks in our teams and businesses are going to hunker down and try to stay out of trouble. So it’s going to be increasingly important to air these management issues and challenges openly in the future.
First, let me tell you that I’m currently editing some new video that will be posted here shortly on the subject of conversations about tricky subjects and even dealing with difficult people. So watch out for that.
Secondly, your question/s to some extent are about your relationship with your people and a future post is going to answer this issue directly.
But let me be a little provocative here and say that any solution depends to some extent on the kind of relationship you want with your group or team. It also depends on the makeup of your team. Part of the answer lies I think in how your team members feel about the OTHER members of the team.
But if your one-to-one conversations work well, then your sense of who you are as a one-to-one leader works well for you. This person can be a supporter and friend.
A question you might consider is what kind of a one-to-team or one-to-business leader do you want to be. This is a slightly larger than life character that you may not have fully come to terms with yet. This person does not have to be a ‘friend’.
Anyhow, let’s talk more off line. There will certainly be more online material about this soon.
By the way, if you haven’t already seen it, do download the new report I’ve published over on stevensonsino.com about “Reinventing your leadership”. That may also help.
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