Leadership Coaching and Executive Coaching Courses

"The behavioral-based leadership coaching model, pioneered over the last decade by the Behavioral Coaching Institute integrates the most advanced research on human systems theory into an elegantly simple and highly effective validated development process."

-ICAA -Center for International Education -Report.

In the past, global leaders were simply those individuals sent abroad on foreign assignments. However, today it can be any manager or executive, anywhere in an organisation - people in accounts, sales, marketing as well as production and support staff. It can mean different things for different organisations. It could be a representative office abroad or the acquisition of a foreign company or a joint venture etc. The possibilities are almost endless.

- is about change -and all leaders need to be change agents for themselves, for people around them and their organization

Bottom line: many leadership development programs do not deliver and are a waste of money. The traditional classroom training event fails to deliver any sustainable change and learning acquisition. Behavioral-based leadership coaching produces clear statistical evidence of real change and a beneficial outcome (ROI).

Professionals who train global leaders/teams need to apply culturally-appropriate skills:

1) Traditional Eurocentric leadership development models may not be effective in working with other populations, and indeed, may do harm by mislabeling or misdiagnosing problems and issues.

2) Assessment. Multiculturally sensitive practitioners are encouraged to validity issues related to test bias, test fairness, and cultural equivalence.

3) Cross culturally sensitive practitioners/coaches are encouraged to develop skills and practices that are attuned to the unique worldview and cultural backgrounds of leaders/executives by striving to incorporate understanding of the individual’s ethnic, linguistic, racial, and cultural background into their leadership development model.

Global Behavioral Competencies:
Whether for job effectiveness, career development, or for personal growth, it is no longer enough for professionals to be culturally "aware" that differences exist. They must develop their own set of behavioral competencies enabling them to take appropriate actions in a different cultural context. Cultural behavioral-based competency skills coaching does not require the individual abandoning their traditional values and norms, rather it enables the person to better relate to others and promote successful intercultural outcomes.

Without a developed set of culturally relevant behavioral skills to successfully work and understand their international counterparts, leaders often "hit the wall," failing to bridge the cultural divide that affects decision-making, communication, risk taking etc

The dynamics of being a successful Global Leader requires a skill set of critical core competencies that differ considerably from the domestic leader. These "global behavioral competencies" enable leaders to manage a wide range of challenges, including: distance management issues, how to lead a diverse multinational team, implementation of new initiatives, and seamless integration of different teams and organizations etc.

Too many globally leadership learning interventions fail to stand the test of time and the physical and psychological pressures of 'the real world'. To change/learn, global leaders need to embed new insights into deeper, often automatic, thinking processes. This requires them to attend to how they think as well as what they think. To change, leaders need to turn thought into action. Without clear practical steps for doing this, and practice, old habits soon reassert themselves. As leaders engage with new learning we also need to ask them to listen to their emotions and look at their attitudes, beliefs and values.

Recent studies have revealed the greatest challenge to any organization is to change a leader's behavior. It is in response to this demand that the behavioral-based coaching model was developed by the Behavioral Coaching Institute.

All global leadership coaches do not have to be psychologists. However, coaching is change and change is a psychological process. Successful, global leadership developers need to understand, be confident and competent in the psychological aspects of leadership coaching and a master in the use of a range of behavioral change techniques. To do so requires personalized training and supervision by an appropriately trained clinician and experienced practitioner in the use and mastery of psychological-based tools that bring about genuine, lasting, measurable results.

Behavioral-based leadership coaching goes well beyond the "accountability" coaching model, which basically involves goals setting, action planning and relying on coachees' commitment and motivation to move forward. Instead, it employs validated behavioral change techniques to insure that goals are achieved and changes sustained. These include strategies to assess and manage thoughts, feelings and behaviors

Traditional leadership development models typically focus on extrinsic motivational factors, such as demands of the workplace and performance rewards. Behavioral-based leadership coaching explores the individual's values and works on the premise that real motivation and change are situated in the individual's intrinsic motivation.

The Behavioral-Based Leadership Model of learning is a basic, validated platform of practice informed by the behavioral sciences as regards the laws of change and learning and incorporates best practices from a range of disciplines. The seven step process (client education, data collection, planning, behavioral change, measurement, evaluation and maintenance), the four different stages of change in the coaching process and the five forms of coaching (coaching education, skills coaching, rehearsal coaching, performance coaching and self-coaching) form the basis of the model. This flexible, easily learnt model is then tailored by the leadership coach to fit the specific needs of the coachee.

Global Leadership Coaching -A Definition

Global Leadership Coaching contrasts to the traditional training approach where global skills development tends to be "prescribed". Global leadership coaching takes a tailored, personal approach to providing an individual with the necessary personal skills and change tools to develop themselves and others around them. Using coaching models, tools and techniques (that have scientific reliability and validity) the certified coach assists individuals to develop behavioral competencies and remove blocks to achieve valuable and sustainable changes in their professional and personal life.

The world's most successful global organizations all understand the need to heavily invest in proven ways to foster and keep their global skills talent.

It was the legendary CEO Jack Welch who said: "The real challenge is to globalize the mind of the organization. Until an organization captures the intellects of other areas, it really does have a problem. Until you globalize intellect, you have not really globalized the company".

How HR or Leadership Developers use the Global Leadership Coaching Model to design cutting-edge Leadership Programs:
Global leadership coaching is first employed in the construction of leadership programs to assist executives who are confronting the major organizational (and often cultural) change and restructuring that normally accompanies global market entry. Secondly, global leadership coaching is used in the development of global skills development programs for staff who have an existing international brief. Global leadership coaching is now recognized as the crucial learning and change vehicle for any organization that has a commitment to global skills development.

Regional Global Leadership Coaches:
It is also crucial for providing individuals and groups with the necessary encouragement and support when learning how to become more effective in their day-to-day global roles. Cultural and business blind spots are an everyday fact of global business life. This challenging environment can result in culture shock, fear, fatigue, anxiety, stress, under-performance, self-doubt and lack of confidence. In these situations, the global leadership coach works on-site as a personal mentor to help individuals and work teams meet their daily challenges and reach their goals. This coaching role can be provided by local managers and leaders who have been trained as coaches and/or specialist cultural coaches/mentors who visit the organizations regional offices to provide requisite on-site, 1-to-1 support and guidance to senior management.

Cross Cultural Team Coaching:
Each diverse work team is comprised of individuals from a particular culture. However, once the team is formed the team develops its own culture. The team's culture is within the culture of the office, which is within the culture of the department, which is within the culture of the organization, which is within the culture of the host country and also the country where the head office is located. The Team Leader needs to be trained how to use the behavioral-based coaching model to determine a common set of values and how to clarify the
assumptions and beliefs shared by team members that affects their business goals