Should a leader always be a coach? Perhaps not always, argues Keith Merron, in his latest Transformational Coach column…

In typical coaching, the idea that a leader should be a coach is common. We so revere our own profession and believe, rightly so, that we offer something of meaning to the development of another. Shouldn’t a leader learn how to coach so they too can help their employees grow? On one level, of course. On another level, maybe not so. In this article, I’m going to challenge some prevailing assumptions that many coaches have, and perhaps, unintentionally step on a few toes.

A man woke up one day to discover he was trapped in a 10-foot by 10-foot by 10-foot wooden box with no windows and only one door. Inside the box was nothing but the old, beat-up chair upon which he sat, and he felt overwhelmed with despair and emptiness. Outside the box was the rich fullness of life, replete with love, family, friends, purposeful work, and all the successes and joys that are part of our earthly lives.

In all my 40 years of transformational coaching, I have noticed one fundamental phenomenon, one that appears so true that it is axiomatic—All good roads lead to greater self-esteem. Now I know that as soon as I state a truism, the mind of many analytic readers will search to find how this may not be true, and of course, if you search, you may find a moment to the contrary.

So much of transformational coaching relates to a client’s sense of identity or purpose. I want to suggest they are very related to self-esteem. Here, in this column, I will ponder the connection more deeply. As always, I do not offer answers or how-to’s. Instead, I share my perspective as a coach who almost always works at deep levels of the psyche.

To answer the question as to whether leadership coaching is different than other forms of coaching, one would need to believe that leadership coaching is a “form”. In my view, it is not. It is a focus of coaching.

I lead two practice sessions for transformational coaching a month with two different coaching cohorts, the members of which come from different countries all over the world. While we all share much in common, there are natural cultural differences which, of course, translate into different coaching styles. This, of course, reflects the different client preferences that naturally emerge as well.

Over the last 35 years coaching and consulting, I’ve coached individuals, built teams, and designed and delivered hundreds of workshops. My primary focus has been on working with leaders as both a coach and an organization development consultant. My work as a coach of team will be the focus of this article.

Seven executive coaches sat in a coach’s roundtable, each eager to learn from the others; each also feeling a sense of comfort and satisfaction in rubbing elbows with others with similar challenges. Dan, the youngest of the group, was talking about the difficulty he had with one of his clients, a CEO of a growing food chain. Dan, felt, and perhaps rightly so, that his client was overly demanding of his team and told his fellow coaches how he offered guidance to the CEO and how difficult the CEO was—basically how the CEO resisted what was clearly sage advice.

The world of medicine offers a powerful metaphor for the journey of transformation. In medicine, there are two primary forms of care: allopathic and holistic. Allopathic care, the dominant form in Western medicine, focuses on the relief of symptoms. In Western medicine, almost all illnesses are treated through allopathic means, be they chronic, acute, or temporary. Got a cold? Pop some cold medicine in your mouth. Got a headache? Take some aspirin to relieve the pain. Neither cold medicine nor a pain pill gets at the cause. They just relieve some of the suffering.

There once was a man who woke up one day to discover he was trapped in a 10-foot by 10-foot by 10-foot wooden box with no windows and only one door. Inside the box was nothing but an old, beat-up chair on which he sat, and he was overwhelmed with despair, dread, and emptiness. Outside the box was the rich fullness of life that was replete with love, family, friends, purposeful work, and all the successes and joys that are part of our earthly lives.

Many will tell you that the keys to being a great coach have all to do with a specific set of skills such as listening, artfully offering feedback, reflecting back well, etc., and I might agree. Still further, many will offer you a wonderful set of tips for how to market and sell yourself, how to give a powerful elevator speech, or how to “land” the client, all of which might be quite useful. All of those things might be good for being a good coach, but not will evince mastery. In my view, mastery has all to do with one’s quality of being and little to do with the skills.

Most of my work is in the corporate sector, working with CEOs and Senior Executives. My goal is to help my clients transform. Often, when clients bring their problems to me, they focus on the symptoms. It is my job to help the get to the deeper causes.