Coaching & Leadership Training

The central aspect of Coaching and Leadership training is ultimately for the leaders to become self-differentiated, to remain calm in the face of anxiousness and even sabotage. Traditional coaches often pay little attention to their own work on themselves, or in their families of origin, and so they coach organizational leaders without an adequate background in Family Systems Thinking. Some seem to think that because this theory is a new way of thinking, all the usual qualifications for such work can be thrown overboard, or believe that anyone with good intentions can coach others or consult for organizations. However it is more difficult than may appear.

Family Systems Thinking is not so much about having goals for changing an
organization, or making it increase in its functioning. Some might call this “getting out of the rut,” or just thinking that one can a coach change in others; to will others to change.
Coaching from such a perspective, however. is about learning to maintain one’s focus with the understanding that the only one that can be expected to change is one’s self. If the leader works consistently and diligently on this goal, the leader may very well begin to see those people around them and within the organization step up in their respective functioning, as well. Differentiating people often see family members with whom they are closely associated and want them to work on them with the primary idea of changing them; however, this is misguided. With a Family Systems Thinking approach, again, the main goal is that of the leader’s own self differentiation. The self differentiated leader provides a climate that allows others to mature. The leader brings his/her calm presence to the organization, and in doing so makes the system more viable for to possibility for creative and effective solutions. This presence provided by the leader is more important – more essential – than any skills or techniques he/she may otherwise bring to the organization

Over time, the organizational leader, her family, and the families within the organization, all do better. Paradoxically, the leaders able to remain calmer and function at higher levels due to this increased level of calm, bringing about powerful change, and change that is lasting. Whereas organizations that function better as long as the leader is there is not sustainable. Nor is this a necessarily long term solution. In the age of the quick fix the idea of a continual investment in new leadership training, providing leaders with presence, which is so necessary for continuance and succession of the organization’s future is counter-intuitive.

LEADERSHIP PRESENTATIONS AND INDIVIDUAL COACHING

Contact: Don Paglia with specific requests or for additional information/fees/services