Leaders today are working in a time of unprecedented global change and complexity.
Whether the focus is on bottom-line results, customer satisfaction, expanding market share, innovation, or globalization, the pressures are immense.
If you’re feeling drained and exhausted, you’re not alone! And those feelings don’t mean that you’re not a great leader.
We often find that leaders are trying to keep their heart and emotions separate from their work, but as Craig Groeschel said, “people will follow a leader with a heart faster than a leader with a title.”
It’s important for your own well-being as a human, but also for your effectiveness as a leader to learn how to lead with heart at work.
Now this doesn’t mean that you suddenly air your dirty laundry at work or ask invasive questions about your team’s private lives. It means learning how to coach your team members to help them reach their highest potential.
It means treating your team members like human beings who have complex lives beyond work.
Heart-centered leadership coaching is a critical skill to learn if you want to be the leader people choose to follow.
Here are 5 steps to start leading with your heart to create better, more sustainable results at work.
1. Connect your core values with your work.
Many leaders are just going through the motions of life instead of actually living. They continue to do what’s expected of them, but they don’t identify the root causes of their challenges or the roots of their deepest passions.
Work and passion can go hand in hand. Maybe you had passion for your work when you started but the flame went out. Our 1:1 Coaching can help you identify the roots of your challenges and passions to create a plan for success.To be an inspirational leader who creates results with an impactful team, you need to connect your core values with your work so that you can lead with heart.
2. Create meaning with the mission.
Most companies have a mission statement, but they don’t connect that mission statement with their daily work tasks.The daily grind can wear people down and extinguish the fire they have inside of them to do meaningful work.
As a heart-centered leader, it’s your job to create meaning for your team tied to your company mission. This is a skill you can learn in our Heart of Leadership Coaching® Program.
3. Build trust with your team members.
Learning how to bring your heart to work takes courage and vulnerability. Most team members will be nervous to share their heart with a leader because being human has been seen as a weakness in the workplace for so long.
You cannot expect your team members to trust you unless you’re willing to be open and honest with them in return. As we said before, this isn’t about airing dirty laundry or sharing too much personal information.It’s about leading with courage and vulnerability to create resilience and coherence.
Patrick Lencioni’s best selling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Brené Brown’s book, Dare to Lead, are great places to start to learn about how you can lead with courage and vulnerability to create trust.
This is also something we can teach you and your team members in our Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Program.
4. Identify and lean on team member talents.
Some leaders try to prove their value at work by being the one who comes up with the ideas, leading every meeting, creating every strategy.
But team members are valuable assets who have unique perspectives about how the company could be improved or how plans could be adjusted for challenges.
Great leaders invite their team to participate and celebrate their participation. You don’t need to champion ideas that you don’t believe in, but stay curious and ask open-ended questions during meetings to see where team members take the conversation.
Speaking last in meetings can also help you encourage each team member to contribute their authentic ideas. If you share your ideas first in a meeting, team members may think you’ve already made a decision and feel like their opinions don’t matter, or they may feel like their idea isn’t as smart as yours and avoid sharing it.
Heart-centered leadership helps you grow talented team members.
In our Five Behaviors Team Development Program, we teach you how to lead with your heart and work together as a cohesive team to get better and more sustainable results.
5. Demand a focus on resilience.
Work-life balance is a toxic myth that is driving talented people into the ground.Burnout and the great resignation are driven by a lack of heart-centered leadership that focuses on building resilience in team members.Resilience is the ability to prepare for and recover from the daily challenges at work, at home, and in all other aspects of life.
In our 1:1 Building Resilience coaching program, we coach you through four key areas that help build personal resilience for better health and wellbeing.
Great leaders don’t just talk about health and offer gym memberships to employees, they prioritize every aspect of their health because they know that sustainable success requires a team that has the energy to go the distance.
Small changes in the way you lead your team can make a big impact when you notice and demand a focus on your team’s resilience and well-being.
Now, go ahead and lead with your heart.
We know you probably didn’t learn how to be a leadership coach when you earned your MBA – but leadership coaching is a critical skill if you want to be the leader people choose to follow and get sustainable results!
That’s exactly why we developed our coach training program for leaders.
Our Heart of Leadership Coaching® Program includes training on core coaching concepts and skills, a model for leading with your heart to engage with your team, and proven tools to help you coach your team to find meaning at work, reignite their flame, and get their best results.
When you coach your employees, they are engaged, feel valued, and bring their best to work every day!
Lead with heart and learn how to coach, because the best leaders are coaches.
Our Heart of Leadership Coaching® Program is a 6-month commitment for 8-12 leaders who are ready to go all in. After you apply, we’ll set up a meeting to make sure this opportunity is right for you.
Apply for the Heart of Leadership Coaching® Certification Program here.
Our Heart of Leadership Coaching® Program was made for leaders, managers, and trainers who want to lead from the heart and create a positive impact through coaching others. It includes a proven model and process for coaching others to bring their best to work every day and feel more fulfilled.
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At Impact Business Coaches, we work with talented individuals, teams, trainers, and facilitators around the world to help them achieve their goals, live their best lives, and create legacies of impact.
