Founders are Creators: Create Better Leadership through Coaching

This is a contributor post by Mark diTargiani, Sales Transformation Coach & Startup Advisor. 

Founders are creators. They create ideas, solutions, products, and companies. They transform some of the world’s biggest problems and create wealth along the way. But how do they create the best version of themselves, as a leader of their teams— in their professional and personal lives?

The answer is through coaching. As my coach and business partner Helge Hellberg advocates, “being coached opens a greater understanding of the Self, and with this understanding, individuals can transform conflict and misalignment into collaboration, appreciation, progress, and success. This is true for the individual leader and as much as for any team, organization, or corporation.”

Our trainings introduce people to the process of being coached. We define and practice leadership through inquiry, co-active listening, and reframing our story about and approach to challenges. Our workshops consist of teachings, group work, inner reflection, practice, and active creation. We base the elements of the workshop around our regenerative coaching model (see image right).

In our coaching workshop, we will explore your current interactions, and work with you to become a powerful and courageous relational leader. Together, we listen carefully to what you know of yourself, and with compassion and fierce commitment, expand your ability to relate to yourself and the world around you in new ways.

Leadership comes from caring deeply for the group you are leading, asking the right questions, and listening carefully to the answers. We believe today’s employees expect and deserve to be given the opportunity to envision and create their own professional and personal development plans and need to be asked what they want. When leaders give them that opportunity, and truly commit to their teams, employees become grateful and emotionally engaged in the work they do and find purpose in and commitment to their work in return. Thus, companies dramatically accelerate productivity and success.

Leaders at companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google who use coaching for themselves and their teams, all have concrete impacts on their organizations. Companies save money by increased retention and less attrition of their workforce. They attract better employees because of the culture of leadership, commitment, and courage. These employees are engaged beyond the norm and creating an emotionally invested workforce that increases the overall productivity of the company. Collaboration becomes the pillar of internal processes as teams and individuals build trust among themselves and management.

Our workshops are onsite group trainings and often carry on with individual coaching engagements after the completion of the workshop. The 6-hour workshop for Founders Network is an introduction to coaching and will provide a Principles of Coaching Toolbox to help you become a more courageous, caring, and engaged leader

Coaching has shown an ROI of almost six times the program cost, as well as a 77% improvement in relationships, 67% improvement in teamwork, and 61% improvement in job satisfaction, per a Manchester Consulting Group study of Fortune 100 executives. Additionally, a study of Fortune 500 telecommunications companies by MetrixGlobal found executive coaching resulted in a 529% ROI concluding “coaching is not just perceived as a nice-to-have intervention.”

Coaching helps you create the best you possible. The best you can create the best company. While in the process of creating the other aspects of your company such as product, fundraising, marketing, and hiring, focus on the person and leader you want to become. The benefits to you and your company will significantly add to the value of your company, and your teams will be better for it.

– Mark DiTargiani