changing leadership behavior - marshall goldsmith library.docVIP

Changing Leadership Behavior by Marshall Goldsmith From: Profiles in Coaching, Morgan, Harkins and Goldsmith, Linkage, 2003 My mission is to help successful leaders achieve a positive change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams. While I am best known as an executive coach, coaching represents only 25% of what I do. The remaining three quarters of my time is spent in teaching others what I know (either executives, high-potential leaders, HR professionals, or university executive education participants), writing or editing books and articles or working in consulting networks that can provide a wide range of coaches to leaders around the world. Almost everything that I do as a professional is related to my mission. Our Pay for Results Behavioral Coaching Approach All of the behavioral coaches that I work with use the same general approach. We first get an agreement with our coaching clients and their managers on two key variables: 1) what are the key behaviors that will make the biggest positive change in increased leadership effectiveness and 2) who are the key stakeholders that should determine (one year later) if this change has occurred. We then get paid only after our coaching clients have achieved a positive change in key leadership behaviors as determined by key stakeholders. I believe that many behavioral coaches are paid for the wrong outcomes. Their income is a largely a function of How much do my clients like me? and How much time did I spend in coaching? Neither of these is a good metric for achieving a positive, long-term change in behavior. In terms of liking the coach - I have never seen as study that showed that clients?f love of a coach was highly correlated with their change in behavior. In terms of spending clients?f time ?| My clients?f are all executives whose decisions often impact billions of dollars. Their time is more valuable than mine. I try to spend as little of their time as necessary to achieve the desired results. The