Coaching works best with high potential people who are willing to make a concerted effort to change, not as a religious conversion activity.
Interpretation
Coaching is most effective with motivated individuals ready to put in the effort to improve themselves.
In this quote, Marshall Goldsmith emphasizes that successful coaching requires engagement from individuals who have the potential for growth and are actively willing to work towards change. He clarifies that coaching should not be viewed as a form of forced belief change, but rather as a supportive process that individuals embrace to enhance their skills and performance.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech during a leadership training session.
Active questions are the alternative to passive questions. There is a huge difference between, 'Do you have clear goals?' and 'Did you do your best to set clear goals for yourself?' The former is trying to determine the employee's state of mind; the latter challenges the employee to describe or defend a course of action.
Treat every piece of advice as a gift or a compliment and simply say, βThank you.
The only thing I don't think people don't understand about good leaders is that they're both good and lucky. A lot of it is timing.
Life is short. Do whatever you can to help people - not for status, but because the 95-year-old you will be proud if you did help people and disappointed if you didn't.
If we become aware of what's happening before we act, behaviour becomes a function of choice rather than a result of an impulse or trigger. You begin to control your world more as opposed to the outside world controlling you.
A leader who is self-aware enough to know that he or she is not adept at everything is one who has taken the first step toward being a great leader.
Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
Margaret Thatcher has shown that there is power and dignity to be won by defying the status quo and the majority rather than by adapting to them. If the British left, which she froze into immobility like Medusa, could bring itself to learn from this, then we might not have to look upon her like again.
Legislating is a very human experience in which trust and mutual respect play critical roles.
Moses was the greatest legislator and the commander in chief of perhaps the first liberation army.
The commander must be at constant pains to keep his troops abreast of all the latest tactical experience and developments, and must insist on their practical application. He must see to it that his subordinates are trained in accordance with the latest requirements. The best form of welfare for the troops is first-class training, for this saves unnecessary casualties.
Those renowned generals [Alexander and Caesar] received more faithful service, and performed greater actions by means of the love their soldiers bore them, than they could possibly have done, if instead of being beloved and respected they had been hated and feared by those they commanded.
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