Leading for Learning: How Managers Can Get Business Results through Developmental Coaching and Inspire Deep Employee Commitment

Product Description

People do their best work when they are motivated. This may sound obvious, but while people managers instinctively agree with the centrality of motivation at work and its impact on employee engagement, their practices do not follow. With so much “real work” to do every day, how can managers also carve out time to learn, engage, build relationships, tap motivation, encourage development, and inspire?
The problem is a false dichotomy between the world of business and that of people development. What if managers were able to systematically transform everyday business issues into meaningful, developmental coaching opportunities with employees at the same time?

This proven coaching approach radically shifts conversations away from either-or propositions and uses an entirely different lens: transforming business challenges by connecting them directly to employee motivation to achieve the desired business result while dramatically increasing employee engagement.
And all this comes none too soon as leaders must rethink the way they lead given the modern realities of organizational life. Among them:

A rapidly changing workplace and increasing uncertainty that requires a fundamental shift in the leader’s approach, including the distribution of authority and the expectation that employees take responsibility for their own learning

Pervasive and persistent employee disengagement, characterized by employees who no longer accept the organization’s priorities at the expense of their own, where organizations that continue to dictate terms will find ongoing challenges with costly employee turnover and lack of engagement

During the past decade, the Developmental Coaching Model has been taught across the globe in nine languages and has been enthusiastically embraced by thousands of managers while dissolving the invisible barriers that block individual and organizational development and business success.

Review

In my experience, most managers sincerely want to be better supporters of their people’s development. They tend to hold back because they feel like amateurs at the job. Lisa Koss is a wonderful guide — knowledgeable, thoughtful, generous, and clear. She has created a treasure-trove of a book that will help you feel significantly more capable in this role. When you finish, you’ll not only want to thank her, you’ll be ready to do so in the best way you can–by paying it forward!

Dr. Robert Kegan, Harvard Professor of Professional Development, and co-author of An Everyone Culture

 
Frankly speaking, I love this book. In my long career in high-tech, I recognize that this approach is the fabric for numerous anecdotal things I’ve learned over the years, and it includes many topics that I’ve not seen before in print. This book is a sound foundation and framework that ties it all together in a very logical, very repeatable process, which can subsequently help organizations get results and drive growth in our business. Going forward, I certainly plan to keep this model next to me. And I enjoyed this book, delighted at how the book interweaves aspects of Lisa’s fascinating personal life and journey. I wish she had written this book 30 years ago, so I might have found it earlier in my career.

Brian Hoerl, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Mercury Systems

 
Koss takes coaching practice to the next level with her focus on the “manager-coach”. They will thank her for this very practical and applicable guide to coaching. Most impressive were her insights on accelerating trust: the oft-missed, requisite foundation necessary to develop others. I have rarely seen better.

Mary Ann Rainey, Ph.D., Co-editor of Gestalt Practice: Living and Working in Pursuit of wHolism (2019) and co-chair of the iGold program

 
It’s as if Lisa is by your side, encouraging you to experiment, exploring your own motivations about why you want to be a coach/are a coach, and firmly but gently insisting you find your own voice