The best leaders bring backbone and heart

By Dave Veale

Ask most leaders to name the conversation that changed how they lead, and it's rarely a comfortable one.

Leaders often grow through conversations they would rather avoid. Sometimes those conversations happen with a colleague or someone on their team. Sometimes they happen with a coach – someone whose role is to create the space for an honest look at what is getting in the way.

That kind of space is not soft. It is safe.

There's a difference. Safety means you can say what you're really thinking, have your assumptions challenged and stay engaged in the conversation. Comfort means no one pushes. Good coaching creates safety without guaranteeing comfort.

I felt that difference myself years ago, on a call with my own coach, Barb. We'd just come off a rocky attempt to acquire another company's coach training program – it hadn't gone the way I'd hoped. Barb asked what was stopping us from building something of our own instead. 

I didn't have a good answer. I'd simply never let myself ask the question.

That conversation helped spark what eventually became Using the Coach Approach – our own proprietary coaching skills program I couldn't have imagined building before Barb’s challenge.

It's also why I continue to work with a coach myself. Nobody was forcing my hand on that call. It simply wasn't comfortable to sit with the question.

That's the discomfort every leader eventually runs into, too – the question you'd rather not ask, or the one you're avoiding being asked.

That's the approach a good coach takes with you. It's also the approach the most effective leaders learn to take with everyone around them – enough heart to earn real trust, enough backbone to use it. Asking the question that needs asking, not the one that's easiest to hear.

Think about an important conversation you may be avoiding. What question needs to be asked? And how can you bring enough heart to make it safe and enough backbone to make it matter?

Sincerely, 

Dave Veale

Founder & CEO Vision Coaching