EXECUTIVE COACHING www.ceotodaymagazine.com 29 “As a youth, I felt a call to build bridges between people across our differences and to cultivate a culture of serving the common good,” says Warner. “That sense of calling drew me to work through the church which eventually led to ordained ministry. Over the years, I have served the church as a Pastor, District Superintendent, Director of Connectional Ministries and Bishop. From 2014-2016, Bishop Brown served as President of the Council of Bishops for the 12 million members, worldwide, of the United Methodist Church.” He has also been recruited to serve as Interim Lead Pastor for two large multistaff congregations with challenging leadership transitions. Currently, he is the Interim Bishop for the United Methodist Church in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Warner’s focus for the next decade is to work with Senior Leaders and Teams of spiritually rooted organisations to confidently develop their current and emerging leaders so that they can achieve their mission and be fulfilled in their life and work. What are the most common barriers limiting leaders from reaching their full potential? At the heart of leadership is two dynamics – impact and responsibility. The most common barriers to full potential are failure to recognise the impact of behaviour and take responsibility for the actions we take or fail to take. Impact is the effect that we have on others – our families, communities, the environment and the world. We are constantly impacting others whether we realise it or not, just as when a pebble is dropped into a peaceful pool of water. When people are striving toward empowering others and creating winwin scenarios that still accomplish the desired goal, they are engaging in positive leadership. When people are only trying to achieve their own objectives, they are engaging in negative or destructive leadership. Responsibility is a leader’s willingness to notice the impact they have and to respond in a way that is conscientious and appropriate. Even though everyone is responsible for their impact, not everyone takes responsibility for it. People commonly deny responsibility by blaming others. It is much easier to deny or blame than it is to take responsibility. But in the long run, blaming others is more difficult than taking responsibility. Because when you blame others, you give up your control. A good leader makes conscientious and appropriate responses to the world around them; they do not deny mistakes – or blame others. Tell us about the value of team leadership coaching. Team leadership coaching is an incredibly powerful process that can unlock a team’s aspirations and release energy for activating higher levels of performance. Many years of working as a leader and experiencing traditional coaching set my expectations towards a model of coaching that was focused on the leader. I saw the work of a leadership coach or team coach as helping the designated leader lead the team. While working with individual leaders to develop their skills andmindset continues to be a valuable coaching focus, I have come to see the greater impact and longterm benefits of a systematic approach to coaching a team to determine if they are a team or merely a group and then develop their shared capacity to lead as a team. A systemic team coach sees the team through six lenses and focuses on the view that provided the greatest value to the team and the context in which it lives. Peter Hawkins’ Five Disciplines of Successful Teams outlines essential practices for an effective and wellperforming team. The role of the systemic team coach is to help a team to be aware of its performance in each discipline, understand the impact of each discipline on team performance, and enhance the team’s effectiveness in each discipline. Each of these disciplines give insight into the relationships between the people and the tasks done inside a team and that which is done outside the team. What are the main benefits organisations can expect from it? The first benefit is keeping the team aware At the heart of leadership is two dynamics – impact and responsibility. The most common barriers to full potential are failure to recognise the impact of behaviour and take responsibility for the actions we take or fail to take. “ “
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