Read an interesting article by August Turak (in Forbes) and wanted to share some highlights. I see these as a key characteristics for successful business owners who want to move from good to great leaders while creating a cohesive leadership team.
Are You Coachable? The Five Steps to Coachability
Coachable people all share five distinct character traits.
The first trait is humility. Humility teaches that there are things we need to do that we cannot do on our own. Only humility can teach us that the most important things we need to learn require fundamental changes in our behavior and outlook. Humility itself, for example, can’t be attained by reading a book or taking a class. Humility requires a change of heart rather than a change of mind.
The second trait that coachable people share is an action bias.
I’ll add which suggests having a plan, a strategic plan, a cohesive leadership team and ownership at the lowest level. Your pipeline, your sales process, the triggers and gates needed to earn the right to move forward would also add action bias behavior.
The third trait is purity of purpose.
My members focus on vision, with clarity – focusing on 1st things 1st and 2nd things never. They have come to realize if you can’t measure it, don’t do it.
The fourth trait is a willingness to surrender control. Even when we do find a mentor we often put him in an impossible situation. We implicitly insist that we will only give up control once we have seen results. In fact we only get results if we are willing to give up control.
Unwillingness to surrender control is the single biggest reason for the lamentable fact that most authentic change is precipitated by a crisis. Ironically, the reason why most of us need a coach in the first place is to learn how to give up control.
The final trait is faith. The problem with life is that it must be lived forward and only understood backwards. In my own experience this is especially true when it comes to working with a coach. The benefits of change are often only obvious after the change has occurred. An alcoholic only truly understand the benefits of sobriety when he becomes sober.
Only hindsight is 20/20, and that is why we so often hear someone exclaim, “If I knew then what I know now I would’ve changed years ago.”
August Turak is a successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, and award winning author who attributes much of his success to living and working alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey since 1996. As a frequent monastic guest, he learned firsthand from the monks as they grew an incredibly successful portfolio of businesses. He shares those secrets in his first book. – See more at: http://www.augustturak.com/#sthash.jAVUnrbi.dpuf
Austin Vistage | Ed Stillman 