Coachability

As leaders gain experience and grow older, their receptivity to coaching and feedback often declines.

Organizations spend billions annually on developing leaders, yet CEOs still complain about the lack of a leader pipeline. Unfortunately, as workers become leaders and gain experience, their willingness to improve through feedback and coaching often declines. Most firms want leaders to be able to coach, so they emphasize coaching skills – while neglecting or completely overlooking the importance of “coachability”: leaders’ ability to seek and respond to feedback in order to improve. Coachability skills boost leaders’ effectiveness and careers; they make it possible for leaders to continually develop.

To illustrate the importance of coachability, imagine someone lost a cell phone and searches for it in a room full of people – all of whom know where the phone is. First, the people in the room remain silent. Then they start to say encouraging things, like “I know you can find it!” and “Nice shoes!” Notice how the words of support don’t offer any real help in finding the phone. But now, the group starts saying “warmer” or “colder” as the phone...