Life-Focused, Leadership-Forward
People, naturally, often ask how I define what I do. The term Leadership Coach can be used broadly, and indeed my application extends beyond the realm of organizational leadership. Although many leaders happen to work as managers, leadership doesn’t require a managerial title.
Leadership first and foremost requires self-direction, or personal sovereignty. Personal sovereignty can be defined as accepting responsibility to choose our relationship with the conditions of our life. It’s the belief that we have both the agency and authority to make the decisions that shape our lives.
Creating a relationship with oneself based on personal sovereignty requires deep, and often challenging, examinations of one’s inner landscape. This means going beyond the ‘why’s’ around our behavior: why we react to certain situations in a specific way, why we find ourselves in our current life circumstances. It’s choosing to explore in a way that stokes action, it’s asking ourselves the ‘what’s’ and the ‘how’s’:
What should we do with that information?
What do we want our life to look like in the future?
How can we move forward in a positive direction?
How can we know if we’re making progress?
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In one of my favorite books on leadership, The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek draws from game theory to explain the difference between finite and infinite games. In finite games, like sports, players follow set rules with defined outcomes. There's a clear winner and a conclusion. On the other hand, infinite games, like business, have ever-changing rules, no fixed endpoint, and no single winner. Success in an infinite game requires a long-term mindset, prioritizing resilience and purpose over quick victories.
I once worked with an HR Director who loathed the phrase “People-First Business.” Businesses who declare themselves to be “People-First,” she argued, don’t have their priorities straight. At first glance, this might sound shocking coming from an HR Director, but a closer examination shows that it aligns with Sinek’s thesis. Choices at the top level of a company should be made to promote the longevity and perpetuity of the business. She instead favored use of the phrase “Business-First, People-Forward,” which I think is absolutely fantastic.
To be clear, this isn’t a license to treat people poorly. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. As Sinek writes:
“To ask, ‘What’s best for me’ is finite thinking. To ask, ‘What’s best for us’ is infinite thinking.”
“Where finite-minded organizations view people as a cost to be managed, infinite-minded organizations prefer to see employees as human beings whose value cannot be calculated as if they were a piece of machinery. Investing in human beings goes beyond paying them well and offering them a great place to work. It also means treating them like human beings.”
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I started this post writing about the way that I describe my coaching. Let’s take a quick lap back around to that.
My approach to Leadership Coaching is akin to the way that the HR Director I referenced earlier approached business. I love sharing that my coaching is “Life-Focused, Leadership-Forward.” Without personal sovereignty, “Manager” is just a title. Despite the prevalence of the phrase “work/life balance”, work is a part of life, not some separate entity. We must first seek inner transformation. Without agency and authority in our own lives, how can we expect to lead others? True coaching focuses on transformation from the inside out. When we exhibit personal sovereignty, we naturally become leaders - in all areas of our lives.
