Bob welcomes Todd Uterstaedt of the From Founder to CEO podcast to talk about executive coaching. Leadership is not a one flavor concept and shift from being the founder of a business to becoming that business's CEO is a matter of degrees. Todd sees this as a matter of degrees and a journey for that person. They are used to doing things themselves to delegating key tasks to one another. Bob suggests this comes having a pride of authorship for the founder.
Entrepreneurship is at a record low according to Kauffman. Many founders are finding themselves as CEOs with a huge lack of the breadth of experiences needed for the CEO job. Todd calls leadership ‘the sharing of a journey together.”
Two common themes that CEO's struggle with include hiring and its subtleties and delegation which is a counter-intuitive concept for the entrepreneur. They need to be sure that their team members are using their God-given strengths.
Bob points that research reveals that 100% of CEOs would like to have coaching but only 65% are getting it. Todd says it used to be the result of a punitive action but now it is more of a perk. Most of this used to be delivered face-to-face, but now it is delivered virtually. Some things still need to be done in person, such as working on executive presence.
Bob says that the number one skill that CEOs work on with their coach is communication. Todd says we make assumptions about the skills that people have in their roles but that often there are gaping holes. It takes a while to develop an executive. There is also a demand for them to learn more about handling conflict. Empathy is also on the needs list as a key coaching need. Todd has seen this often confused with sympathy.
Todd suggests that CEOs developing their internal talent need to remember the phrase “Life is a debrief-able event.” Shaping someone for the future is spending time with them and asking them questions about what they do well and where they thing their blindspots are. People enjoy learning, creating, and developing.
Todd's advice to a new MBA: “Know Thyself.” Interview ten people that know them very well. Work on aligning their own self-image with the way they are seen by others.
Contact Todd on Twitter or at [email protected].