Neela Bettridge
Business leaders can use coaching to learn how to balance short-term goals against long-term sustainability
We are living in a time of huge change. Following banking failures and subsequent economic crisis, the dominant short-term business model has come under scrutiny. Executives must now deliver the same short-term financial results for their organisations while considering long-term stewardship and environmental responsibility.
I am wholeheartedly in favour of this switch in emphasis towards sustainability.
The idea that companies can accelerate their growth continually, on a tacit assumption of infinite resources, is untenable as well as unethical.
This is especially the case as emerging economies industrialise and the demand for resources becomes acute. But it does leave a problem: we live in real time, and we have to make decisions for the short term as well.
It would be dangerous in the current climate for executives to spend all their time on future-gazing and strategy. Leaders have to connect all aspects of leadership, and stay true to themselves. Coaching can play a powerful part in this.
Ken Wilber, founder of integral theory, gives a valuable definition of the four dimensions of a leader: the individual’s interior, such as beliefs; the individual’s exterior, or conduct; the organisation’s structures and values, and the external environment.
Mindful leaders consider all four, and ask themselves such questions as: Where are we? Where is the gap? What do I have to do that’s different?
From that place, they need to look at the context, at what the business is doing; what its values are, and legacy is. Then they need to look at how the individuals are being affected and how one may need to change.
An integration of who we are, with what we do, what we say and how we say it, has never been more important, as we approach the perfect storm of a changing business model and environmental pressure.
A mindful leader is conscious that actions, values and beliefs all have to be consistent: it won’t do to commit to a low-carbon policy for the organisation, and then be flying off around the world every week in a private jet. That may be a fairly obvious example, but there are countless similar, but more subtle, examples that confront a leader.
Many coaches consider only the interior self, but I would argue that we need to go further than that in leadership coaching, and help coaches look at the macro picture, to encourage clients to become fully conscious of all four dimensions.
A mindful leader is a wise steward, rather than a command-and-control zealot. This does not mean retreating into an ivory tower. It means being conscious of short-term cost pressures as well as long-term sustainability aspirations; able to assist the finance director as well as the research and development team.
This approach means being conscious of the abilities of the organisation, and how these can be harnessed to meet the goals. It means being aware of events, but not dictated to by them – conscious of both the extent and the limitations of the powers of individual and organisation.
And it means the leader is true to his or her values, and conscious of the impact of their actions, as well as their words, on self, organisation and society.
Neela Bettridge is an executive coach and co-founder of Article 13, which specialises in corporate and social responsibility, sustainability, governance and social innovation neelab@article13.com www.article13.com
Coaching at Work, Volume 6, Issue 6