It’s been a year of upheaval around the world. As we await the coming of Christmas, a quick note of encouragement and holiday hope for today and the year to come.
Remember that, at the end of the day, change is only constant. As a business coach, your job is to help clients navigate the changing world to build stronger businesses–and lives–by providing products and services that benefit others.
But it’s not just about the good your clients’ businesses do. It’s also about the way you help them develop as leaders and entrepreneurs. Through coaching, they become stronger, more resilient, more flexible, and more responsive to the needs of their employees and customers. That’s because, at its heart, business coaching is really about servant leadership.
As Robert Greenleaf, who coined the term in the 1970’s, said:
“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.
“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?“
Regardless of your religious affiliation, this is the time of year when many in the world commemorate the model of the ultimate servant-leader. A divine leader, so the story goes, who was born in a dirty barn and laid to sleep in a feeding trough to demonstrate commitment to and solidarity with the least privileged in society.
If we do our jobs right, our work does something similar, by elevating not just our clients, but the communities they serve.
In a time of change and restlessness, there is hope for the future. We can be a part of bringing that hope. That’s why I got into business coaching. I hope it’s why you did, too.
So from all of us at the Coaches’ Coach, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season. It’s an honor being involved in your lives, as you build stronger business coaching practices and help your clients build great businesses. Thank you for letting us be a part of your journey!
