5 Questions to Find the Silver Bullet to Great Leadership…

by Karen Amos

I bring you leadership bad news and good news… and 5 coaching questions to help you find the silver bullet to great leadership.

I had an interesting conversation with a client recently about people’s expectations of leadership.  She said many upcoming and existing leaders in her teams are looking for that ‘Silver Bullet’ that solves all their leadership problems. Funnily enough, this cropped up again a few days later with another business contact.

The fact is, anyone who is interested in personal and professional development will find themselves inundated with book suggestions and social media posts on how ‘this one thing’ will ‘transform’ your professional life/leadership style/financial situation… blah, blah, blah…

Do I sound a bit cynical?  Well I am.  I don’t want to throw shade on other people’s work and indeed I am an avid collector and reader of said books and posts.  I love learning.  But here’s the kicker – learning isn’t doing.

And how easy is it to collect these books and blogs and not only never read them, but certainly not put them into practice?  I had a friend who had every self-help book known to woman-kind on her shelves. Yet, she couldn’t understand why she had so many, but wasn’t rich/thin/motivated/calm [delete as appropriate].

The reason was simple.  She’d read the first chapter on each one, found she actually had to change something for this to work and moved onto the next new thing.

So let’s get the bad news over with… There is no single ‘Silver Bullet’ to good leadership.

There.  Wasn’t so bad was it?  Perhaps a little disappointing, but I’m sure you knew already that any small hopes you had of any easy fix weren’t rooted in reality, didn’t you?

The fact is, leadership and people management in particular, is tough.  It’s messy, gnarly, emotive and I think (please tell me this isn’t just me), all the more fascinating for it.

So what’s the good news?  After all, I did promise some…

Well here it is…

You already have everything you need to be an amazing leader of people.

You don’t need a silver bullet because you have YOU! 

You just need the courage and some small skills and techniques to put that into place.  No gimmicks, no quick fixes, just good, honest person-centredness, a sound ethical base and an eye on what’s really important.

That’s why I love Bill George’s Authentic Leadership approach.  It’s about being yourself, not some parody of a top ‘business guru’, ending up being a caricature like The Office’s David Brent.

So where to start?  How do you cut through all the information out there and know what you don’t know?

Here are five coaching questions to get you started…

  1. What kind of leader or manager do I aspire to be?
  2. Which people in my past would I like to emulate? What was so great about them?
  3. What am I most afraid of when it comes to managing people and leadership? (Be honest here – this exercise is for your eyes only.)
  4. Who do I know who deals with this issue well? What do they do that I can put into place?
  5. What one step can I take right now that will help me overcome this barrier?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and remember, you can contact us any time for an informal chat, even if it’s just for a listening ear!

If you’d like to learn more about how to take a coaching approach to Managing Difficult Conversations and people management, we’ve just launched our Summer 2024 public courses. 

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Karen Amos is an executive coach and Director and Founder of BrightBird Coaching & Training. She supports business owners, managers and education leaders to get the best out of themselves and their teams. She brings a down-to-earth approach to improving working lives through better leadership, communication and working relationships. 

Tel: 07714 855757 or email: [email protected]