Lead with a Coaching Mindset , livre ebook

Lead With a Coaching Mindset
Lead With a Coaching Mindset
How the Best Leaders Unlock Potential
Dami n Goldvarg
Lead with a Coaching Mindset
Copyright 2025 by by Dami n Goldvarg
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First Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Goldvarg, Damian author
Title: Lead with a coaching mindset : how the best leaders unlock potential / Damian Goldvarg.
Description: First edition. | Oakland, CA : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, [2025] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2025003639 (print) | LCCN 2025003640 (ebook) | ISBN 9798890570741 paperback | ISBN 9798890570734 pdf | ISBN 9798890570741 epub
Subjects: LCSH : Leadership | Executive coaching
Classification: LCC HD57.7 .G66397 2025 (print) | LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/092-dc23/eng/20250505
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025003639
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2025003640
2025-1
Book production: PeopleSpeak
Cover design: Ashley Ingram
To the leaders who dedicate themselves to shaping a healthier, brighter, and more compassionate world.
To my parents, coaches, and clients-your inspiration has guided me to unlock my potential and become the best leader I can be.
Contents Foreword Preface Introduction: How the Best Leaders Unlock Potential Chapter 1: Leading and Coaching: What Needs to Change Chapter 2: Ethical Leadership and Coaching: The Engine of Maturity Chapter 3: Mindset Is Everything: Developing Your Inner Coach Chapter 4: The Work Agreement: Clarifying Expectations for Successful Relationships Chapter 5: Cultivating Trust: A Process That Cannot Be Overlooked Chapter 6: The Present Leader: Locking Your Mind in the Here and Now Chapter 7: Listening: How Our Filters Impact What We Hear Chapter 8: Continuous Learning: How to Evoke New Awareness Chapter 9: Team Coaching: The Multiplier Effect Chapter 10: Coaching for the Future: The Practice of Strategic Foresight Final Reflections Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Index About the Author
Foreword
When I coach leaders who want to improve the impact of their communications with peers as well as their team members, I never start by asking about their behavior. I start with saying, In your position today, define what you think is the purpose of leadership. They often respond with words similar to get results or motivate people to give their best. Then I ask, When you see yourself getting results or motivating action, what are you doing when at your best? Even today, they describe their directive behavior of telling, sharing, or guiding. Rarely do they describe what they did to enable people to think and act on their own.
Before I found coaching, I worked as a training manager in three corporations. In my classes, employees always said they wanted their leaders to listen more and ask questions to better understand what their challenges and desires were, and they wanted to be treated with respect for what they knew. They wanted the behaviors and regard from their leaders but said they didn t expect it.
Over the last twenty years, the desire for genuine leadership engagement and trust evolved to being an expectation. The gap between what leaders think they should be doing and what employees want from them continues to widen.
In Lead with a Coaching Mindset , Dami n Goldvarg captures this phenomenon in a profound way by exploring how the global pandemic amplified the rift. His exploration of what leaders are called to do in our post-pandemic world is accurate and thorough and provides a map to guide the often-difficult transformation leaders must make.
Starting with developing a coaching mindset, this book offers a comprehensive manual for leaders to use their presence to create the safety and trust needed so individuals and teams willingly engage in the mentally creative process of coaching. Then, Dami n gives some essential tools, including to listen for the meaning behind pivotal words and expressions, how to courageously and respectfully challenge old thinking and limiting beliefs, and how to adeptly use silence. As a result, leaders become thinking partners in their conversations where insights emerge, possible solutions are discovered, and the confidence to embrace change grows.
Leaders don t have to become professional coaches to proficiently use a coaching approach to initiate these powerful conversations. When leaders use reflective statements and questions that prompt an inward exploration, people hear their words, see how their beliefs form their perceptions, and explore the root of the emotions they are expressing. Without being told to change their thinking and behavior, they then see the gaps in their logic, the assumptions they imagine about the future with no evidence, and the fears that are keeping them from moving forward.
Daniel Kahneman, in his classic book, Thinking, Fast and Slow , said we provide value when we provoke critical thinking in others because our brains block us from thoroughly analyzing what we think about situations when left on our own to sort out our thoughts. The brain prefers holding on to past beliefs over accepting new ideas and unpredictable outcomes. Yet when someone else reflects our thoughts and asks about meaning and options, we can see outside the boxes of our thinking to consider new ideas. When using the coaching skills in this book, leaders develop the ability to perform the vital function of overriding protective brains to stimulate exploration and innovation.
Giving employees and peers a judgment-free, safe space to observe their thinking is critical to both business and personal growth. Dami n blends well the development of both coaching presence and essential skills. People leave their conversations with leaders feeling seen, heard, and valued in addition to owning the many insights and creative solutions that came to light.
Lead with a Coaching Mindset is a gift as well as a guide for the post-pandemic leader. I am honored to be a part of sharing this work with leaders around the world.
Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, author of Breakthrough Coaching
Preface
We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.
-Max De Pree
You have likely read many books on leadership. And if you are a manager, you probably read many books on management.
But this book is different. The soul of this book is simple and unique: to be a better leader in an environment that is volatile and uncertain, be a better coach.
The framework of this book is based on the eight core competencies of the International Coaching Federation ( ICF ). This global organization accredits professional coaching programs and certifies coaches, setting ethical and professional standards to advance the professional practice of coaching.
My professional commitment to the development of leaders globally spans over thirty years. From that initial moment to the present, as I sat down to write the book you have in your hands, a tremendous number of individuals who have successfully navigated the corporate world, academia, and nongovernmental organizations have placed their trust in my leadership development services. They sought to establish more satisfying relationships with their colleagues and their loved ones while staying aligned with their company s vision and maximizing their personal potential.
Although I have authored or coauthored ten books on coaching, this is the first one in which I directly address leaders with whom I collaborate, offering my coaching services and effective leadership training. I focus on the competencies they need to maximize their performance, develop their team members, and enhance their emotional, social, and cultural intelligence.
I take pride in following my calling to foster the professional and personal improvement of leaders who, each in their own way, work toward meaningfully contributing to building a better, more humane, peaceful, and harmonious world.
Introduction How the Best Leaders Unlock Potential
I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities.
-Bob Nardelli
What are the new paradigms and skills that leaders need to navigate the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world? How do effe