Energy Leadership and Coaching Results
Unlike the typical personality tests, energy leadership helps coach executives on how to raise their level of energy to deal more constructively with an issue versus everything being a “win/lose” or “lose/lose” outcome.
Energy Leadership was created by Bruce Schneider, Founder and Chairman of the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. It differs from personality assessments, as it is not intended to label a person and have them work well within that label, said Alan Cohen, President of Acts of Balance, Inc. and an ICF-accredited coach. “Instead, it measures your level of energy, which is derived from your perceptions and perspective of your world,” he said. “One’s perceptions and attitude then create their emotional state, behavioral patterns, and ultimately the results they see in their lives and careers. Because attitude is subjective, it can be altered.”
Cohen helps clients become aware of their default tendencies – the most typical way they perceive, think, feel, and act (and react). Their energetic make up is predictive of how they will act, feel, and perceive their circumstances; and changing this profile will directly influence the way clients see the world, interact with others, and their leadership ability.
“Energy Leadership-based coaching begins and ends with awareness, and in between, the client works on shifting their perceptions and thoughts, emotions, and actions, to form new default tendencies and, as they go forward, to literally see the world and their circumstances differently as they occur,” Cohen said.
This has helped Cohen’s clients to become more powerful communicators, more effective negotiators, more engaged team contributors, and more fulfilled and productive leaders. “The transformations have been amazing because we shift their core energy and emotion, substantially altering behaviors and skills. This approach creates sustainable change,” he concluded.
Executives feel like they are in a pressure cooker – overwhelmed by demands of customers, shareholders and employees, stressed trying to navigate competing personalities and often exhausted by an eroded corporate culture that focuses on everything that is “wrong” with the company, said Victor Ornelas, an executive coach based in Dallas. “This negative energy consumes them – only helping them attract more of the same. Often, they feel like they are captains of a sinking ship – even if what they produce is worthwhile,” he said. “Energy leadership helps executives rise above the negative noise and redirect their energy to more constructive behaviors and attitudes.”
The initial energy leadership assessment typically serves as a wake-up call for Ornelas’ clients. Most do not recognize the downward spiral they unintentionally create. “I help them refocus their attention to discover opportunities and solutions versus being stuck in the mire of negativity. Through this process, they discover the true origins of stress and shift from fighting fires to proactively creating solutions,” he said. “Executives need to realize their job is as much one of ‘chief motivator’ as it is ‘chief-results-getter.’ Once they recreate and envision the ideal image of their role, they become much more effective at producing the results they crave as the energy of success is much more powerful than the energy of gloom and doom.”
Joe Siegler, MD, President of Full Life Executive Coaching, said when executives are more aligned with their life and career, their energy increases. Full Life Executive Coaching applies a matrix of eleven areas of life during coaching and invites each executive to make desired changes where they see fit. “Implementing vision and goals tends to cause an energy boost because it is inspiring for the leader to implement their ambitions,” said Siegler. “This reduces the amount of fatigue and burnout in leaders within the company, leading to peak performance and high-energy states.”
Executives experience benefits when they apply energy leadership to other areas of their lives: their lives are more balanced, they are more efficient, and they are physically more healthful. “When companies inspire energy leadership among their executives, the leaders start seeing challenges as opportunities to built solve something and to reach a high-energy peak performance,” Siegler added. “Energy leadership results in clients seeing themselves as competent, creative, high-energy, humble, and fit.”
Bottom line: Energy leadership helps executives overcome negativity and redirect their energy to more constructive behaviors and attitudes.
Cristina Madeira Certified Executive and Team Coach by
