It may not be coincidental that the field called professional coaching emerged at the same time (during the 1990s) as many organizational analysts began identifying and describing the challenges facing leaders working in a world that has recently been defined by the acronym VUCA (volatility, uncertainly, complexity and ambiguity). To these four factors, we add turbulence and contradiction (producing VUCA+). Along with a new human service tool called professional coaching came new ideas about and strategies for engaging in leadership. Melded together, there has emerged a Coach-Based Model of Leadership.

To the extent that professional coaching and 21st Century leadership are both about enhancing the processes of interpersonal communications, decision-making, and the discovery of deeply felt values and aspirations within a VUCA+ world, then this merger is particularly timely, and its future is bright.

We are offering a cutting-edge program that incorporates the best practices associated with the practices of both 21st Century leadership and professional coaching. Participants from around the world learn through a distinctive four-mode model of digital education. At the heart of this program resides a commitment to an appreciative perspective, ongoing reflective practices, and authenticity in facing 21st Century VUCA+ challenges.

Why 21st Century Leaders Should Embrace a Coaching Strategy?

In their sometimes temporary and sometimes long-term leadership roles, 21st Century women and men face VUCA+ related challenges of many different kinds, coming from many different sources. The system around them may have varying and often contradictory expectations regarding how this person is likely to perform as a leader, as well as how they would like this person to perform as a 21st Century leader.

The leaders often find themselves making difficult decisions that impact not only on their lives, but also the lives of people about whom they care deeply. The leaders’ fundamental values and the relationship between these values and those of their organization are always being called forth—and challenged. Are the leader’s values and those of the organization aligned or does the leader repeatedly have to trade off what is most important in her life for that which the organization most values? Conversely, can the leader always consistently role model the noble values that make up the specific organizational culture in which they work?

In the flattened 21st Century organization, leaders often live in solitude, working in emotional isolation as performers, decision-makers, and people who must relate their own personal values with those of their organization. Even though these leaders may receive input from many sources, ultimately they alone must perform, make choices with unprecedented speed and align values and interests among dizzying numbers of stakeholders. These organizational responsibilities, often coupled with a need for confidentiality and support from equally over-extended peers and bosses, leave the leader with few, if any, outlets to share these burdens. We have noted with alarm that burnout occurs with great frequency among leaders at many different levels and in many different kinds of organizations—big and small, for-profit and not-for-profit, high tech and low tech, manufacturing, and service-oriented.

Our challenged leader might read an article about coaching or talk with a colleague about their successful use of a coach. Perhaps this will motivate the harried leader to emulate coaching strategies in their day-to-day work. They may use other words, but at the heart of the matter is a desire to break down the isolation. Increasingly, perceptive and strategic talent development professionals are learning to identify when and how a leader might engage coaching=based practices. The coaching resources that are available at the present time hold the potential, if effectively engaged, of having a greater impact on the work-life of those with whom the leader engages than any other single developmental activity that could be offered.

Certainly, sympathetic listening, a willingness to directly observe someone in operation who is being supervised, and the skills needed to provide helpful feedback based on this observation are essential in this situation, but these skills might not be at all sufficient. What does a planned, logical and sufficiently in-depth sequence of coach-based leadership practices look like? This certification program offers participants a variety of tools and strategies regarding this masterful coach-based leadership.