Faith in the Workplace

An executive coach guides leaders from the inside out. Wanting to know more about coaches and the executives they serve, we ventured inside the brain—both hemispheres—of Leslie Marquard. As one half of Marble Leadership Partners with its blue chip client list, Marquard is a strategic planner. Alternatively she's an executive coach—privy, one-on-one, to executives' intensely private plans for personal development.

What does Leslie conclude about those leaders? How does coaching work, and where or how does faith factor? More to the point, why would a leader need a coach?

To begin, Leslie, can you tell us how a person becomes an executive coach?

Boy, my personal experience is not that of everyone. For me, becoming a coach was a natural adjunct service of transformational consulting. Organizational change starts in people and it has to start at the top. My executive coaching started from that background. But consulting experience wasn't enough; I needed coaching training and experience to coach effectively. My credentials include coaching certification. So now I have two distinct shingles: consulting and coaching.

And you think leadership can be learned?

Absolutely. Certain characteristics of leaders may exist naturally—like charisma, optimism, vision. But the skills of mentoring, of setting a course for folks, removing roadblocks, interfacing with other leaders, developing other leaders—all those are skills people are not born with.

Is it harder to learn leadership skills or teach them?

[Laughs] Well, I don't teach leadership skills. In coaching, I'm not sure I teach anything. In consulting, I teach some leadership, which is probably harder to learn because more's at stake—more people at stake if the leaders learn well or poorly.

How is leadership coaching different from sports coaching?

The similarity with football coaching is my education and training. Notre Dame's coach, for example, never played football, yet he coaches at one of the most prestigious football schools in the nation. You don't have to have played to coach. We differ in that we are not focused solely in one area of performance like sports coaches. We coach in many domains of an executive's professional life.

Executive coaches partner with a client in personal development. We are not cheerleaders. We challenge our clients in the areas they decide they want to improve. We provide homework, exercises, practice to develop their skills. And we give authentic, honest feedback they probably don't often get because of their positions. We provide a safe learning environment that's private.

Why is privacy so important?

Most executives are expected to know everything … or think they are, that's probably more accurate. In that case, learning in public is public confession that they don't know it all. Also they often don't get honest feedback from people who report to them. By the time they get it from the board, it's usually in the form of firing.

You're dealing with people with extraordinary egos …

No, I wouldn't work from the ego assumption. Some leaders have extraordinary egos and aren't likely to ask for help unless the board requires it. Some are constant learners. For them, coaching is a time-sensitive, laser-focused approach to personal professional development. And it focuses on only those things they want to work on rather than something blanketed.

Is there a skill or lack of it that execs typically want to address?

At the executive level, I sometimes help my client expand for the multiple positions he or she fills as a CEO … something like cross training. Most of the time we're preparing for their next roles: sometimes from manager to leader levels and sometimes the next level of leadership. Many of my clients are asked by their companies to be coached because the company is making an investment in them. They have general rough edges typically related to personality or behavior.

Can you give an example of addressing a behavior problem?

Recently I had a client who was seen as a bully. In some ways that means he's a results-oriented guy. He got promoted because he got results. Finally he got as high as he could go being seen as a bully. The company wanted him to make it to corporate senior exec level, and he's always gotten results by muscling rather than leading. He went into his program with eyes wide open that this would require behavior change. We uncovered the drivers behind the behavior, he came to understand the impact, and he changed because he wanted to. And he got the promotion.

One publication recently described leadership as creating "follower-ship." What do you think of that?

I think leadership is creating results through other people where everyone contributes and everyone knows they do. Success is on everyone's shoulders. If that's "follower-ship," great. But leadership is about getting results through other people. Having followers is not the reason you have leaders. You are a leader to get results; followers enable you to do that.