In our culture today, true, raw authenticity is increasingly considered vital to build trust, engagement and meaningful relationships.
Authenticity is more than just plain honesty. Today it’s seen as more disclosure, more vulnerability, a deeper expression of values, vision and purpose.
People want to understand how you got where you got to in order to truly respect and follow you. Being truly authentic affects the way we lead. It affects the way we grow our organisations. We must consider how we create authentic cultures. Businesses must especially do this, in order to attract good people to work for them.
The explosion in popularity of social media is evidence of this underlying, powerful desire in our culture.
I’m sure most of us would think we are being authentic, so have little to learn, but there are layers of authenticity. Sometimes, we are not being authentic to ourselves and we don’t realise it.
The truth is, we all have a lot to learn as being authentic requires us searching deep within ourselves to our very identity.
Going deeper means asking: What is my identity as a leader? What is our identity as an organisation? Once we discover our answers, we then need to learn to articulate these clearly in a simple understandable way. The result is that those around us can understand and connect with us, both intellectually and on an emotional heart level.
There are always more layers to learn to lead from the heart, expressing our hearts, more than we have, previously. This is the place of opportunity to become more of our authentic selves.
People are tired of leaders who don’t show up personally, who pretend that their lives are all ok when they are not, who operate from an old school attitude of ‘do as I say not as I do’.
Coaching is becoming more and more popular as it helps people connect with their true selves, authentically. Destiny Coaching’s unique coaching model, takes leaders through a journey towards true authenticity unlike any other. Leaders find levels of boldness, courage and passion previously buried deeply.
Let’s look at just a few simple examples of how this works:
Listening on 3 levels.
Proverbs 20: 5: The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Learning to recognise the difference between non-personal, conversations which focus on facts and evidence, and conversations which actively draw out profound clarity of heart and purpose, marks a leader of distinction.
The former moves neither party closer to understanding the others true position of heart. The latter operates more on an intuitive, spontaneous level, activating creativity to find innovative solutions, spiritual insight and true heart response.
Learning to coach, using this model teaches you to listen on multiple levels and connect with God, listening on a spiritual level as well. The power of this applied to leading others and even listening to yourself is priceless!
Your most resonant authentic self
Secondly, the destiny coaching model relentlessly goes beyond an initial point of passion, aliveness or connection, but delves even more deeply to find the most resonant part of a person’s being. Consequently, components of life, work and relationships that truly resonate on a deep heart and spiritual level are found.
A prayerful process of drawing out a vision from these findings, that is from deep in your inner being helps to create unbelievable new possibilities previously unrevealed.
Your identity and purpose
Thirdly, this unique coaching model is based on Christian belief that we are created and designed for a purpose by God. Through biblically based coaching tools it leads us to evaluate, examine and discover our very identity the way God sees it.
Including God almighty himself in the coaching conversation brings unforgettable, transformational, encounters into this process. The result is to learn how to step into our unique purpose, whilst being activated in our unique authority as sons and daughters of God.
Uncovering hidden untruths to gain more authenticity
Finally, this model leads people through a holistic, Biblical approach of activation, dealing with limiting beliefs and untruths that stop the person living out authentically all that they were created for.
How leaders can benefit from coaching
1 to 1 Coaching
By being coached through the model, leaders can get clearer on their core values, their life purpose, their mandates and vision. They mature more into their identity, by connecting to God to affirm this.
The next level of leadership and influence that God has for them is activated. Clarity on this level increases courage and passion. Once you know your path and what it looks like to authentically travel this path in the way only you can, any other path will not suffice. This is living truly authentically.
Anything less than living from this place doesn’t work anymore.
Learning the coaching toolkit
Leaders who learn the Destiny Coaching toolkit, grow in their leadership capacity. They become equipped to empower and take those they lead further. They become equipped to lead others into clarity of their call, their purpose and identity.
Leaders of organisations lead more authentically, being able to connect with people on a heart to heart basis, growing their relational capability and their emotional intelligence significantly.
This results in them understanding how to grow people and consequently how to grow organisations keeping the best people.
Training leaders to lead in this way, is a highly transformative process. Some things have to be unlearnt. Leaders have to learn to ‘self-manage’ and to be vulnerable when appropriate. A biblical approach to honour underpins this coaching approach, which is counter cultural and not always easy at first.
This coaching model builds these disciplines to create new ways of thinking and leading people.
These ways are more authentic to who you were created to be.
How well do you know you?
How well do you know those you lead?
How could coaching improve this?