What usually ignites someone's awareness that they need to change?
An "emotional wake-up call" is what often launches us into an awareness of the need to change, like a mild heart attack getting our attention that we need to change our diet and to start exercising. I've worked with executives, for instance, who were told by their boss that they must either change how they treated their employees or they would have to leave the organization. It sometimes takes a transformational event such as a crisis to get our attention.
A lot of people embark on efforts to change and fail to follow through. How do we sustain momentum to make the changes we're trying to make?
We've all failed to keep a New Year's resolution after only a few weeks of effort. The key to sustaining change is accountability in a supportive environment. This is one of the primary reasons that coaching is often such an effective approach in leadership development.
A coach provides the encouragement and the accountability over some period of time—a time that is critical in forming and cementing changed behaviors so that they become habits. I recommend to client organizations that a coach work with an executive for at least 12 months, if not 18, in order to get beyond just the adoption of some superficial new behaviors. Real, lasting transformation takes time.
