Mindful Leadership Coaching

During the summer of 1910, when Freud was vacationing with his family beside the North Sea in Holland, Gustav Mahler visited him for a consultation. Mahler had contacted Freud because of feelings of depression, and serious relationship problems with his wife Alma (associated with sexual dysfunction). As his wife would write in her autobiography, Mahler was not at all well. He dwelled constantly on the past: his troubled childhood, his perception of being an outsider in Vienna, his concerns about not being understood as a composer, and his morbid fascination with death.¹ He was also troubled by responsibilities as the world’s leading conductor. These preoccupations, which he transformed into major themes in his music, were having a destructive effect on his marriage. His depression was deepened by the probability that Alma – fed up with his neurotic behavior – was about to leave him for a younger man, the budding architect, Walter Gropius. Mahler decided to consult Sigmund Freud about his troubled state of mind.

How do people relate to one another? How much closeness can we tolerate? Let’s look at a couple of scenarios. First, imagine you’re a highly successful professional (you may be one, of course). You have always been effective in your work but most of your relationships are superficial and short-lived, both at the office and in your personal life. Is this “normal” or are you different from other people? You know you are uncomfortable being too close to others and have always found it difficult to give them your complete trust. And you hate being dependent on anyone. But although you never feel the need to be close to others, there are times when you ask yourself whether there’s something missing from your life. It seems impossible for you to form deep relationships. Perhaps you have shallow relationships because they are the only kind you are comfortable with. Is there something wrong with you?

Individuals, teams, organizations, institutions, and societies can only move forward when people aren’t preoccupied by past hurts. Therefore, one of the factors that differentiate truly transformational from more run-of the mill leaders is the ability to turn feelings of resentment, bitterness, and blame into something constructive and reparative. When leaders forgive, they dissipate built-up anger, bitterness, and animosity, releasing an enormous amount of pent-up energy that can be used in much more constructive ways. Forgiveness offers people the chance to take risks, to be creative, to learn and to grow their own leadership capabilities. Through forgiveness, truly transformational leaders instill a sense of pride, respect, and trust, creating heightened levels of commitment, self-sacrifice, motivation, and performance in followers.

Do you know people who always behave like victims? People who blame others when bad things happen to them? And do they blame their family, partner, people at work, or any number of things that they perceive to be victimizing them? The world these people live in appears to be peopled by victims, victimizers, and occasional rescuers. And if you have ever tried helping them, have you discovered that “rescuing” them from the trouble they are in can be an excruciating process? Do you resent the way every bit of advice you offer is brushed aside or rejected, often contemptuously? If any of these observations apply, you may be dealing with people who suffer from the victim syndrome.¹ These are people who always complain about the “bad things that happen” in their lives, due to circumstances beyond their control. Trouble seems to follow them wherever they go.

Do you get a kick out of helping other people? Or do you seem to attract people in desperate need of rescuing? As some of us may have learned from hard experience, letting our own psychological and emotional hang-ups creep into our professional interactionscan spell disaster. Take for example, the following business scenario. Thomas had been with the company for over 20 years, the past five as CEO, and was proud of his track record. He really believed in developing his staff – he saw himself as a “people person,” eager to help others make the most of themselves. He’d made the company what it was today: a happy, effective, and successful place to work staffed by a contented workforce. Ironically, however, Thomas was probably the least contented of them all.

Richard typified the enigma of upward failure. To people who knew him superficially, he seemed successful but people closer to him were less convinced. Those who had only a passing acquaintance with him thought him an obvious candidate for a senior position in the company. However, others who knew more about his track record came to a very different conclusion. None of the assignments for which Richard had been responsible had been truly successful. In fact, his career had been a moving disaster – but thanks to his seductiveness, charm, and talent at manipulating others, he had got away with it. Richard was like the proverbial cat with nine lives. Disaster frequently struck due to his incompetence or laxness, yet he had an uncanny ability to limit negative fallout. His mental agility when faced with such moments of truth, and the speed with which he moved on to another assignment, and then another, were remarkable. It was always left to his successor to clean up the mess he had made.

In this chapter I describe the conundrum that coaches face, wanting to undertake the journey of becoming a coach, and, in particular, learning what it means to coach in a group setting. For the purpose of illumination, I have used a case history to explore some of the important issues pertaining to this kind of intervention. The case presented illustrates what coaches are up against when undertaking this venture. The first part of this chapter describes a coach’s reflections on leadership group coaching, exploring his inner journey toward becoming a group coach. The second part of the chapter discusses what makes group coaching such an effective intervention technique, exploring the dynamic processes applicable to individual participants, and the “cloud” issues – themes that the group-asa- whole brings to the table.

Scattered through southwestern France and northeastern Spain are more than 200 caves that contain some of the oldest and finest prehistoric artworks in the world. One of these places, Les Trois Frères cave, contains some spectacular drawings, including the famous “sorcerer,” a man with owl’s eyes, a wizard’s beard, a horse’s tail, hands like paws, antlers for headgear, and a reindeer skin. The images in these caves open a window to a world long past; not only do they show us beasts that are now extinct but they also reveal the work of talented artists at play.

Many people view leadership coaching as an arcane and dubious process, evoking notions of occult exchanges between people who are basically strangers to each other. This unfortunate and inaccurate image has been perpetuated by the popular media: we have all seen therapists or coaches depicted as aloof, grey-bearded men with Viennese accents, who say nothing as their clients writhe miserably on old-fashioned upholstered couches, fighting their demons unaided. This classic scenario can be the background to some very funny cartoons; however, more disingenuously, it encourages negative imagery and stereotyping.

Perhaps the most famous coach-client relationship in history has been that of the philosopher Aristotle with Alexander the Great – King of Macedonia, and conqueror of the Persian Empire, one of the greatest military geniuses that has ever lived. When Alexander the Great was 13 years old, his father Philip II, King of Macedon, decided that his son needed a tutor. Aristotle was appointed as the head of the Royal Academy of Macedon. The temple where the academy was based was turned into a kind of boarding school for Alexander and the children of Macedonian nobles. Many of his fellow pupils would become Alexander’s friends and future generals, including two future kings, Ptolemy and Cassander, and are often referred to as the “Companions.”