How Can A Global Mindset Boost Your Coaching Practice?
Posted by Sue - Admin on Sep. 16, 2021 / Subscribe 0
The way entrepreneurs across industries are doing business and satisfying their customers is changing due to the world shift that happened with Covid-19. For coaches, even more so. We are leveraging online Platforms such as Zoom, MS Teams, amongst others, to deliver our services remotely worldwide.
As organizations and individuals increasingly turn to coaching for support and development, interactions became highly diverse. Having a global leadership mindset became more critical than ever for success.
What is the global leadership mindset?
Coaches are natural leaders, although many might not see them as so. They support and develop people and help them achieve their goals and desires. They shift mindsets and help individuals and teams gain more clarity. Yes, coaches are as essential leaders as the C.E.O. next door.
A coach with a global mindset is able to effectively lead sessions with great cultural competence, serving a multitude of diverse clients in an ever-changing, complex, highly uncertain, and ambiguous environment.
How Can A Global Mindset Boost Your Coaching Practice?
This global mindset has a few key components to incorporate as a coach and leader. And they will also help you improve your coaching practice by satisfying your global customers.
1. Gain Cultural Competence
Each customer will have a unique blend of cultural and personal background. Becoming culturally competent means understanding the different types of cultures, like the concept of Low and High Context Cultures, as well as have basic training in cross-cultural communication. People from different cultures have different approaches to the same thing.
For example, the client that comes from a low context culture will expect that your 45-minute sessions end sharply after 45 minutes. A client coming from a high context culture might expect that you use the 45 minutes only for the “meat” of the session. They might expect greetings and closing to be left out of this count. Which leads us to our next component.
2. Manage Expectations
Your business will prosper due to many reasons. One of them is client satisfaction. Studies show that greater satisfaction is obtained when you manage expectations appropriately. This comes hand in hand with learning about different cultures. The more you know about them, the more you will effectively manage what they can expect from you.
Suppose you identify that you have many clients from a high context culture – people who tend to be more verbose and like to focus on relationships and context more – you might see the need to explicitly explain how the 45 minutes will be split.
There is only one way to manage expectations well. And that is to understand what the other party is expecting and then explain what they can really expect. And if you do that, your client will be satisfied because they received what they expected, or maybe even more.
3. Bridge Distance with Technology
Luckily, this is becoming easier and easier these days. We have many platforms for all kinds of tastes and needs. But not all of them can bridge the distance. Whatever you choose, you must ensure that your client feels that they are in the room with you.
Of course, that is not only achieved because of the technology – your coaching skills count too. But technology can help you with that. Make sure you have a good webcam, microphone, and easy-to-use, video-enabled software, like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, etc. You don’t have to break the bank for that. We have plenty of budget options out there and free software as well.
Automatic reminders and onboarding emails to bridge distance and manage expectations can also be very helpful to your growing practice. For that, you’d be looking for ESP, or Email Service Provider. There are a few good ones for free, where you can automate many of these reminders and emails.
4. Be Open-Minded
When I coach my global leaders for greater cultural competence and performance, I always share with them the foundations of Open-Mindedness:
Do not assume. Have you ever heard that “when you assume, you make an ASS of U and ME?” Assuming is the most dangerous thing there is for trust-building. It can create misunderstandings in a snap when dealing with multicultural individuals.
Do not Judge. That’s an easy one for coaches. In our basic training, we are already taught not to judge. But we do, nevertheless. When dealing with people from around the world, it will be natural to fall into this pitfall because you might not have yet been exposed to different things. Have you ever heard of people sleeping in coffins to banish bad luck? Or places that do not have the fourth floor (as a number) because it is pronounced the same as “death?” We may judge people or underestimate how important these little facts are to them. The minute they sense judgment (that may come just as being surprised), we lose their trust. And then you lost a potential satisfied customer. And how not to judge? The more exposed you get to different things, the easier it will become not to be surprised and judgemental. Which leads to the next bullet.
Get Exposure. Start getting involved with diverse groups. Widen your comfort zone bit by bit before bringing diversity to your practice. Start by becoming friends with someone from a different origin than you. Learn their costumes and traditions. Then expand your knowledge by moving to different cultures. Gain exposure by making yourself acquainted with different things, people, and practices. Subscribe to our youtube channel and social media. We get exposed in your place and share all the experiences for you to learn.
Be Curious. The only way to counter judgment and assumptions is by being curious. And asking questions coming from a place of curiosity and learning.
5. Understand Your Unconscious Bias.
Everyone has biases. And everyone has unconscious biases. Unconscious bias - also called implicit bias – can be defined as prejudice or “unsupported” judgments in favor of or against one thing, person, or group (as compared to another), frequently in a way considered unfair. Unconscious bias has many dimensions. The most recognized one is usually race & ethnicity. Bias against Black people. Bias against Latinos. However, cultural bias can also happen and be very impactful—for example, bias against people who wear a burka —or connecting the burka with the word terrorism.
As coaches, it is our obligation to understand our unconscious biases and take action to overcome them so that we don’t create negative impacts on our clients without even knowing.
6. Master the 4 Success Pillars of Global Leadership
I often mention this to my clients, coachees, and students: don’t bother learning leadership the old way. It’s like learning how to use a cassette recorder to record a 4k movie. Instead, learn the new way or the competencies in the 4 success pillars of global leadership. You will need all four to have a thriving coaching practice:
#1 Personal Leadership: is the ability to take care of your wellbeing, have an assertive and positive mental game, manage your willpower, control your stress, and lead a balanced life to exert your full personal power for optimal performance. You need personal leadership as a coach to lead yourself.
#2 People Leadership: is the ability to build trust, master work relationships in different cultures, and create high-performing and satisfied clients. You need people leadership as a coach to lead your clients and providers.
#3 Organizational Leadership: is the ability to leverage data & information and help organizations set strategic goals while motivating individuals to execute their assignments to achieve those goals successfully. Even if you don’t work with organizations as coach, you will have to learn how to leverage data to create effective questions to solve your client’s needs. You need organizational leadership as a coach to lead ideas.
#4 Cultural Leadership: is the ability to deal with different cultures and drive positive dialogs to affect people’s environments and mindset. You need cultural leadership as a coach to lead impactful conversations.
As you can see, the global leadership mindset goes beyond the corporate mindset. It’s a new way to think and relate to people and build trust. The more acquainted you are with this mindset, the more your global clients will be satisfied, and your coaching business will thrive.
Taty Fittipaldi, MBA, ACC, PCP, ELI-MP, CDTS, is a certified coach, a talent development strategist, and Global Leaders Training Center teacher. She works with individuals one-on-one and delivers training to groups. If you are interested in learning more about global mindset, consider subscribing to her newsletter and checking her out at www.coachingexpatriates.com/academy.
Links in this post for more details on the complex topic
https://www.coachingexpatriates.com/4-secret-pillars-of-every-global-leader/
https://www.coachingexpatriates.com/communicating-in-high-and-low-context-cultures/
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