Ethical Neocharismatic Leaders are transformative, altruistic, and challenging to the conventional mainstream. Their vision of achievement is idealistic but within the reach of their followers. Their intuitive concern for people’s needs is high. They are very calculative and have a full perspective view of the implications of their decisions. They also like to carry others with them and ensure they are contributors and not just followers. Neocharismatic Leaders are articulate about their goals and purpose in all possible ways. During implementation, they not only inspire and motivate their followers, but they make sure they are growing the leadership of others in the process of teamwork and collaboration.
Nevertheless, not all Neocharismatic Leaders have the same degree of demonstration of the ten behavioral roles above. Depending on skills, competences and experiences, different leaders show different degrees when embodying different roles. Although they are all altruistic, but the ability to take ethical decisions and act ethically will vary between individual leaders and specific contexts. Coaching ethical leaders can be the catalysis to optimizing each role and the degree of altruism deployment.
For optimization to happen, the coaches themselves, must possess a high degree of altruism and ethical standards. They would be adherent to the coaching code of ethics and are able to navigate blurry lines effectively. Their sense of right and wrong is not enough to make them eligible for coaching leaders in ethical situations. The leadership coach must also have experienced what it feels like to be fair, equal and righteous or the opposite, as it accounts for a coach’s sense of direction and the questions they pause while coaching leaders on ethical issues.
The process of coaching Neocharismatic Leaders is not different from other coaching approaches except in the ability of the coach to deeply explore attached values, leader’s conscience, and how they both relate to different perspectives and resolutions to facilitate the transformation or decision-making process.
Before coaching happens, the agreement on the specifics has to be in place: “I would like you to be upfront challenging any direction or decision or strategy or action by thoroughly examining with me the implications on the greater circle where my influence fall”, a request made by a leader. On the other hand, a coach may seek clarification by asking: “When the conversation around ethics makes you uncomfortable, what would need to happen to make it easy?”, is an example of how to partner with a leader. Coaching Neocharismatic leaders requires bravery, risk-taking (you may have to disengage if your ethical standards are not met), and personal supervision so you as a coach stay on track.
Coaching Neocharismaitc Leaders is an art of knowing what roles they play as they transform and change the status quo. It is also how they play them, what are the transformation taking place, and how does it match the coach’s ethical standards and level of experience.
I would like to invite leadership and executive coaches to consider the ideas in this article and bounce back with me around them in relation to the podcast that I publish weekly.
