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Energy leadership is a new trend in executive coaching.
Unlike the typical personality tests, energy leadership helps coach executives on how to raise their level of energy to deal more constructively with an issue versus everything being a “win/lose” or “lose/lose” outcome.
Energy Leadership was created by Bruce Schneider, Founder and Chairman of the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. It differs from personality assessments, as it is not intended to label a person and have them work well within that label, said Alan Cohen, President of Acts of Balance, Inc. and an ICF-accredited coach. “Instead, it measures your level of energy, which is derived from your perceptions and perspective of your world,” he said. “One’s perceptions and attitude then create their emotional state, behavioral patterns, and ultimately the results they see in their lives and careers. Because attitude is subjective, it can be altered.”
Cohen helps clients become aware of their default tendencies – the most typical way they perceive, think, feel, and act (and react). Their energetic make up is predictive of how they will act, feel, and perceive their circumstances; and changing this profile will directly influence the way clients see the world, interact with others, and their leadership ability.
“Energy Leadership-based coaching begins and ends with awareness, and in between, the client works on shifting their perceptions and thoughts, emotions, and actions, to form new default tendencies and, as they go forward, to literally see the world and their circumstances differently as they occur,” Cohen said.
This has helped Cohen’s clients to become more powerful communicators, more effective negotiators, more engaged team contributors, and more fulfilled and productive leaders. “The transformations have been amazing because we shift their core energy and emotion, substantially altering behaviors and skills. This approach creates sustainable change,” he concluded.
Executives feel like they are in a pressure cooker – overwhelmed by demands of customers, shareholders and employees, stressed trying to navigate competing personalities and often exhausted by an eroded corporate culture that focuses on everything that is “wrong” with the company, said Victor Ornelas, an executive coach based in Dallas. “This negative energy consumes them – only helping them attract more of the same. Often, they feel like they are captains of a sinking ship – even if what they produce is worthwhile,” he said. “Energy leadership helps executives rise above the negative noise and redirect their energy to more constructive behaviors and attitudes.”
The initial energy leadership assessment typically serves as a wake-up call for Ornelas’ clients. Most do not recognize the downward spiral they unintentionally create. “I help them refocus their attention to discover opportunities and solutions versus being stuck in the mire of negativity. Through this process, they discover the true origins of stress and shift from fighting fires to proactively creating solutions,” he said. “Executives need to realize their job is as much one of ‘chief motivator’ as it is ‘chief-results-getter.’ Once they recreate and envision the ideal image of their role, they become much more effective at producing the results they crave as the energy of success is much more powerful than the energy of gloom and doom.”
Joe Siegler, MD, President of Full Life Executive Coaching, said when executives are more aligned with their life and career, their energy increases. Full Life Executive Coaching applies a matrix of eleven areas of life during coaching and invites each executive to make desired changes where they see fit. “Implementing vision and goals tends to cause an energy boost because it is inspiring for the leader to implement their ambitions,” said Siegler. “This reduces the amount of fatigue and burnout in leaders within the company, leading to peak performance and high-energy states.”
Executives experience benefits when they apply energy leadership to other areas of their lives: their lives are more balanced, they are more efficient, and they are physically more healthful. “When companies inspire energy leadership among their executives, the leaders start seeing challenges as opportunities to built solve something and to reach a high-energy peak performance,” Siegler added. “Energy leadership results in clients seeing themselves as competent, creative, high-energy, humble, and fit.”
Bottom line: Energy leadership helps executives overcome negativity and redirect their energy to more constructive behaviors and attitudes.
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There are 10 Responses so far...
Sounds like energy leadership coaching is influenced from ideas from meta-programs of NLP and positive psychology?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
What is distinct about energy leadership from Emotional Intelligence? While it is clever packaging, it seems to be just that- same principles re-packaged.
Great article and a nice way to package something and make it more appealing to the business community. To me, it nevertheless sounds like repackaged “NLP Coaching” which works exactly on the same lines. The nice part of NLP is that it helps clients to achieve the balance in their life through the ability to reflect, and create awareness about the different areas of their life. And then it brings it a step forward by providing the ability to make desired changes at the unconscious level – even through the ability to shift values, something that is easy, when done correctly.
But as I said earlier and believe strongly – anything that helps a client, and through the client his/ her family, society or even the planet is worthwhile pursuing.
Regards,
Andreas
It also sounds like cognitive behavioral therapy…. so repackaged NLP, EI or CBT, it’s clearly important to address attitudes and thoughts and I would add beliefs and emotions as these all lead one into the next to guide our behaviors. When we can make these links and choose productive behaviors then we are on to something.
Another thought I had on energy coaching is really about coaching not the outcome or performance but really coaching sustainability because those things that give us energy we give more to and therefore can sustain longer. Almost like right livelihood or other harmony based theories about balance.
Certainly a lens worth exploring.
I had the pleasure of studying Energy Leadership at iPEC and can say that it is so much more than just a ‘repackaging’ of other philosophies and techniques. I spent a good part of my life studying and practicing concepts like NLP and thought that I had it all figured out. After graduating iPEC and learning exactly what each of the seven levels of energy feels like, where they come from within the psyche, and the reactions that they cause within ourselves as well as from others, I have a completely new understanding of how to interact with people. There’s also a book written by the iPEC founder called Energy Leadership which you can find on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Leadership-Transforming-Your-Workplace/dp/0470186364) and will give you more details if you’re interested.
Thanks for posting!
RMS
As with any repackaging process, it is the added value of the ‘new re-packaged structure’ that will decide its successes.
Many of the work from Steven Covey are re-packaged from some of the great gurus’ work.
Most of the great works are build on further from the ideas/thoughts of others – re-inventing the wheel from exising wheel.
There is nothing wrong with re-packaging as long as the re-packaging brings in new perspectives, meanings, impact and values for the betterment of the field concerned.
We all do ‘modelling’ work everyday, whether we are conscious or not. As we respond to bespoked situations, we come up with solutions with our own unique ‘modelling’.
As always, I believe in taking the best or most appropriate from any concept/idea/thoughts and then ‘re-model’ according to my circumstances/requirements. Isn’t this one way for us to experience our own organic growth?
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Great article, and interesting comments to date on other modalities and how they fit in with the Energy Leadership construct.
I’m the CEO of iPEC and worked with Bruce D Schneider in the development of Energy Leadership. I thought I would add a few additional clarifications especially in regard to how NLP, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Emotional Intelligence, and Positive Psychology fit into this picture. They are an aspect of Energy Leadership, but not quite in the way suggested. Check out this blog post that further explains the Energy Leadership construct, principles of energy that underpin it, and stay in touch about the research about to be announced.
Energy Leadership coaching and construct explained: http://www.ipeccoaching.com/coach-training-blog/business-development/energy-leadership-trend/
Thanks Luke for providing more information about the Energy Leadership construct.
My take is that the focus of the construct is on the perceptual functioning with regards to energy level.
It will be interesting to have a look at the technical report of the correlationship studies of energy leadership to success & well being.
When would that be ready for public evaluation?
As with any perceptual functioning mode, either one will default to a particular perceptual functioning mode or is flexing between positive (anabolic) & negative (catabolic) energies.
I am not sure what will happen after the energy leadership index assessment result,but is assuming that coaching the eight building blocks of the energetic leader involves using techniques drawn from other domains or bespoked coaching tools/methods/approaches distinct to energy leadership only?
I view my basic understanding that the strength of energy leadership is on the energy leadership index assessment tool, and that the coaching part is on the eight building blocks which could ‘borrow’ technologies from other domains?
Would definitely be eager to learn more.
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.
Billy – great “take”. You are correct in where you are saying the perceptual functioning will relate to the various energy levels — which does in fact create a “default mode”, actually a series of default modes. The assessment reveals these default modes, and the debrief helps the client discover where these default modes are showing up throughout all areas of his/her life / career. From there, you are correct that the development system and coaching processes draw on a variety of technologies to continue building awareness and shift energy. The key is in “how” these other technologies are applied — which relates back to the EL construct.
The first level research (to the 14 factors) is due out some time in January. The second on the coaching construct is due out about 30 days after the first.
Thanks for your questions and insights, and helping others understand this further as well.
Thanks Luke for the insights.
Let me know how I could have access to the research outputs which would help me to further understand EL; when they are published next year.
Love to do an analysis of the correlationship co-efficient values as I have great interests in psychometrics; as I am a practitioner in occupational testing.
Billy C H Teoh
Malaysia.