I spent the first part of July in Korea at the invitation of Dr. Edward Choi, Chairman of CMOE, the #1 Leadership Solutions company in that nation, the company that introduced coaching skills to thousands of managers in companies like Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and Posco.

Dr Choi is one of the people in the world who I truly admire and respect as a coach and mentor, and someone who has my complete listening. Dr. Choi and I had breakfast soon after I arrived and he asked me what I was up to with respect to Masterful Coaching.

I told him that I was thinking about doing some coaching programs that were more business applications oriented--to help companies establish a growth trajectory again after the economic crisis. I talked about things like a Blue Ocean Strategy, creating a Revenue Storm, creating a new product development pipeline

Dr. Choi is a gentle man of wisdom, so when his eyes briefly looked down toward the tabletop, I knew he was not fully onboard with what I was saying. “Dr. Hargrove,” he said, “you should be coaching Presidents of countries, not just leaders of business.” You are a world authority on leadership, a noted scholar on executive coaching with your books, and a vastly experienced executive coach.

They say that Masterful Coaching is being able to say the one thing that makes a difference to someone, and in this case, Dr. Choi said something with respect to presidential coaching that completely elevated my motivations and aspirations.

In essence he was telling me that at this stage of my career, I needed to be thinking in terms of playing a bigger game—coaching newly elected presidents of nations (particularly in Asia), like President Lee of Korea, President Kan of Japan, Prime Minister Lee of Singapore, and President Triet of Vietnam.

These leaders are in the position to make a difference in the lives of millions of people, not to mention the global economy. He was saying that coaching CEOs and business leaders was fine, but too small a game for me to focus exclusively on.

I was of course flattered by Dr Choi’s coaching, but I soon tried to change the subject, to give myself a chance to think about the question. “Can I really coach presidents of nations?” Fortunately, he wouldn’t let up on me and pursued the topic for the next 30 minutes or so. “Dr. Hargrove,” he said, “if you coach only one president a year, you will put yourself in the position to not only make history, but a great deal of money as well.” (Tell me more!)

He also mentioned that nation presidents, unlike CEOs of big companies, are in the public spotlight all the time, making it much easier to uncover information about the burning issues that are really on their minds, issues they may need coaching on.

“Further,” he said, “presidents have a lot at stake in keeping their jobs and they are always in a survival situation. There is always the next election, where they could be replaced, or mid-term election where there party could be voted out of office, thus crippling their efforts.”

Dr. Choi also suggested that I begin writing a book on Presidential Coaching, as well as begin writing letters to newly-elected presidents and told me not to be surprised if I get a welcomed response. I thanked him for his encouragement and promised to give it a shot. In truth, he had captured my imagination and I was ready to jump into action. More in next blog… discussion with presidential historian, James MacGregor Burns.

Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard

In the past, if you asked an executive, teacher, or family member whose opinion you respected for career advice, they would probably say: Definitely get into an Ivy League college, join a Fortune 500 company, and join a posh country club for social networking.

In today’s high tech, global economy, where talent rules, your advisers might tell you something entirely different. Drop out of school, go start your own company, and get yourself on Facebook or Ladders to make the right contacts.

As an example, I came across an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal in which Bobby Kotick, chief executive of Activision Blizzard Inc (video game maker and publisher), shared some personal details about his career. Here are some excerpts from a recent interview:

WSJ: What’s the best career advice you’ve gotten, and why?

Mr. Kotick: I’ve been very, very lucky, because I’ve had so many great mentors. Very early on when I was in my twenties, I met Steve Jobs who convinced me to quit college. He talked to me after I had spent about a year in Michigan studying the history of art. I don’t think he would even remember some of the things that he said. They were so insightful.

One thing he said was, “You’re studying the history of art. You don’t even get to see the paintings. Why would you be doing that? You have a company, you’re making Apple software, and you’re an entrepreneur. Don’t waste your time on college. Go, run your company.” And that was really good advice. I quit college and I started this company, so that was great.

I think Steve Wynn, who was like my mentor and a second father, has been a great inspiration. He’s a great mentor, because he’s a guy who’s had great business success, but also has always been driven by creativity, and inspired creativity. He always said, “If you create great experiences, the business model will follow.”

Read the entire article in the WSJ here.

In coaching many executives, I have discovered that often what drives them isn’t reaching their yearly goals and meeting the budget cleanly. No, almost all have a dirty little secret that they rarely talk about to anyone except a close confident. They want to move up the ladder as fast as possible in order to achieve greater power, wealth, and make a difference.

Unfortunately, even the most talented executives can find themselves stuck on the same rung for years (decades) due to leadership blindspots, or ignorance of how to master the political chessboard. If this situation describes you, than I would like you to invite you to read this series of blogs: Getting to the Top—Ten Tips for the Effective Executive.

Tip #1. Get The Kind of 360 Feedback That Rips the Blinders Off. One of the biggest issues that all upward bound executives have to deal with is the phenomenon of blindness. It’s possible that right now you are blind to or underestimate the strengths that you have that can help you get to the top. It’s also possible that you are blind or underestimate the weaknesses that can present a real barrier to your getting to the top. In both cases, it’s essential to get some meaningful 360 feedback that will help you to rip the blinders off and then take whatever appropriate action is necessary.

Feedback gives you an essential baseline for developing your own personal development plan, as well as for working with a coach or mentor. I have heard people say after getting their feedback: Hey, I am an environmental engineer, but I just found out that I am a born marketing maven and social networker. Or, I learned from some feedback I got that while people in my group see me as leader with great upward potential, the executives at corporate headquarters office don’t even have me on their radar screen.

Forget the kind of 360 that comes in the form of computerized tick sheets, check-the-boxes-one-to-five. In my experience, these are about as effective as going to an online Numerologist. They may give you a percentile ranking for how you stack up against others according to a homogenized list of corporate competencies, but they will not tell you very much about yourself.

Frankly, these kinds of 360 tick sheets are transactional in nature, designed to give hundreds of people in an organization feedback for a few dollars a head. The results are equally transactional. Part of the deal people make in having a job in a big company is to agree to do such things as filling out the feedback forms and reading the results from them… “I need to lead or collaborate better,” ho hum!

I always tell my coaching clients that we are going to be engaging in some 360 feedback interviews that are designed to rip the blinders off. Clients provide me with a list of ten or more people they would like to get 360 feedback from—bosses, colleagues, direct reports, etc. I then go around and fully engage people in an indepth dialogue about my client’s strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, and so on. I tell people giving the feedback that the intention behind it is transformational (big change) vs. transactional (little change).

You can tell right off the bat that people giving this feedback aren’t doing it in a transactional way because its part of what they are paid to do. They are doing it in a transformational way providing it as a gift to the person.

It’s inspiring to observe people put aside all other distractions of phone calls, emails, meetings, and take 30 to 60 minutes to tune into my client’s whole way of being around the job and come up with some powerful and profound insights that will help them not only to realize their personal and organizational ambitions, but also perhaps to make them a better human being.

For example, as one CEO said of his direct report, “Everyone knows Jim, our EVP, can get results, but what we don’t know is whether or not he has a big enough vision for this organization that would make us put him forward as the CEO. Also, we don’t know whether he can build positive energy to build a team vs. negative energy to scare people into doing what he wants.” When Jim heard this feedback, it turned his whole world view upside down.

When I was doing feedback inside the Pentagon for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, people told me, “This person is a great at making deals and doing all kinds of transactions. Yet he hasn’t shown up as a real leader, as evidenced by the fact that he hasn’t provided a winning game plan for transforming this organization. People have to read the tea leaves to find out where he is going.” My client didn’t necessarily like hearing this feedback, but taking it on board proved essential in getting a promotion 1 to 2 years later to Assistant Secretary of Defense, in charge of all Acquisitions with an annual budget of $350 billion dollars.

So do yourself a favor, even if you have had 360 feedback in the past based on 360 feedback tick sheets, do what you gotto do to hire a coach who can give you the kind of 360 feedback that will allow you to put together a great personal development plan, and accelerate your climb up the corporate ladder and your ability to make a difference in your world.

If you can’t afford it or don’t have the budget to hire a coach, just try going around and getting your own 360 feedback by interview 5 to10 people yourself: What do you see as my potential? What do you see as my strengths and weaknesses? What do I do that will help me get ahead here? What’s holding me back?

Ten Leadership Blindspots that can keep you from getting to the top...

1. Not taking a stand
2. Getting discouraged by the complexity of the situation
3. Bogging down in eleaborate planning and preparations
4. The Lone Ranger Syndrome: no team or network
5. Being insensitive to your impact on others
6. Avoiding difficult conversations
7. Blaming others or circumstances
8. Treating commitments casually
9. Conspiring against others
10. Tolerating "good enough"

Next week: Tip 2. Getting to the Top: Developing Executive Power Presence

From Leader as Cop to Leader as Coach

It’s been said that every leader should have a magnificent obsession, a big goal, or world shaking problem that they are totally immersed in almost 24 /7. One of the things I noticed when I started doing leadership coaching was that it was actually hard to get people to talk about a magnificent obsession on any consistent basis. If people were obsessed with anything, it was talking about “the boss.”

One of the conclusions I quickly arrived at was bad bosses create a toxic environment that is highly stressful to employees. In fact, a recent British study shows that people who don’t like their bosses not only have significantly higher blood pressure levels, but are more prone to both heart attacks and depression.

Samuel A. Culbert, a clinical psychologist who teaches at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, throws a spotlight on one of the culprits of workplace stress in his new book: Getting Rid of the Performance Review! Performance reviews are often done in a completely arbitrary way, the outcome often depending on how well an employee sucks up to the boss.

In my opinion, the issue is not the performance review itself, but whether the boss is coming from being a cop or a coach. If the boss comes from being a coach, the employee will tend to look forward to an upcoming performance review as a gift—an opportunity to grown and learn.

If the boss is coming from being a cop, employees will tend to dread upcoming performance reviews and see them as a threat, an event where they will most likely hear about everything they have done wrong and perhaps even lose their bonus or job.

One of the areas we are going to be focusing on with Masterful Coaching this year is a program called “The Leader as Coach” designed to help managers and leaders make the shift from cop to coach, as well as to equip leaders at all levels with coaching skills and attitudes.

We believe this program will not only help leaders and organizations to be more effective, but also help to eliminate the highly stressful, toxic environment that seems to plague too many organizations.

Making a Difference in South Africa

This morning I received a letter from Rubi Davids, a coach and mentor in South Africa. It really inspires me to get letters like this from people who have read my books and are applying it to make a difference in their world. So, if you are out there, I would love to hear from you. I would like to share Rubi’s letter to me and my response.

Dear Mr. Hargrove, I have been involved in coaching, counseling, and mentoring for many years now. I reside in Cape Town. There has been a significant increase in depression in teen girls especially, so that I decided to design a mentoring program - older women mentoring teen girls. This program has been accepted by many Cape Flats Communities and has had a great positive impact in the lives of these teen girls. This year I have embarked on a certificate course in Coaching at the University of Stellenbosch and as a practical book assignment, I chose to read your book "Masterful Coaching." It has really given me a deeper insight into coaching and I am really inspired by the work you have done. I have just learned about your new book and will be investing in purchasing one. Kind Regards, Rubi Davids

Hello Rubi, Thanks for writing me. It’s great to hear my message about Masterful Coaching is getting out there in the world, and especially South Africa, a country I visited, several times and have a fond regard for.

I did a coaching program in the Northern Transvaal 10 or 15 years ago called “Battle of the Races” trying to build shared understanding between blacks and whites in that area. It was very rewarding personally.

Several people have written me about coaching and mentoring with respect to SA Street Kids, but you’re the first who wants to do something for teen age girls. (BTW, I have three teenage girls in my own house and self esteem is an issue, even with all the advantages.)

It seems from the ten or so letters I have received from people in South Africa that the country is one that is very receptive at least to the whole idea of coaching.

Several people have asked me to come to SA to lead a Masterful Coaching Certification Program but they couldn’t find a sponsor who could put the finances together to make a trip by me possible. Others have wanted to come to Boston to take my program but in the end couldn’t afford it. I wish there was something we could do, as I really do love the country and its people.

Anyway, please do invest in a copy of the third edition of Masterful Coaching. It is by far the best and has 12 catalytic coaching conversations that will guide you in a year long coaching program. While it’s written with executives in mind, you can easily interpret it for any audience. I think it will really help you. All the best, and again, thanks for writing. It’s really appreciated. Robert Hargrove