IF YOU WILL LEAD, LLC

Enduring Leadership Wisdom For Those Who Choose To Lead
Leadership is about personal choice. First, we must choose to lead. Next others must choose to follow. Building the skills and competencies required to be a great leader is also about choice. We must choose to invest our time and energy. We must choose to challenge our competence and awareness. What will it take to become a great leader?

  • Great leaders learn from other great leaders. Do you understand the attributes great leaders possess?
  • Great leaders are aware of their strengths and weakness. Are you ready to honestly and critically assess your strengths and weakness?
  • Great leaders know that leadership is like any other skill. It requires hard work and practice. Are you willing to invest the time and energy to become a great leader?

Becoming a great leader requires answering these and many more questions. Leadership is like any other discipline. It requires learning lessons from a variety of sources – from enduring wisdom to the latest theories.
If You Will Lead philosophy recognizes and embraces the choices and commitment inherent in true leadership. Our leadership framework, “The If 16”, is based on sixteen essential leadership attributes. The attributes are easy to understand, but they require dedication and practice to master. Our approach to leadership development embraces the challenge, and we have the skills to guide you on your journey. 

Our services include:
Leadership Development to enable organizations and individuals to achieve their leadership potential

  • Executive coaching for both seasoned and rising executive leaders
  • Group coaching – an innovative approach to developing high potential leaders
  • Speaking to leaders through keynote presentations and executive seminars
  • Leadership Consulting to help organizations optimize their people, processes, and systems.

What is Executive Coaching?

Executive coaching is a proven, confidential, one-on-one personalized development process facilitated by a professional coach to enhance a leader’s success at achieving his/her professional and leadership goals. Coaching enables committed leaders to build and embed essential leadership capabilities. Coaching helps leaders discover their potential and deliver the results consistent with that potential. Executive coaching is about exploration and awareness, and it is built on a foundation of trust and teamwork.

How Coaching Works:
Identifying Goals: The client, with the coach’s assistance, identifies the key areas that are vital to his/her effectiveness, future performance, and desired results.

  • Increasing Awareness: The coach helps raise the client’s awareness of issues and obstacles.
  • Catalyst for Change: The role of the coach is to serve as a catalyst to facilitate change.
  • Asking Hard Questions: The coach pushes and encourages the client in his/her development.
  • Active Engagement: We recommend a minimum of two sessions per month (with a maximum of four). We provide unlimited telephone and e-mail support throughout the engagement.
  • Coaching Is Not Consulting or Therapy: The coach is not there to fix the client or give them the answers. It is not a substitute for supervisory oversight. It is also not intended for management or technical skills building.

What Are the Benefits of Coaching?

  • Outstanding Investment for Leadership Development: Independent research has shown ROIs of between 100% and 600%.
  • Coaching Builds Stronger Leaders: Executives who participate in coaching are more engaged and effective leaders.
  • Self-Awareness: Coaching promotes sustainable change by guiding clients to self-discovery and self-correction.
  • Coaching fosters growth and change: Organizations that use coaches are better prepared to lead and implement change.

To Learn More About Coaching:
Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program
International Coach Federation
ICF Greater Richmond

Our Approach: The If 16 Leadership Framework

Each of the sixteen couplets from Rudyard Kipling’s classic poem If- describes an essential leadership attribute. These form a comprehensive leadership structure, The If 16 Leadership Framework. While each of the attributes is unique and essential, some may seem similar or even redundant. Many of the attributes share characteristics and manifest themselves in related behaviors; they are interconnected and interdependent. I recommend that you read this book with an eye towards seeing the distinctions associated with each attribute while recognizing the synergies among the attributes.

The If 16 Leadership Attributes help us answer four questions that define each of us as leaders:

  • Who am I and what do I believe?
  • What do I want to achieve?
  • How will I attract and motivate others?
  • How will I earn and retain the privilege to lead?

The If 16 Leadership Framework is organized into four domains based on these questions. Each domain includes four of The If 16 Leadership Attributes. All of the attributes can and will help us address more than one of the four questions. The order of the domains is important. We start with self-awareness because before we can lead others we must first know ourselves. That leads to awareness of what we want. Only then can we begin to contemplate attracting others or earning their trust.

KNOW WHO YOU ARE

  • Character – The Wisdom to Know and Trust Yourself
  • Authenticity – The Resolve Always to Be Yourself
  • Integrity – The Wisdom to Know the Truth and the Strength to Defend It
  • Self-Efficacy – The Confidence to Gain from Triumph and Disaster

KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

  • Ambition – The Will to Make the World What You Want It to Be
  • Vision – The Power of Having and Sharing a Dream
  • Boldness – The Ability to See and Seize Opportunities
  • Resilience – The Ability to Bounce Back from Adversity

ATTRACT OTHERS

  • Inspiration – The Ability to Connect with and Motivate Friends & Foes
  • Courage – The Ability to Face the Dangers When They Become Real
  • Selflessness – The Ability to Put Your Cause and Beliefs Ahead of Yourself
  • Stamina – The Will and Energy to Hold On

EARN AND RETAIN TRUST

  • Composure – The Power to Keep Your Head
  • Patience – The Strength and Will to Endure and Wait
  • Enthusiasm – The Energy to Fill Every Minute
  • Accountability – The Will to Take Ownership Regardless of the Outcome

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What is Group Coaching?

Group Coaching enables your organization to extend the reach of coaching to a larger segment of high potential leaders. The effectiveness of group coaching comes from the combination of individual executive coaching and peer-to-peer learning and support, making group coaching a more efficient solution than traditional one-one-one executive coaching.
Our group coaching engagements target groups of 8-16 leaders for periods of six to twelve months.
How Group Coaching Works:

  • Increasing Awareness: We draw on existing assessments used by your organization. We offer The IF 16 Leadership Assessment©, a 360-degree assessment tool to help identify leadership competency strengths and gaps.
  • Personalized Planning: Each client creates a personalized leadership plan including coaching objectives as well as long-term leadership goals.
  • Face-to-Face Coaching: The program offers twice monthly, in-person group coaching.
  • Peer Learning: We organize self-directed learning teams to reinforce and extend coaching through peer support.
  • Manager Participation: The program promotes active manager and stakeholder engagement.
  • Assessing Progress: We conduct formal assessments to gauge progress and propose next steps.

What are the Benefits of Group Coaching?

  • Multiple Perspectives: We use multiple coaches to optimize learning.
  • Peer-to-Peer Learning: Participants are integral to each other’s development.
  • Scalability: Group coaching can enable your organization to offer coaching to more of your high potential leaders.
  • Cost-Effective: Per client, group coaching is one-third of the cost of individual coaching.

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Infrastructure Consulting

  • Strategic Planning
  • Strategic Sourcing
  • Team Development
  • Change Leadership
  • Mergers and Acquisitions Planning and Integration
  • Information Technology and Business Integration

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IF You Will Lead – Leadership Assessments

What Are Your Leadership Strengths? Do you panic in a crisis or are you calm under pressure? Do you know your core beliefs and values? Do you lead with a compelling vision? How well do you bounce back from setbacks? Are you bold and courageous? Are you inspiring? Do you know what is most important to your personal leadership development? What about that of your organization? Have you considered the leadership culture that you have created? How can you assess its relative strengths and weakness?

The If 16 Leadership Assessment© Tool Kit

We have built our leadership practice around “The If 16” Leadership Attributes. These attributes form the foundation for leadership excellence. Our assessment instruments enable you to target your development efforts so you can focus on building the attributes that matter most to you and those you lead.

The If 16 Leadership Self-Assessment©

Leadership coaching is built on a belief that clients know the answers to the challenges that they face. A coach’s job is to ask questions that enable the client to begin to see and understand the challenges and to help the client find answers. Our Leadership Self-Assessment works the same way. We provide a short questionnaire that asks you to rate certain behaviors. Through critical self-awareness, your behaviors will begin to reveal your relative strengths and opportunities. This assessment then forms the basis for a coaching plan or consulting engagement. For a limited time, you can complete the Individual ” If 16″ Leadership Assessment free of charge. Learn about your greatest leadership strength and your biggest leadership challenge. A full leadership assessment is available for purchase.

The If 16 Leadership Culture Assessment©

How does your assessment of your organization’s leadership culture differ from that of your team members? Our assessments often vary depending on our perspective. Our Leadership Culture Assessment gives you the ability to check your alignment. How consistently is the culture you want becoming reality at every level in your organization? This instrument will help you identify where breakdowns are occurring. It enables you to understand better how to strengthen and improve your culture of leadership. The “If 16” Leadership Culture Assessment tool is also available to allow you to gauge the leadership culture that you and your team have created.

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