Can a leader also be a good coach?

A leader is required to possess many skills, many of which are very different, including coaching their team... But is this a good idea? And, more importantly, can they do it effectively enough? I have some doubts about this, and I'll explain why.

Leaders like... hornets!

I Googled "Leadership Topics" and came up with the top 15 topics covered in leadership courses: effective communication, time management, stress management, conflict resolution, inspiring your team, taking responsibility, problem-solving, delegation, developing emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, agility, decision-making, change management, DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion), coaching, and mentoring.

In my opinion, what's missing is the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and knowing how to unclog a sink (you never know...).

I have repeatedly expressed doubts about this mania for exalting
the figure of the leader attributing to him almost thaumaturgical qualities.
A leader is a man/woman who takes responsibility
to take others from point A to point B and to do this
must be able to manage a whole series of things, such as
those listed above...
but without, for this reason, having to become an expert on every
single question.

I'm not saying that the 15 leadership topics listed above aren't useful, but I believe that learning and applying individual skills doesn't improve leadership.

Leadership cannot be classified and cannot be forced into pre-established attitudes.

It's a bit like the bumblebee: due to the insect's weight, physics rules out its ability to fly with the wing surface it has... only it doesn't know it.

And fly!

For example, if we take someone like Steve Jobs, who certainly did not shine for Emotional Intelligence or any of the other skills listed above, it cannot be denied that he was one of the most important leaders at an industrial level.

Perhaps he didn't even know that his behavior did not fall within the canons of good leadership.

And yet he... flew!


The leader is the leader, not the sidekick

Sure, Steve Jobs flew... but could he have helped others fly? Would he have had the patience, the knowledge, and above all, the will to sit beside someone and help them shine?

I doubt it.

And there are many Steve Jobs in the world... perhaps not as brilliant as him, but certainly capable of bringing together human and non-human resources to realize even very ambitious projects.

Many observers, with this new way of understanding leadership that has gradually established itself over some time now—often with a cloyingly "do-gooder" edge—would say that Jobs wasn't actually a good leader... something that, personally, I don't agree with.

A leader is such not because he is good, but because he brings people
from a point A to a point B and since this is exactly
what Steve Jobs did - and in a big way! - he was without
no doubt a strong leader... but most likely a terrible one
coach, assuming that he has ever even
tried to be (personally, I doubt it).

Even Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan were great leaders despite having massacred an exorbitant number of people, but those were different times... or rather, times and places where freedom and respect for life were not even an option.

The question is: could it ever work today?
Maybe... but would it be sustainable over time?
Could those same leaders still successfully do here and today what they once did?
These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

Mentorship e Coaching

My answer to these questions is "No", because even a minimally intelligent leader is naturally motivated by the result he wants to achieve and the moment he realizes that his behavior is counterproductive, he will abandon it instantly.

In practice, the leader adapts to the situation – including people – to achieve the desired result.

For this reason, I believe that a leader can be a great "mentor" ...but not a good one "coach" .
The fact is that these two figures, which are actually very different from each other, are often confused.



A mentor He/she is a guide (usually a leader himself/herself) who, thanks to the knowledge, experience and successes accumulated over the years, is in a position to pass them on to his/her students.
The problem with this is that it often fails to take into account the fact that the mentor He most likely had to find his own way to achieve his successes and it is not certain that his strategies can be replicated with another person.

A coach, on the other hand, does not work on the knowledge or experience acquired over time on the issues that the student wants or needs to learn and it is not even necessary that he has achieved particular successes on these issues.
The coach works on and with the person in front of him and helps him bring out the best he has to express, starting from eliminating various blocks and brakes.

Of course, there are many coaches who have acquired specific knowledge and share it with their clients, but it is not this knowledge that makes them coaches. What makes them coaches is the knowledge of certain dynamics that they propose to the client.
customer who, in turn, "tests" them on himself.

Extroverts and introverts

Leaders tend to be by nature extroverts, that is, they are naturally attracted to what they can "conquer" out there, and are also very good at involving people in their initiatives. This is why they can be excellent mentor, as they are motivated by achieving a result.

They are, however, very little attracted by the idea of working "on" people, on what they feel, on their motivations, on their brakes, etc. For this reason, the intervention of a introvert which would be instead a coach (or a psychologist or counselor) who is much more skilled at "(re)constructing" the person from within.

As an introvert, in fact, the coach is much more attentive and attracted by the process (and therefore from the dynamics) rather than from the result, as he sees the latter as an inevitable consequence of the former.

This "separation" between leaders and coaches (or professionals in general)
and between extroverts and introverts it is not done with an axe and, as always, there can be excellent leaders who do coaching and
great coaches who do mentoring, but it's almost a stretch,
something that most of the time does not happen spontaneously.

Conclusion

To avoid any misunderstanding, I'll immediately point out that what I've written here on the subject is not the Bible. However, I can assure you that, even in the context of personal/professional growth, I've met many leaders who loved teaching and sharing their knowledge with others, but usually at a group level, where the dynamics are very different than one-on-one.

I repeat, anyone can do anything if they are truly passionate about it, but the results will likely be different... at least in most cases.