Leading by Coaching: How to deliver impactful change one conversation at a time

by Nick Marson

Leadership used to be about telling people to go where you sent them– now it’s about persuading them to come with you. Old leaders needed to create an artificial persona of infallible authority to issue orders that were obeyed – today’s leaders need to uncover their own authentic leadership personality and bring that open and honest self to conversations that bring others to willing and lasting change. To do so effectively they need to unlearn old leadership behaviours and develop totally different ones. In Leading by Coaching Nick Marson shows how. Leaders are shown how to “Look In” to develop greater self-awareness, “Look Out” to others by utilising a coaching approach, and “Look Beyond” to face uncertainty, manage adaptability and acquire resilience. Marson’s approach is based on deeply researched principals, multiple social science disciplines, the latest cognitive, neurological and psychological research, and in-depth research interviews with over 20 CEOs and senior executives. It has been developed and refined over many years of practice. If leaders want to drive impactful change, they need to understand how to hold the coaching conversations that power it. They need to lead by coaching.

345 pages, Hardcover

Published May 7, 2019

Reviews

[Lorraine · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book has a very attractive cover.

That's the one nice thing I can say. They should have spent some money on an editor, not just the graphic designer.
This book doesn't have bad information -- it seems to be all sound and matches what I've read and heard elsewhere. It just was so poorly written and edited, that it is unhelpful.
It claims to be a book about coaching, but the first chapter is a lesson in neurobiology. There's content on business leadership. On self-awareness. All related to coaching, yes, but written in such long-winded, repetitive, unfocussed ways that there is no cohesive thread. The book is like a first draft -- a brain dump of everything the author knows on the topic (and then some). It desperately lacks an editor with a good red pen and a pair of scissors and an ability to coach a writer through honing and refining his message.

I ended up skimming most of the book as it was so painful to read. This review is long enough; I shouldn't waste anymore time on this book.

[Tempest · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good coaching book with a lot of helpful information. It is primarily for coaching with a brain-based method in the workplace or in leadership, but there is still a good bit of information that will help with other types of coaching. It primarily discusses and focuses on one coaching method but does add in some information about others.

My problem?
The author probably could have cut the book down by half, if not more, by avoiding repetition. There was so much repetition, oftentimes I had to see if I was rereading the same page. Other than that, I found quite a bit of useful information.