What our new coaching insights reveal about executive leadership

SMG has been at the forefront of executive coaching and mentoring in Australia and Asia for over two decades allowing us to draw unique insight into the behavioural development priorities of the region’s business leaders.

Our newest analysis of the coaching goals of over 1500 Australian leaders that we have worked with reveals a fascinating pattern.

While leadership development needs to evolve over time, six core themes have consistently been prioritised by leaders over this period: Self-awareness, executive presence, influencing, building relationships, communication, and building a high-performance team.

Our research and experience show that these six represent the foundational behavioural capabilities Australian leaders must focus on building to succeed in today’s operating environment.

In our latest white paper, we look at each of these critical capabilities, why we believe they matter, and insights from our experience working with Australia’s leaders to help develop them.

In this article – the first in a series – we explore three key insights emerging from the data:

1. Self-awareness has become a new priority

Virginia Mansell

We define “self-awareness” as the extent to which a leader is aware of the impact of their behaviour, decisions and actions on others and the organisation at large.

Self-awareness has always featured in the top 10 development priorities for leaders over the last five years. It has also been a key area of focus in my own executive coaching practice for over 25 years. That’s because self-awareness has always been a crucial trait for executives who want to develop their leadership effectiveness, decision-making, and their ability to navigate the complexities of leadership.

For example:

• Self-aware leaders understand their biases, emotions, and thought processes, leading to more rational and informed decisions.
• They recognise when they need input from others rather than making impulsive choices.
• They understand their own emotions helping them regulate their responses and stay composed under pressure.
• Self-aware leaders also set better boundaries, prioritise self-care, and encourage a healthier work culture.

The benefits for leaders to develop self-awareness have been well understood for many years. So why the significant step change in its perceived importance?

One possible explanation is that self-awareness has risen in prominence due to the confluence of three streams of change:

1. The cumulative effects of Covid

Since the psychological and social impact of COVID on the world, people have reevaluated their lives personally and professionally. There is more openness and transparency about bringing our whole selves to work and how we engage. It may be that we have reached a tipping point in this regard with a major shift in acceptance and understanding of the importance and impact of building self-awareness. 

2. The need for enhanced adaptability

The pace of change is constantly increasing. We have observed that executives who are self-aware can adapt to change more effectively. They seek feedback and continuously improve, rather than resisting change. It may be that the need to adapt has moved from being a crucial skill to a survival mechanism.

3. ‘Controlling the controllables’

The seismic shifts in geopolitics, technology and culture seem to have to led to an awakening to the fact that the span of direct control for executives is shrinking. What that means is that leaders have to bring even greater focus to what they can always control – their ability to manage their own responses and choices to the world around them.

In summary, increasingly executives who want to be visionary growth leaders first need to work on themselves.

2. Executive Presence stands the test of time

Mehul Joshi

Executive Presence has ranked in the top 3 developmental priorities for leaders in 4 of the last five years (ranking first twice).

That’s unsurprising because Executive Presence is a hallmark of success.

When I worked as a reporter in London for the BBC, I interviewed a range of leaders, from prime ministers to captains of industry. The most successful shared the attribute of executive presence. Without it, it’s unlikely they would have scaled the summit of leadership.

At SMG, we define Executive Presence as the ability to demonstrate a controlled and confident statewhen you need it the most. 

In a sense, Executive Presence is a natural expression of self-awareness.

People are more likely to trust and follow leaders who exude confidence and composure.

A strong executive presence reassures teams during uncertainty and change.

Working with executives to develop executive presence is part art, part science. Here are five SMG principles for developing executive presence at the senior executive level:

1. Reflect on the source of your confidence: It’s hard to instil confidence in others if your own is being sapped by self-doubt.

2. Think differently: How you show up is a direct reflection of what you are thinking.

3. Analyse how you show up: People’s perceptions of us are largely formed by what they see, not by what we say.

4. Train, practise and prepare: Leaders who seem to effortlessly demonstrate executive presence actually plan for situations so they come across as authentic yet spontaneous.

5. Engage with energy: Dialling up your energy conveys confidence and creates engagement

3. Male and female leaders: Similar, but different in one key area

Murray Priestman

While there are six capabilities that are consistent across all the leaders we have worked with, we wanted to see how far there might be differences by gender.

Analysis of the data shows very similar themes across both groups, with the same top three development priorities, and 11 of the top 12 being consistent.

But there is one clear – and statistically significant – difference; personal brand as a development priority ranked 4^th for female leaders compared to 9^th for men.

There is a large body of robust research that consistently shows that women can tend to underplay their achievements relative to male peers, while assertive women are sometimes viewed as being less “likeable” than men with similar traits.

It’s not surprising then that a focus on defining and building a strong personal brand has consistently been a higher priority for female leaders. Success, whether defined as promotion, higher pay, or greater opportunity, is invariably dependent to a high degree on the judgement calls of others, which in turn are influenced by how they perceive you – in other words, your personal brand.

These findings are consistent with our broader work delivering a wide range of leadership programs for emerging and high-potential female leaders in recent years, which focus in two broad areas:

1. Supporting systemic change to help create a more level playing field, and
2. Helping participants define and build their unique leadership brand.

In summary, mining for insights in our proprietary executive coaching data – in this case insights such as the increasing importance of self-awareness, the constancy of Executive Presence as a developmental theme, and the disparate significance of personal brand for female versus male leaders – is to help our clients meet leaders where they are at and make informed choices to support their development.

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