Education

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] One of the challenges and joys of coaching is that each client is unique. Even similar issues show up in unique ways with each person. The job never gets boring. Still, you see trends, especially among students taking similar courses at similar stages in their lives, often with similar goals. So what do MBA candidates at a top business school tend to want to work on? First, I'll mention that there is no overwhelming majority. Even the most common areas of focus…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Do you ever have an amazing epiphany about a major change you will make in your life, or how you'll do it, and get excited about how awesome doing it will be? This happens a lot in coaching sessions, especially after their first 360-degree review and coaching session. They often have major realizations and make fantastic, far-reaching plans destined for enduring success. All that is awesome, but this realization came in the privacy of a distraction-free room, working with someone working to…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Making change stick means practice and accountability. How do you find people to hold you accountable? The following advice works for everyone, not just business school students. I'll describe how it applies to your life after writing how I tell the students I do lightning coaching with. Leadership requires other people. Every time you work or do anything in a team is an opportunity to lead. For this reason Business School students have to work most of their first year in school-assigned…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] I mean practice in two senses here. The first is the more relevant one for the one-hour lightning coaching sessions -- as a coach, I try to find ways for my client to practice their new behavior during the session, all the more important in a lightning session when they won't have access to their coach again. Improvement in leadership means nothing if it only exists in your head and doesn't translate to new behavior. Leadership is fundamentally social, meaning it requires…

[This post is part of a series on Coaching Highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Business schools and other vocational schools offer students something supremely valuable not everyone realizes. Everyone knows they give you knowledge, credibility, and a network. They also offer you protection from the outside world. You can do risky things in school that you might not do when your pay check or job depends on not messing up. In school, especially business school, you can risk failing in ways that might lose you your job, promotion, bonus, or other things of value. Many schools…

I compiled a series of posts on experiences and lessons from coaching MBA students at Columbia Business School. Click here to read the series. Meanwhile, here's the introductory text: Do you want to improve your leadership skills? Does this describe you: Highly motivated? Limited time? Want to know top-5 business school culture (or just learn to lead like someone from one)? This series will help you. Columbia Business School provides a service to its students helpful to anyone — it has each MBA candidate take a 360-degree report and gives each a coach to help interpret the results and create a plan to act on it. I took the program and have been coaching Columbia MBA students through this program for years. Since we have…