Coaching for Leadership: Writings on Leadership from the World's Greatest Coaches, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHEN LEADERS ARE COACHES*

By James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner

Leadership is a relationship. Sometimes the relationship is one-to-many, and sometimes it is one-to-one. Regardless of whether the relationship is with one or with one thousand, leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. Success in leadership, success in business, and success in life have been, are now, and will always be a function of how well we work and play together. Leaders are wholly dependent on their capacity to build and sustain relationships.

Evidence abounds for this point of view. For instance, in examining the critical variables for success in the top three jobs in large organizations, Jodi Taylor and ...