Oct 23, 2023
Thirty questions that pack a big proverbial punch – the LPI® Assessment and accompanying report. This powerful development tool has positively impacted millions of leaders at all levels, in all industries, from all over the world. And with executive and leadership coaching becoming more widely accepted as a useful, and often preferred method for leader development, the opportunity for coaching with the LPI is growing. While many of the published support materials for both the LPI and The Leadership Challenge® Workshop were designed for classroom use, they can easily be used to maximize coaching sessions. The facilitator instructions available in the Facilitation Set outline the best standard practices when debriefing an LPI report.
These include:
When participating in the LPI Coach Training Program you become exposed to “A Primer on Patterns” and are given the opportunity to discover the LPI data patterns that are common among leaders. Becoming aware of these patterns can help you, as a coach, form plausible theories and high-quality questions that are sure to spark powerful insights for the coachee. This one-day course also delves deeper into best practices for using the LPI in a coaching setting and encourages and provides space for interaction with other coaches who willingly share their expertise.
The Leadership Challenge Certified Masters have an abundance of knowledge and experience to learn from, given their level of expertise. My Certified Master mentor, Dan Schwab, points out that there are two key methods for convincing someone about a truth. On the one hand, data and facts help build a compelling argument. On the other hand, memorable and believable stories can effectively make your case. When debriefing the LPI Feedback Report, both come in handy. The report is filled with data, and you can always bring more to your coaching session by using the Positive Workplace Attitudes data published in The Leadership Challenge, Sixth Edition.
In addition to the data, however, it’s helpful to bring your own personal stories and experience into a coaching session, giving The Five Practices® and the 30 LPI behaviors color, nuance, and a real-world backdrop. Certified Master Tom Pearce requires his Certified Masters-in-Training to prepare and be ready to share three signature stories for each of The Five Practices. Tom told me that he “feels that the preparation and polishing of these 15 stories significantly increases the coach’s confidence and impact in a wide variety of coaching settings.”
Understanding the leader’s context is fundamental to the coaching engagement. As Certified Master Sharon Landes put it, “Context is king!” Is the leader new to her role? Is his organization going through a major change initiative? Does the team have a specific project challenge that has caused conflict? The answers to these questions can shed light on the feedback that shows up in the LPI report and is important to keep in mind as the coaching conversation unfolds.
Certified Master Steve Coats pays close attention to the collective feedback for items #9 (actively listens to diverse points of view), #16 (asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other people’s performance), and #18 (asks “What can we learn?” when things don’t go as expected). Lower scores on these items may indicate the leader has an “asking” problem. Probing on the coachee’s receptivity to the ideas and expertise of others will likely set the stage for a rich conversation.
Certified Master Renee Harness looks at the relationship between two Challenge the Process items: #3 (seeks out challenging opportunities that test his/her own skill and abilities) and #8 (challenges people to try out new and innovative ways to do their work). A conversation about the leader’s capacity for change and challenge in their own work as compared to how much of it they make available and encourage in their direct reports and colleagues is an interesting dynamic to discuss.
I’ve been working with the LPI for about twenty years and yet I am still discovering surprising nuances. Recently, I noticed that all of the Inspire a Shared Vision items include communication-related verbs: #2 talks about, #7 describes, #12 appeals, #17 shows, #22 paints, and #27 speaks. This important detail can open a new door during a coaching conversation. Now, whenever I talk with leaders about Inspire a Shared Vision, I point out that it isn’t enough to have a vision, but to excel in this practice they need to master the art of communication—both in the formation of the shared vision and in keeping that vision engaging and a priority when work becomes difficult.
While researching this article, I discovered that the Certified Masters community is brimming with personal tricks of the trade, while maintaining the integrity of The Leadership Challenge model and the framework’s cornerstone tool—the LPI. The elegant simplicity of the instrument paired with its depth make it an ideal tool for leadership coaching.
Certified Master Lisa Shannon is passionate about creating workplaces where people thrive. With over two decades of experience managing high-growth training, assessment, and leadership development product portfolios and teams, Lisa brings a real-world track record of tackling complex, difficult challenges to her coaching practice. In addition to her LPI coaching practice, Lisa is President and Founder of Big Sky Bold, a business development and digital marketing services firm focused on partnering with consultants, coaches, and solopreneurs to help promote their services and tools to talent professionals.