And how it features in my coaching
This month I am focusing on the topic of Energy Leadership, which is a fundamental part of being an iPEC Certified Coach.
If I were to ask you “Where is your energy level right now?” you might consider the amount of physical energy you have at this moment, quote Einstein’s theory of special relativity, or just stare at me scratching your head.
Just for a moment, I would like you to consider that energy shows up everywhere from our daily interactions with our colleagues and family to the impact of poor lighting or cold temperature in your home office and how much sleep you have had the night before.
Energy plays a significant role in your leadership abilities everywhere in a world where everyone is considered a leader, either by choice or circumstance.
What does your level of energy affect?
Consider your daily interactions with other people. Now think about how another person can make you think and feel. Some interactions can bring you up and motivate you, while some may make you irritated or angry. Others can leave you feeling exhausted or drained and in extreme cases, you may leave a conversation or situation feeling like a victim.
If you then consider how you interact with others, you may begin to appreciate how you might leave other people feeling too.
Just imagine if you had some control of those interactions and had a choice about how you were left feeling, or perhaps you could optimise your approach to a challenge or situation?
The Energy Leadership Assessment
The key ingredient to any kind of transformational personal development is knowing who you are, how you operate and how you impact others. It can be difficult to permanently change anything going on in your outside world if you are not aware of what’s happening on the inside. Therefore having an assessment tool that can provide clients with this key data can be really powerful.
The energy leadership framework which was developed by iPEC Coaching and which is based on an energy/action model considers the concept of seven distinct energetic lenses or filters through which people see the world.
The framework is supplemented by iPEC’s powerful Energy Leadership Index Assessment (ELI). This is an attitudinal assessment which is different to a personality assessment such as Myers Briggs. Instead, the framework measures an individual’s predominant perceptions and attitudes and where they are focusing their energy.
Taking the time to get to know a client at the beginning of the coaching relationship can benefit the connection between the coach and that client. Therefore, my clients always begin their coaching sessions by taking the ELI assessment first, followed by a thorough debrief of their results.
The iPEC Energy Leadership Framework prescribes two underlying types of energy:
Anabolic energy, which is constructive, fuelling, healing and growth orientated.
Catabolic energy, which is stressful, draining, resisting and contracting energy.
The concept of Energy Leadership is the higher level of anabolic energy you have at any given moment; the more conscious view you have of what’s going on around you.
Having less Catabolic energy (or stress) means that you are much more focused or less distracted.
The Seven Levels of Energy Leadership
Having awareness of yourself is great, but being able to challenge or change your perception of a situation at any given moment can shift your energy, mood and how you feel in a given moment.
Having a framework to provide you with a set of perceptions can also help you to focus your thoughts and intentions. Thoughts always proceed emotional reactions, so changing the way we can think about a situation can have a significant impact on us.
The 7 energy levels are summarised by iPEC’s 7 Levels of Energetic Perspective:
Level 1
The Victim: Self-blame, fear, doubt, guilt, worry, defeat
Level 2
The Fighter: Rebellion, conflict, being right, judgement, frustration, anger
Level 3
The Rationaliser: Tolerating, make excuses, put differences aside
Level 4
The Care Giver: Caring, giving, supporting, helping, put others first, in service
Level 5
The Opportunist: Learn from all experiences, curiosity, win for all, objective thinking
Level 6
The Visionary: Growth from experience, intuition, joy, flow
Level 7
The Creator: Non-judgement, unconditional love, passion
Each level above is characterised by a set of perspectives that are made up of a collection of thoughts, emotions and corresponding actions which correlate to each level.
Of course, we are never just one particular level of energy. There is always an interplay of levels taking place and once clients become more familiar with the energetic feeling in their body, they also become more conscious of the perspective they are leading with, in a given moment, and over time can learn to adjust their approach appropriately.
The ELI and its results provide multiple coaching benefits for both client and coach as it presents a huge amount of data that can be used for identifying areas for development and for benchmarking a client against progress and a return on investment (should the assessment be taken at a later stage).
What I love about this approach is that once a client knows what their default attitudes are and how they are made up, the client is then in the driving seat to be able to change them and transform the way you approach their life and interactions.
Key Benefits of Energy Leadership
When I reflect upon my own experience when taking the assessment, the results provided me very clear evidence that I was a people pleaser (Level 4), spent an awful lot of time in the past (Level 1) and avoided conflict like the plague (Level 3). With some great coaching, I was able to make adjustments to how I showed up in situations, resulting in a much more balanced and empowered version of myself.
By combining the results of the assessment with coaching, clients can reap many benefits of the Energy Leadership model. By increasing their self-perception, clients gain greater awareness of themselves and others, can transform their communication skills and relationships, gain greater confidence in themselves and strengthen their Emotional Intelligence (EQ).
I hope you have found this post useful and, as always, if you have any questions regarding it or any other coaching topic, please feel free to get in touch.
Justin
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