Bootstrap: How to succeed as a Leader Through Self-Coaching

By Robert W Barner

Every leader would like to have a personal coach who could challenge their thinking, provide useful and timely advice, and help them explore options for tackling their toughest leadership challenges. Although not everyone has access to a professional coach, now there is a useful alternative. Bootstrap is like having your own portable co

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Barner
• Release date: Feb 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798989753017

Book preview

Praise for Bootstrap

Bootstrap: How to succeed as a leader through self-coaching by Dr. Barner is a compelling guide to personal and professional empowerment.  Its standout feature is the fusion of practical advice, forward-thinking strategies, and an insightful understanding of the challenges faced in achieving personal excellence. This book is informative and relatable, offering a wealth of real-world experiences, while also serving as source of inspiration for the reader.   It's an essential read for anyone on the path of self-improvement, providing the tools and motivation needed to unlock one’s full potential in both life and career. Dr. Barner's Bootstrap is a beacon for self-coaching, making it a must-have for aspiring leaders and those seeking transformative growth.

—Kevin Austin, Group Vice President; Toyota Motor, North America

With his latest book Bootstrap, Dr. Robert Barner has made executive coaching accessible to everyone -- from the frontline employee who is just beginning to map out her career to the senior leader who is ready to take the next step into an executive role. Based on his significant experience in leadership and executive coaching, Dr. Barner provides actionable insight, advice, and practical tools to guide leaders on their self-development journey. Armed with an empty journal and this book, you will have everything you need to intentionally plan your next career move.

—Jaime Goff; Director of Leadership Development, CHRISTUS Health Executive Coach; The Empathic Leader

The book is a must for organizations and leaders that embrace continuous growth through self-coaching. It’s a useful guide, with real life examples and ten questions covering areas of development to empower leaders in achieving their personal goals.

—Annelies Kampert; Vice President and General Manager, Crestron Europe

An invaluable resource! This book seamlessly weaves practical and insightful real-life scenarios into its fabric, making the content not just relatable but genuinely practical. What sets it apart is the author’s thoughtful approach—encouraging immediate learning and application through thought-provoking questions and concise exercises. A must-read for anyone seeking actionable insights and tangible results to grow as a leader. Highly recommended!

—Dr. Susan Hanold; The Talent Doctor, Founder Plan Z Solutions

What I love about this book is that it truly addresses the how to do just that.  Self-reflection and self-coaching are essential in a leader’s growth and require complete honesty with one’s self.  It is those inward conversations that we hear the most that shape our future. This guide of self-discovery is a great tool for any leader’s toolkit.

—Stacy Winsett, Chief People Officer, RATPDEV

What sets Dr. Barner’s book apart is its unique blend of actionable advice, anticipatory guidance, and understanding of the challenges organizations and individuals face in their quest for personal excellence. Whether you are new to the concept of self-coaching or looking to expand your existing toolkit, this book is a treasure trove of wisdom, motivating all to unlock their fullest personal & professional potential. 

—Allen Johnston, VP of Americas, EXFO

In Bootstrap: How to Succeed as a Leader through Self-Coaching, Dr. Barner skillfully helps readers self-discover and apply the potential already within them. As a talent development executive. Dr. Barner has blended his considerable experience as a corporate practitioner and consultant with his academic prowess to provide readers with ideas and approaches that will help them be more successful immediately. As an avid follower of Dr. Barner’s work, I looked forward to reading this, and it was well worth the wait.

—Matthew Hirst, PhD; Vice President, Talent & Organizational Development First Command Financial Services, Inc.

Dr. Barner is a Master Coach who gives you his best tools in this book to develop yourself as a leader. The way that Dr. Barner structures the book to assist you in coaching yourself, it is as if he were personally coaching you in the process. Take advantage of these valuable lessons and prompt questions for reflection and learning.

—Luigi A. Pecoraro EdD Executive Director, Eller Executive Education, University of Arizona Eller College of Management

As the Former Assistant Dean of the SMU Cox School of Business Executive MBA Program, I witnessed hundreds of senior managers transition to executive level positions as a result of implementing Professor Barner’s coaching philosophy and techniques. Now a professional coach, my clients will benefit from Bootstrap not only for the structured approach and helpful guidelines, but the Why This Question, Now Try This and Case in Point will reinforce coaching efforts and provide methods of measuring client success. Well done Professor Barner!

—Tom Perkowski; Professional Coach

Contents

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1: Your Coaching Goals

Chapter 2: Identify Your Starting Point

Chapter 3: Articulate Your Values

Chapter 4: Discover Your Leadership Brand

Chapter 5: Track Your Changing Work Environment

Chapter 6: Focus Your Efforts

Chapter 7: Expand Your Influence Network

Chapter 8: Track Your Progress

Chapter 9 Address Your Self-care

Chapter 10: Sustain Momentum

Copyright © 2023  Robert Barner

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Robert Barner is a business consultant who specializes in helping organizations strengthen the performance of their leaders through executive coaching and leadership development. Recent corporate clients have included Pioneer Natural Resources, GameStop, Harris Corporation, Toyota of North America, Crestron, Aperia, EXFO, and Tolleson Wealth Management. As an executive coach, Dr. Barner has advised and coached both C-suite executives and identified high-potential leaders and trained over 250 professionals in coaching. Dr. Barner is the author of several business books, on subjects ranging from coaching to team building, as well as articles that have appeared in many academic and trade journals.

Before focusing exclusively on consulting, Dr. Barner served as Associate Professor of Clinical Services within SMU’s School of Education and Human Development, and later as an Adjunct Professor for SMU’s COX School of Business. Prior to joining SMU, Dr. Barner spent 35 years in the field of talent development. He has held top-level talent development positions for several different companies, including Belo Corp., Accredo Health, Conseco Insurance, Invensys Process Controls, and Choice Hotels International. His responsibilities have involved executive coaching, high-potential leader development, succession planning, and leadership talent reviews. Dr. Barner holds a PhD in Organization Development from Fielding University, along with a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from Nova Southeastern.

Introduction

GETTING STARTED ON YOUR SELF-COACHING JOURNEY

Why This Book?

I’ve spent over forty years as a practicing leadership coach. Over half of this experience comes from being an internal coach to different employers, in my role as the head of talent development. I mention this because as an internal coach you have to live with your mistakes. If you make the wrong call in assessing a leader’s potential for advancement or fail to detect an emerging derailment issue with one of your clients, you are quick to hear about it from your senior team.

During my career journey, I’ve also had the chance to share what I’ve learned as a coach through several books, book chapters, and academic papers that I’ve authored on the subjects of leadership development and coaching. Every time I take on a new writing project it’s because I see a development need or performance challenge that leaders are facing, which hasn’t been adequately addressed in the literature. Such is the case for Bootstrap. Recently I concluded that one thing missing from the field of coaching is a simple tool kit that leaders can use to lift themselves up by their bootstraps by functioning as their own coaches. If you answer yes to any of the following questions I believe that you will find Bootstrap to be a useful leadership development tool that you will continue to reference in the years to come.

Are you unable to obtain the services of a professional coach? Because coaching involves a heavy financial investment, most leaders simply can’t afford to pay for the services of a professional coach. For their part, employers generally lack the funding needed to provide all of their leaders with coaching, so they tend to limit its availability to their senior executives. The vast majority of leaders are left to fend for themselves, or their development is limited to what they can extract from group workshops or large-scale training programs. If you don’t have access to a coach, you will find that Bootstrap can show you how to take charge of your self-development journey. If you are a manager of managers, an additional payoff will be that as you progress through this book, you will be able to better understand how you can use the ten powerful questions that form the basis of this book to support the development of your team members.

Do you want to advance into your first leadership role?Bootstrap can help you establish a strong professional brand that can improve your chances of landing your first leadership opportunity. You will learn how to identify your development needs and priorities, strengthen your leadership brand, and enlist the support of others in your organization to help you achieve your career goals.

Are you planning to participate in coaching? If you are lucky enough to have access to the services of a professional coach, Bootstrap can help you extract more from your coaching experience. You will find that ten key coaching questions that form the basis of this book will encourage you to periodically step back from your daily work to carefully reflect on what you want from your career, identify any constraints that may be hindering your professional development, and show you how to extract the most from your coaching experience. Before beginning your coaching engagement I would encourage you to ask your coach to read Bootstrap, then discuss with your coach how the two of you could use the ten coaching questions to extract the most value from your coaching sessions.

Are you an HR or OD professional who is searching for additional tools to support the development of your leaders? If so, you will find that Bootstrap can support your company’s multi-rater feedback process or leadership development programs. You can use it as a great pre-workshop reading assignment, as a means of encouraging group discussions on key leadership topics, or as a takeaway tool for helping program participants translate their on-site learning experiences to personal, real-world applications.

Are you the director of a career development center for MBA or EMBA graduate students? As a former university professor, I know that graduate business programs tend to be focused on helping students develop their expertise in technical areas such as finance or marketing. What’s often left off the table are learning experiences that force students to engage in serious self-reflection and self-learning. Bootstrap can help your students make better-informed career choices and prepare for leadership opportunities, by helping them think more deeply about their career goals, values, and priorities, and their potential strengths as future leaders.

Are you a professional coach? If so, consider integrating Bootstrap into your coaching practice. This book emerged from the forty years I’ve spent as both an internal and external coach and the many conversations that I’ve had with other coaching professionals. Throughout my career, I discovered how to make use of provocative questions to push my clients’ thinking and spur personal self-reflection. As you read through Bootstrap you will quickly discover how it can help you accelerate the