Having been a member of several group formats myself, ranging from traditional therapy groups, to business masterminds, to different hybrids of the two, I’m acutely aware of the transformational power that groups can offer, which is why I love offering the experience also to my clients. For anyone that has ever been part of a group, then you know how powerful groups can be as a tool to help us grow, enrich and maximize our lives.
For anyone that is new to groups, or hasn’t ever been part of a group experience, I wanted to write this quick blog and share 5 powerful, life-changing benefits that come from being part of a group. The list of benefits is very long for being part of a group, but these are the big-5.
1. Build Accountability
The groups I lead out of my practice are geared toward professional, high-performing individuals, who, due to the nature of their careers, rarely have people in their lives who hold them accountable in a real and authentic way. In reality, they often have a lot of people in their lives who accommodate them due to the power imbalance of their relationships. For these high-performing-leader-types, being part of a group experience with other like-minded individuals can be a total game-changer as the group holds each person accountable, in a loving and supportive way, to following through and committed to accomplishing the personal and professional challenges that are important to them.
“For most busy professionals, authentic accountability is missing from their lives.”
2. Learn Relationship Skills
The Leadership Groups that I love leading have an educational component where I spend a small part of our group time teaching relationship concepts such as learning to be vulnerable, advocating for our emotional needs, setting boundaries, managing conflict, and learning what authentic connection looks and feels like. All skills that are directly transferable to their personal lives, as well as their roles as leaders. Most high-performing busy professionals having deficits in relationship skills because they have focused on prioritizing other skills, and also have lots of pre-programmed negative beliefs and expectations about what being relational connected looks and feels like. But the power of a group is incredible when all of the members are developing these skills in unison inside the group, and then taking these skills outside the group into their families and businesses.
Groups Can Be The Most Powerful Tool For Personal and Professional Development.
3. Grow Leadership Competencies
Most professional high-performing leaders have a desire to grow their leadership competencies and advance their careers, and what I love showing these folks is the development of our relational skillset being the single most important factor that advances leadership roles. As we move higher up the professional food chain in leadership positions, our value to organizations becomes much more correlated to how well we can connect with, motivate, and maximize the productivity of the people below us. And the only to do this, is to know how to genuinely connect with others. When leaders understand concepts like sharing vulnerable with team members, connecting to their own needs as well as the emotional needs of their direct reports, then magic can happen within organizational teams. It’s not uncommon that members of our groups exponentially advance their careers due to the relational growth they experienced inside the leadership group.
4. Ending Isolation
The single biggest peril for modern day leaders is being isolated. Certainly, people in leadership positions have friends, family, golfing buddies, and counterparts at work to connect with, but rarely do leaders have truly authentic relationships where they can be fully known and shed the armor of leadership perfectionism. By the nature of being in leadership positions, leaders can rarely trust to be in relationships where they can open up and being vulnerable. Leaders have a need to show the world the best version of themselves, which is not necessarily a false version, it’s just not the whole picture. This is a dilemma which leaves folks in leadership roles feeling isolated from others and themselves.
“As every leader knows, it’s lonely at the top. Because it’s isolating.”
5. Developing Insight
Being part of a leadership group and group coaching is the single most powerful tool I know of to help people develop more insight into themselves, how their actions in relationships impact others, and how they are experienced by the world around them. I’ve known individuals struggling with certain aspects of their lives and then, after two days participating in our group format, it’s like “BANG”, there it is. Something another group member said, or did, and everything clicked and someone had a powerful “Aha” moment. When we show up in a safe and supportive group coaching atmosphere with like-minded others, we have a way of learning about ourselves and developing more insight as the group metaphorically holds up a mirror to our own lives. It can be truly transformational.
If you’ve ever considered being part of a group coaching experience with other like-minded leaders with an emphasis on personal and professional development, I would highly encourage you to consider looking into it more. The profound things you will learn about yourself and relationships along the way will pay huge dividends throughout your personal and professional life.
Feel free to shoot me a message if you have questions about my leadership groups, or if you’d like more information.
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