Dirk van der Vaart With Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Coach the Coach Radio brought to you by the Business RadioX ambassador program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to BRXAmbassador.com to learn more. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have on the show Dirk Vandervoort with Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching. Welcome, Dirk.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:00:45] Thank you, Lee. It’s good to be here. Glad to be on the show.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:48] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about your practice, how you serve in folks.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:00:54] Sure. I spent about 30 years in the defense and aerospace industry mostly focusing on national security and government contracting. And as I approach the the end of my career, so to speak, I was president of three different companies and had spent quite a few years in the in the executive suite and was looking for a way to sort of give back to the community. And as I looked at my options and the covid pandemic kicked in and we all started working from home, I was introduced to the concept of executive coaching and I found that it really kind of resonated with who I was and what I wanted to do. And in that process of discovery, I learned about intelligent leadership, executive coaching, and the rest, as they say, is history. It really worked out well. It was a marriage made in heaven, so to speak.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] Now, when you were deciding how to kind of leap into this second act of your career, what were some of the other choices you were kind of playing around with and exploring?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:01:58] I had contemplated getting into some kind of retail, so some kind of a franchise, perhaps looking at a number of different options there as well as, you know, the typical what we do here in the Washington, D.C. area, we call Beltway bandits, the typical consulting kind of career where you kind of hang out a shingle and say, I’m a gun for hire.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:21] And so you were exploring that. And then at some point you said, you know what, I would like to serve and help maybe other executives or business leaders that are struggling with an aspect of their business that maybe I was good at while I had my first career.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:02:40] Yeah, you know, it was it was it was an interesting thing. I had reached a point where I was looking back at my career and sort of who I was and what I’d become and what I’d accomplished. And at that same time was exploring these various options and learning more about executive coaching. And at the core of intelligent leadership, executive coaching is the philosophy that in order to be the best executive or the best leader that you can possibly be, it requires a fairly high degree of self-awareness. You’ve really got to understand how you tick and how you then show up as a leader. And as I kind of went through that process and explored it a little bit more, I realized that for most of my career I was really good at delivering results. Companies like me and companies promoted me because I got things done. But as I look back at that, I realized at the same time I wasn’t really good at bringing people with me on that journey and leaving people better off for having known me than they were before. I realized there was a lot of broken people in my in my wake and that that really kind of weighed heavily on my conscience.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:03:49] And I said, you know, I was really good at at at the numbers game, at performance, at outcomes. But somehow I missed out on that that truly critical part of leadership, which is really motivating, energizing, inspiring and building up future leaders. Beneath that, I hadn’t done very well. And I wanted a chance to correct that. I wanted a chance to go back and say, how can I make myself the kind of leader that actually builds new leaders under me and leaves people better off than when they started? And that’s kind of what fuels my my coaching process today and what fuels my passion today is that chance to say, hey, there is a better way in this industry and across multiple industries, particularly in this post pandemic environment, where leading from the heart and leading with empathy and understanding, the whole person plays such a big part of what the new work reality looks like. And so that’s kind of really what drives me as a coach.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:47] Now, when you were in your career, did the firms you work for encourage getting a coach or provide coaching?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:04:56] No, they did not. And that was one of the big things. That was one of the big sort of aha moments for me when I started when I had made the decision to become a coach and actually pursue certification as a master certified coach during my training period and the things that we learned and the exercises that we went through and sort of the coaching that we did as part of that training really kind of served as that aha moment for me. And I said, boy, why didn’t these companies ever invest in me in that way? And what a better leader I might have been if if I had known that there was a such thing as executive coaching that I could tap into and use. And how much better could I have been at the people game if I had been working with an executive coach?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:40] Now the folks are calling on nowadays. Are they are they kind of getting coaching for the first time like you would have been if you were still in your career? Or is it something that they’re kind of veteran coaches so that they’re just kind of going from one coach to another?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:05:58] Really, you know, I’m finding for the most part, it’s it’s first time Koichi’s it’s it’s people that for the first time are realizing, hey, there’s there’s a new dimension that I don’t know how to do as a leader. There are new things that I’m confronting today as a leader that I’m not fully prepared to confront. And I and I don’t know how to do that. The other thing that I see quite a bit in my practice is folks that have been in a position or in an industry for a while have have risen up through the ranks and suddenly they’re feeling a little bit stuck. They’re saying there’s got to be something more. How do I where do I go from here? What more can I do? How do I have more impact? How do I grow as a person and as a leader and get unstuck from this position that I seem to be in? So I see those two things most commonly.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:50] So now when you’re having these conversations to kind of educate folks on the benefits of coaching, is it something where they’re like, wow, where has this been all my life? Or was this like they’re hesitant to be vulnerable or hesitant to maybe be this kind of introspective, introspective ness that would give them kind of this self-awareness to, hey, maybe I should look in the mirror a little bit and work on some of my own stuff.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:07:17] Yeah, that’s a great question, Leigh, and and really, I kind of see two very distinct groups emerging in my experience so far, the first group are those folks that kind of have a sense that, hey, I’m pretty good, but I could be better. And there are some things that I realize I need to work on and I just don’t know how to do that myself. And so I would like someone to guide me and walk me through that process. That’s that’s one set of people. The other set of people are those people that say, hey, I’m really, really good at doing this, but I really want to go next level and I really want to be the best that I can possibly be. And they have a mindset, a lot like elite athletes, if you think of any athlete that’s at the top of their game. But LeBron James is of the world, the Tiger Woods of the world, Olympian athletes, all of them have a coach right there at the pinnacle of success. Yet they still work with a coach. And there are there are certain executives that kind of fall into that mindset that say, hey, I know I’m an athlete, I know I’m really good, but I also know that I need to work with a coach to continue to refine and hone my skills. So I kind of see two different aspects of that. They kind of come back to the same thing ultimately. But there’s two different approaches now.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:37] Are you finding that from an organizational standpoint that the organizations are becoming kind of appreciative of coaching to say, you know what, I’m going to assign a coach to all my leaders or my, you know, high potential younger folks that I think could be leaders? Or is it something that every individual has to kind of shell out the money on their own for a coach because it is about them ultimately and their own kind of career?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:09:08] Yeah, I think the first is what I’m seeing more I’m seeing more and more organizations come to the realization that we need to do something different in terms of our leadership development, in terms of our succession planning, in terms of our employee experience and corporate culture. All of these things tie back to how you recruit, groom, develop and retain top flight leadership. And many, many companies now are coming to the realization that, hey, working with an external coach or developing an internal coaching program really is providing that return on investment. So we’re starting to see that emerge more and more. It used to be that executive coaching was kind of the domain of the problem executive. It would be something that boards reached out to a coach and said, hey, this CEO isn’t quite making it and we either need you to fix them or give us enough evidence to fire them. Right. And that’s probably not the best scenario for executive coaching. I think today the environment is very different. And again, this pandemic that we’ve all lived through for the last year and a half has really changed a lot of perception of what it means to work, what is the workplace and what is a corporate and what is corporate culture really in this hybrid environment that’s beginning to emerge. And in order to successfully navigate that and really grow outstanding leaders to deliver a top flight employee experience and really retain those people that we want to retain and the organization, more and more human resource officers and other boards and leaders are realizing executive coaching plays a big part in making that possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:57] Well, I would think that kind of the forward thinking organizations would really lean into executive coaching in terms of not only retention of their leaders that they have now, number one, but also attracting up and comers. If the up and comer knows there’s built in leadership coaching and executive coaching when they’re deciding which company to to partner with. I think that would be definitely persuasive for me if I was taking on a role and I knew that it was going to come with some type of coaching. That’s a bonus that I’m going to benefit not only just to do my job, but that organization. But going forward, no matter where I went.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:11:44] Yeah, absolutely, that’s very much a part of what what I see emerging in the field today, I’ve started partnering with a lot of executive head hunters and boutique search firms to sort of bundle those two things together as a as an organization is recruiting for and attempting to retain new leaders and bring new leaders into the organization to bundle that onboarding experience with a period of executive coaching does a couple of different things. One, it really eases that transition for both the new leader and the company that they’re moving into. But it really also sets everyone up for success. It sets the team up for success. It creates that sort of dynamic that that is likely to to keep that person on board for longer and really deliver the kind of results the organization is looking for. So that’s one way that the industry is changing a little bit, is now looking at executive coaching right from the start, the minute a person comes on board and sometimes bundled in with the onboarding process. So there’s there’s a lot of innovation surrounding this. But, yeah, absolutely. That’s the trend.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:54] Now, are you finding that because there is this race for talent and it’s getting more and more competitive, especially with this work from home element to a lot of jobs now that the candidate is becoming more and more selective? Is it something that having a coaching plan in place can become a competitive advantage? It can be part of the offer. And I know you’re doing this bundling with the executive search team, but I would imagine that a lot of organizations, when they’re recruiting for the C Suite, have to really be creative in terms of the opportunities now, because people it seems like the employee is is more and more curating choices maybe, which is different than historically.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:13:45] Yeah. You’re one hundred percent correct. And that trend was already beginning before the pandemic took place. The pandemic has really accelerated that into into hyper speed, really. And think about it, what we’ve all learned during this period is that work can be done from virtually anywhere that you’re no longer tied to a location. The idea of going into an office and sort of being in the office, what I would term activity as being a central item that’s judged and evaluated as a person, as a as opposed to true performance and outcomes. So the culture and the mindset of employees is rapidly changing. In a lot of recent surveys, you’ll see numbers that suggest somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of employees today would prefer either a fully remote or some form of hybrid employment arrangement where they can work partially from home and partially from the office. Whereas if you look at surveys of top leadership and organizations, they’re still sitting somewhere between 60 and 80 percent, preferring employees come back into the office full time. So right there there’s a big disconnect. And what’s happening is, as you said, in this race for talent, a lot of employees and a lot of potential leaders are sizing up opportunities not just for title and pay, but really thinking about it in terms of what is the organization willing to invest in me and how am I going to grow and how am I going to be developed during this experience that I have with this organization. And so you’re very right to suggest that. And it is a trend not seeing it exactly built into offers yet. However, that conversation is starting to come more and more to the front. And I think we’re going to see a lot more of that in terms of organizations being creative and thinking about how do I really create a top flight employee experience for my C Suite leaders, as well as my emergent leaders. And investing in coaching as opposed to training is really a big return on an investment.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:00] Yeah, I’ve got the pleasure of interviewing lots of leaders. And one of the things that stuck with me a long time ago, somebody said their fear was, what if we coach them and they leave? And then somebody said to that person, well, what if you don’t coach them? And they say, yeah, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s kind of a leap of faith that sure, you’re giving them this coaching and hopefully as a culture that’s showing them that you want to help them. And there’s something in it for them to stick around, because the alternative is you don’t and you hope they. Figure it out, but you’re not getting the best out of them, so I think companies nowadays have to take that leap of faith and really invest in their people, because there was a time when people just, you know, went from job to job to job. And if you have it in a culture that makes it worth staying, you’re going to get better people there longer.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:17:04] Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And a lot of that and perhaps I’ll comment briefly on on what has changed, you know, prior prior to this and sort of the old way of doing things. We talked about training all the time, leadership development, training. And if you were an emergent leader or a newly appointed leader in an organization, chances were of that organization whether they had an in-house, you know, Company X University, so to speak, or whether they sent you externally. But they’d send you to some class how to be a better manager, how to be a better leader, how to think like an owner, you know, those kinds of things. And that was a prepackaged curriculum. So you’d go to this class and you’d receive whatever information they decided they were going to impart on you. And then you were expected to take that back to the organization and figure out how to use it and adopt it. Coaching is very, very different in that coaching starts with the premise saying, let’s explore you as a leader in whatever context you’re leading in in your organization. What is it your organization is paying you to do? What do they expect from you? And now let’s see, what are your inner core drivers? What are the things that compose your worldview? How do you form opinions? How do you interpret events around you? Because how you think determines how you feel and how you feel determines how you behave. And so in order to understand how you’re actually showing up as a leader, you kind of have to unpack all of that, starting with the inside.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:18:39] And so rather than beginning with here’s a curriculum I’m going to push on you coaching turns that around and says, let’s explore together. And my role as a coach is not really to tell you or to prescribe to you what you must do. My role as a coach is to help you down that path of self discovery, prompter prompt and and proctor some of the difficult questions to ask and say, hey, have you thought about this? And why do you think you might be reacting this way or why do you think you feel this way? And how might other people perceive that and go through a journey like that, combined with some scientifically proven diagnostic tools that can help us unpack that a little bit further, but then say now that we understand a little bit about the inner workings of you, the leader. Now let’s see how we can take that and use that to our advantage to shape how you would like to show up as a leader. And we’ll develop an individual plan around that and then we’ll engage the stakeholders, whether those are people that work for you, above you, around you, et cetera. And we’ll measure that performance. So very, very different from training. And again, the outcome, I think, is much different than what you get from training, executive coaching across the board. Most industry surveys tend to show somewhere between seven and thirty times return on investment for executive coaching. So it definitely works when done properly.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:10] Can you share a story? Don’t name names, but of maybe an executive that was facing a challenge that you were able to intervene and help them get to a new level?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:20:20] Yeah, absolutely. I was working with an individual in the finance industry and this individual was extremely data driven. In fact, the person held the title of chief data analysis officer and so was really kind of a facts and figures, numbers driven person. This person’s inner voice would constantly say, I’m right until you prove me wrong. And so the challenge for this individual was like saying, hey, I’ve arrived at a certain station in my career. I’ve arrived at a certain level, and I see people around me being advanced and going on to higher positions with greater responsibility. Yet even though I’m really good, I don’t seem to get those same chances. And why is that? So we kind of spent some time unpacking. How does this person think and how does that inner voice really influence how they behave and how they show up as a leader? And so if you think about that, that inner voice that was constantly saying, you know, that data driven, data fueled voice that says, hey, I’m right until you prove me wrong, you’ve got to show up with facts and figures for me to change my opinion. How might someone at the other side of the table perceive that that might be perceived as arrogance, sometimes as indifference, maybe even obstinance, inflexibility, all kinds of different ways that it’s perceived that this individual had no idea and had never really thought about it that way. So we worked on some exercises and we worked on some thought, some thought journeys to sort of flip that equation and say, what if you could change that inner voice from saying, I’m right until you. Prove me wrong to when somebody tells you something, may be forming a question saying, well, that’s interesting, tell me how you arrived at that opinion or that conclusion and does that conclusion build on what I’m what I think is right? Does it contradict what I think is right? Or do I maybe need to reevaluate my own conclusion and see if I can incorporate this new data? And so as we started to work on it that way and sort of change the inner voice to saying from sort of that adamant, strident, I’m right until you prove me wrong, too.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:22:39] I’m curious. That’s interesting. Tell me more about that. Why do you think that or how did you come up with that particular conclusion once we got this person thinking that way? Suddenly their perception in the workplace and how people receive them as a leader really flipped one hundred and eighty degrees. Right. And they became very popular. And suddenly some of those opportunities for advancement and greater responsibility came down the path for this individual. So it really, again, comes down to sort of really taking a detailed look at the inner core of the person. What makes you think the way you think? What is your inner voice saying to you in in most interactions? And is it productive or nonproductive? Do you have hidden talents that you don’t even know you have that we can really bring to the forefront? Or maybe you have some things that are derailing you a little bit that you’re not that you’re not even aware of? That’s the role of a coach, is to sort of work through that process and guide the coach on that journey of self discovery and then work to say, OK, now that we’ve learned this, what things can we do to develop the positive aspects so that you continue to grow and show up the way you want to show up as a leader?

Lee Kantor: [00:23:55] Now, you mentioned that your career was spent in defense and security. Is your coaching in that industry as well, or is your coaching kind of industry agnostic?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:24:06] Well, you know, as as as I build up my practice, obviously the first the first place for me to go is those people that know me well. And over the course of a 30 year career, I’ve developed a pretty big circle of influence or a pretty thick Rolodex, if you will. So I’m tending to work mostly in that. However, the example I just gave you was a person in the finance industry, an industry that I have really no knowledge of and don’t come from. So the the the fundamentals of coaching are applicable to all forms of leadership, whether that’s in government, whether that’s in business, church leadership, civic leadership, even to a certain extent in the family. I don’t brand myself as a life coach. I’m really, really narrowly focused on executives and those people in a leadership position that have to build up their their leadership capabilities. But that said, yes, the the the the tenets of executive coaching are applicable across all industries and all applications.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:13] And if somebody wanted to learn more and have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website?

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:25:20] The website is Dirk van der Vaart, D I R K V A N D E R V A A R T, DirkvanderVaart.com or Google Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching, and that’ll bring up the ILEC website. And from there you can navigate and find all the coaches that are ILEC certified. We come from a diverse set of industries and a diverse set of backgrounds, and part of the success formula for executive coaching is really finding that coach that you can establish a rapport with and a and a relationship of trust, but also someone that shares perhaps a little bit of a similar background or at least has stood in a leadership role similar to the one that you’re in. So again, Dirk Vandervoort, Dotcom or ILEC, Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching Dotcom, either one of those will get you ultimately to to to connect with me. And you can see a little bit more about my background and the kinds of things I’ve done and where I’m going as a coach and what I’m all about.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:23] Well, Dirk, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you, Leigh.

Dirk van der Vaart: [00:26:29] It’s been a pleasure to to talk with you and and to your listeners out there. And again, I wish everyone a happy and healthy recovery. And let’s see where this journey takes us.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:40] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach Radio.