The pace and pressure of change in today's VUCA world impacted by digitalisation require
considerable agility and flexibility from leaders and employees. The most important influence
in my life and a pivotal learning curve was A. Maslow's quote: What is necessary to change a
person is to change his awareness of himself. (cited in Henley Business School 2016 p.5.).
This perception acted as a nudge for me (Thaler and Sunstein 2009). Consequently I realised
more than ever before that I could only change myself and challenge my behaviour if I changed
my self-awareness.The founding principle for this is our self-awareness which in turn is
determined by our conditioning attitude repression transference countertransference and our
unconscious.- Our self-awareness directs us in personal and professional situations. If
however our awareness is restricted by conditioning and limiting beliefs out of sync with
reality can we then treat others fairly in critical situations be fair to ourselves and
fulfil our potential and purpose? It is difficult for us to act autonomously to control our
emotions and to be more relaxed when faced with stress in the digital age because our
self-awareness is selected or stunted: we deny we suppress and resist necessary changes.
Moreover we don't know how others perceive us: as authentic or unnatural and this again
creates uncertainty. At times we therefore stand in our own way and are our own worst
enemies.- My approach is in line with A. Maslow and is deeply impacted by my experiences of
continuous self-reflection. It supports coachees to analyse and overcome latent or blocked
possibilities by developing skills and discovering joint solutions thus enhancing their
agility and flexibility. Continuously reflecting and intuitively selecting the right coaching
method without being biased truly supports coachees to break away from impediments acquired in
their early lives and to accept fateful limitations. We all have more psychological and human
potential than we usually dare to admit.- Thus it is the coach's job to help the coachee to
focus his her whole attention on his her senses: sight hearing touch smell and taste. The
more the coachee is aware of him herself the more information he she has. And the more
information he she has the better he she is able to react in an intelligent and emotionally
intelligent way. The coach must help the coachee to sharpen his her awareness through
exercises questioning techniques interventions and interactive techniques based on methods
from humanistic psychology.- But all the insights gained will have been in vain if the goals
and results of the coaching are not implemented consequently. Ensuring this is also a crucial
task for the coach of tomorrow.During a professional career spanning over 40 years Reinhard F.
Leiter worked for two multinational corporations. He held various positions within the Bayer
Group including Head of Vocational Training and Professional Development and Head of Human
Resources whilst at Allianz SE he was Head of Training and Development and Head of Executive
Events.Reinhard's main areas of interest are:- training and adult education- executive
selection and development- communication and presentation- the implementation of global
transformation processes by means of large group interventionsReinhard has worked in over 30
countries on all five continents. His experience is based on more than 2 000 events involving
some 200 000 participants. Reinhard was a founding member of Arbeitskreis Assessment Center - a
Germany-wide forum for personnel selection and development - and was its chairman for
years.Since 2013 Reinhard has been a freelance consultant specialising in leadership
development presentation excellence and executive events.
