Susan is an accomplished management consultant with a proven track record in innovative and pioneering executive development and leadership initiatives. Prior to joining Reliance Retail, Susan was a Partner at Whitehead Mann, and Director Executive (Coaching) with the Hay Group Consultancy. Susan Bloch is a Chartered Psychologist and is a member of British Psychological Society. She has also penned down various articles and co-authored a number of books reflecting her orientation in research and her intense drive to learn.

The session began with a small note on the booming Indian economy, how India was witnessing an unprecedented rate of growth and how the entire world was watching India. She said that in this context, leadership in organizations has assumed paramount importance and that it has become imperative for every organization that wishes to succeed to have a strong line of leaders. When asked about what leadership means to her, she said that “Leadership is all about thinking and that too about things that you haven’t thought.” She said that for any organization there are three questions for leadership.

a. What type of leadership do you need to deliver the strategy?
b. Do you have this leadership in your organization?
c. What are the gaps?

Ms. Susan then moved on to the crux of the lecture, i.e. Coaching. She mentioned that there is a clear difference between Training and Coaching. Whereas Training is about telling people to do something, coaching is all about asking questions. Coaching involves a one to one interaction between the coach and the “person getting coached” formally and informally evaluating past performance, reinforcing effective behaviors and guiding future performance.
Importance of coaching and its impact on building great leaders was backed by many facts. She shared that a survey conducted in the US revealed that 70% of the HR professionals agree that coaching has an edge over other conventional techniques. Also she shared evidences where the quality and productivity of an organization increases through coaching. The discussion also touched upon an often debatable topic “Are leaders born or made”. Her views were that there are certain set of characteristics which are inborn, however there are many other which are developed. And coaching plays a very vital role here. According to her the three main tasks which an organizations has to perform are to find a leader, develop them and finally to transfer their wisdom.

She concluded by giving suggestions as to how to maximize our potential. The three tips are
1. Self Awareness
2. To ask oneself “Am I Prepared To Learn?”
3. To ask oneself “Am I Prepared To Adapt?”

The session provided a lot of insight into the area of coaching. Overall it was a very enlightening and encouraging session.