Embracing the journey over the destination.
By Pete Mercer
Dick Bowley isn’t doing good – he’s doing great. That’s at least what he says when he’s asked, often catching people off guard with his initial answer. It’s a bit of light playfulness that is a brief snapshot into Bowley’s personality, showing how he can seemingly build bridges with everyone he meets.
As a retired sales professional, Bowley fills his time wearing a few different hats: serving on the prayer team at his church, taking his grandchildren on golf cart rides in his hometown, and acting as a corporate leadership coach for individuals who are looking to improve themselves. For Bowley, that desire to improve themselves is the most important component of the coaching relationship. Repertoire Magazine recently spoke with Bowley about his role as a leadership coach and how servant leadership has helped him to find his life’s purpose.
What is servant leadership?
In many ways, servant leadership is exactly what it sounds like – a leadership approach where the leader’s primary goal is to serve their team and community, prioritizing the growth, well-being, and empowerment of others before their own needs.
“To me, it’s helping people to be the best that they can be and to help them see what they cannot see. Servant leadership is not based on doing things for people but leading them out of what’s holding them back,” Bowley said.
Bowley uses wisdom from John Maxwell, renowned author and pastor, to help him shape his approach. Maxwell has an idea called The Law of the Lid, where he argues that we all have a lid that keeps us from realizing our true potential. With servant leadership, you can help people release their lids.
Another one of Maxwell’s ideas, that Bowley references frequently, is that leadership is influence. True leadership doesn’t come from a position of authority – it’s all about your ability to positively impact others to reach a shared, common goal together.
“In my early days, I thought leadership was based on your title. When I wasn’t doing well in my early stages, I heard people talking about servant leadership. I started studying it to see exactly what they were talking about – it came at a time when it was all about management, not leadership. Management is all about getting something done, where leadership is more about helping that person get it done to the best of their ability.”
The role of a coach
If we look at the role of a coach through this lens of encouragement, we can better understand how this coaching dynamic can positively impact the people that they work with. For Bowley, coaching is about helping people to see and achieve their full potential, whether it’s in their personal or professional lives.
Coaching is also very situational, meaning that what you do with one person may not fit the needs of another. An effective coach gets to know the person that they’re working with to better understand their needs and where they want to improve.
There’s a big opportunity with coaching, where the coaching dynamic can be a different relationship than the person has with a manager or a boss. Bowley likens this dynamic to that of a fun uncle. He said, “To me, an uncle is like a dad without an agenda. He’s family, someone you respect, but he doesn’t yell at you or tell you what to do. When I coach someone, especially in the corporate space, I’m not their boss or their manager. I try to set that expectation early – I’m not your boss, so you can talk to me differently. Just like you would talk to your uncle differently than you would your dad.”
Living out your purpose
Bowley became a leadership coach shortly after taking a StrengthsFinder assessment, where he found his purpose in life. He said, “The key to everything, the key to life is knowing your purpose.” Once he discovered his purpose, which is to build people up, he was able to then channel that energy into coaching.
Bowley’s key strength is Maximizer, which is an encourager. This theme in the StrengthsFinder assessment identifies individuals naturally talented at turning something strong into something superb, focusing on excellence by nurturing existing strengths rather than fixing weaknesses. “One of the characteristics of Maximizer is that you want to encourage – you want to take people from good to great.”
With this new charge, Bowley thought he would pursue an opportunity as a counselor. As an encourager, would this not be a perfect fit for his newfound purpose in life? After a year of training to be a lay counselor, Bowley found that counseling was decidedly not the right fit for him.
From there, he decided to pursue coaching, where the people that he’s working with are actively trying to learn and improve themselves. In these sessions, he will often challenge people to consider their own life’s purpose because he knows how important it is to their success. “Seeing someone go from good to great is the ultimate reward – that’s my pay,” Bowley said.
The power of gratitude
Gratitude is an emotion that isn’t always easy to tap into, but there’s almost always something we can be grateful for. Whether it’s something like another day with our loved ones or it’s something bigger like a new opportunity, gratitude is a deep well that we have to choose to pull from. It’s not always an easy choice to make, but it is a good choice to make.
Bowley had a successful career in sales, but these days he is deeply grateful for this opportunity to pivot into something that is meaningful for him and helps to impact the lives of others. His lived experience is now a tool that he uses to coach and mentor his clients, leading with a servant’s heart and an attitude of joy and gratitude to build connections with them.
With gratitude and service as his lens for his coaching and leadership style, he is able to offer a unique and invaluable perspective to the people that he works with. Whether he’s leading a small group at church or working with current and future business leaders, he does it all with a joyful, grateful heart.
“A phrase that I’ve been using for years that we use at church quite a bit is ‘I don’t have to, I get to,’” Bowley said. “When I get to work with managers and leaders who are having trouble with their employees getting stuff done, it always comes back to this ‘I have to get this done’ mentality. Just changing that attitude makes a huge difference – I don’t have to, I get to.”