Executive Coaching Fifth Quadrant

Prepared in partnership with and for United Nations and Fifth Quadrant.

Executive Coaching


Executive Coaching

Provides an opportunity for senior management to:

• Get honest feedback on personal performance, management and leadership style and the organizational culture

• Discuss sensitive issues

• Help think aloud

• Plan and review the desired outcomes


Executive Coaching is:

• Just-in-time cost-effective development option

• Practical, on-the-job, results-oriented and time-effective

• Satisfactory process for self-development


Executive Coaching

• One of the fastest growing areas of consulting

• Stand-alone and/or a component of personal development programme which may include training workshops or action learning


Executive Coaching is:

• NOT telling someone what to do• A process of self-discovery• Extremely demanding consulting intervention


Executive Coaches

• Establishes one-to-one relationship within the organization and work context

• Encourages and support: Self-awareness and social awareness Reflections on dilemmas, choices and

alternatives Problem solving and decision-making Learning


Roles of the Executive Coach

• Responding to the needs of each individual

• The different roles are identified in the Executive Coaching Arena


The Executive Coaching ArenaDIRECTIVE

FACILITATIVE

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ING S

UP

PO

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OrganizationalSponsor

Manager

Careers Adviser

Counsellor

MentorHR Adviser

GoalSetter

RoleModel

Guide

Catalyst

Listener

Soundingboard

Bridge

InformationProvider

Collaborator

Challenger


• They might not have the ability to transfer their knowledge and skills

• They cannot tell someone how to run his/her business

• They might not have the relevant training, background and experiences

Executive Coaches are not like Sports Coaches


• Interpersonal relationships

• Conflict Resolution

• Strategy

• Marketingto

Executive Coaches deal with a wide range of issues from:


• “flying by the seat of their pants”

As a result, many Executive Coaches are


• Provide coaching and mentoring skills

• Help people understand the theoretical bases of effective coaching

• Provide opportunities for practicing new coaching skills and interventions

Development programme for Executive Coaches must:


Core competencies for Executive Coaches

1. Conceptual understanding of the role of the individual coach

2. The coaching contract and its scope, limitations, pitfalls

3. Understanding organizations, human processes and dynamics

4. Innovation and creativity

5. Managing challenging clients

6. Appreciation of the multicultural context

7. Ethics


Good Executive Coaches

• Give honest, realistic and challenging feedback

• Good listeners• Suggest smart action ideas


Good Executive Coaching results in

• Greater self-knowledge• New perspectives• Improved performance• Greater adaptability


Great Executive Coaching

• comes from a depth and quality of the relationship between the coach and the client


Coaching Relationship

• Establishing a meaningful relationship between the Executive Coach and the client is vitally important

• Far more important than the application of theories and models


Executive Coaches

• Must resist the urge to impart knowledge or theories at the expense of building a good relationship


Mutual respect and empathy

A clear and shared agreement of the coaching intervention – the direction and the desired outcome

An understanding of how the executive coaching work will happen and what will be the roles and tasks of the coach and the client

Creating a good coaching relationship requires a coaching contract


Coaching contract

• Private agreement – issues of confidentiality, financial loyalty, ‘best interest’, conflict of interest

• Emphatic relationship – feeling safe enough and valued enough


Foundation for effective coaching relationship

• Opportunity for understanding

• Build on existing strengths

• Develop skills and encourage experimentation

• Facilitate a sense of achievement

• Prevent ‘relapse’


The way managers think about organizations

• One of the most interesting and fruitful areas of exploration in a coaching relationship

• Any meaningful coaching intervention should explore the basic assumptions of managers


Executive coaches

• Raise the managers’ awareness of how organizations really work

• Help managers perceive more clearly how decisions are made, how change occurs (or fail to) and how they interact in the complex web of interaction


Organizations

are social processes


Managers in organizations are engaged in:

• Innovation,

• Leadership, and

• Change


The Role of the Executive Coach in the organizational

context

Challenging Conventional views of organizations

Concept of stereotypical ‘hero’ leaders

The view that innovation and change can be planned and predicted.

Educating Sharing new perspectives of organizations and leadership

Sharing new perspectives on how innovations and change occurs

Support The concept of being in charge but not in control

Managing the present while leading for the future and managing innovation

Balancing advocacy with inquiry

Develop The ability to hold tension and live with paradox

The individual style and presence of the leader

The ability to develop other people and create a culture for innovation

Awareness of impact on others

The ability to reflect and learn


• Executive coaching is a transformational rather than a remedial process

• Executive coaches needs certain qualities which are both a skill and attitude

Facilitating change through Executive Coaching


Coaching as a strategic process

• To ensure sustainable change, the Executive Coach may encourage the client to undertake any or all of the following tasks before the session

1. Develop views on the changes they envisage in their working lives

2. Discuss with the manager about this

3. Get 360-degree feedback from their place of work

4. Collect broad data/information about themselves from friends, family, customers, etc.


Coaching as a strategic process (cont’d)

• The coach in turn may consider a range of actions to extend the engagement beyond the actual coaching session:

1. ‘Shadow’ for a period of time

2. Sit in on meetings, give feedback

3. Interview colleagues, distil feedback

4. Facilitate the analysis of feedback – explore, debrief, interpret

5. Take part in a three-way discussion with the line manager


Strategies during the Coaching Session

Exploring

• Awareness raising

• Clarification of goals, options, actions

• Patterns of thinking, feelings, behaving

• Patterns from past to the present

• Dynamics in the room

• Life story and dynamic choices, changes, etc.

• Learning styles

• Nothing – providing space

Teaching & Experimenting

• Skills practice/role play/video

• Designing and delivering training inputs

• Administering psychometric tests

• Using different media – artwork, music, movement

• Referring client to another source of training


Strategies for the client in between sessions

• Keeping record of significant new insights

• Practicing new skills and different behaviours

• Writing up the coaching session and later comparing with the coach’s impressions

• Making arrangement with colleagues and co-workers to ensure on-going feedback

• Developing supportive networks

• Reading books, articles, using the web


• How the client might response to the end of the session

• The significance of transitions for the client

• What other forms of on-going development can be put into place

• What contract might be needed with the manager

• How to ensure that the client gets on-going feedback

• What other areas of growth have been identified

The coach and the client may address:


The Executive Coach must

• Use a blend of skills and strategies custom-made for the client

• This strategic mix will create new options for the client rather than being exposed to standardized techniques and methods


Expectations of the clients

• Appropriate boundaries and contracts are established with the coach

• Confidentiality is assured• High quality of coaching

provided• Success of the coaching

session can be systematically and rigorously evaluated


Boundaries

• Assumptions about executive coaching influences the expectations and have an impact on the evaluation of the coaching process

Coaching is seen as:

• A social exchange and the client performance after the coaching session can be rationally measured in terms of the cost-benefit for the organization

• Providing support to key people in the organization as part of a strategic process for sustainable change


Coaching contracts• The executive coach must examine the

expectations of both the client and the organization

• The goals for the entire coaching process and for each specific coaching session must be identified

• The coaching contract also establishes clear roles ands responsibilities of all involved

• Clear coaching contracts setting out specific goals, the number of coaching sessions the confidentiality limits and the nature of any reporting arrangements helps the coaching sessions

• It is important to establish whether the ‘client’ is the client or the organization

• The coach’s approach must be non-judgemental and the coaching relationship must be based on trust in order to ensure a truly innovative and creative coaching

• The social and professional roles must be separated with the coach exercising only the professional role.


Confidentiality

• Clients expect the coaching process to be entirely confidential which provides them with a safe space to express their inner most feelings

• The need to assure the client that the coach is on your side is essential

• Without the client’s permission the coach will not share the results of the coaching sessions with anyone else even though the organization had paid the coach

• Coaches must be aware of the dangers of dependency and how people experience difficulties in ending the coaching relationship


High Quality Coaches

• Highly trained• Come from a variety of

backgrounds• Never stopped developing

themselves• Much more eclectic in their

approach• Seek out and discover new

training and development opportunities

• Knows about business strategy, the core business process and typical management issues


Supervision of Executive Coaches

• Examining the coaching approaches used, the relationships established, the dynamics created and the impact, results and outcomes reached

• Providing opportunities to reflect on current levels of skills and the appropriate level of skill and feedback required

• Opportunity to support coaches facing potential difficult issues such as dependency


Evaluation of Coaching• Need to establish the

type of support and help the individual received from the Executive Coach

• Quality measures such as optimism and se;lf-sufficiency left behind after the coach has gone provide an indication of the impact of coaching

Business

Executive Coaching Fifth Quadrant