The previous sections have identified the growing literature on executive coaching and how individual and group coaching have been deployed to support the development of leaders in organisations. However, it is important to look at the literature on coaching from the organisational perspective in order to fully situate the research study being reported here.
Several authors (Clutterbuck, 2007; de Vries, 2005; Hunt and Weintraub, 2006) provide
35 descriptions of their organisation’s approaches to group and individual coaching rather than undertake ethically informed research on the interventions. Specifically this section focuses on the literature on coaching and leadership development interventions,
organisational culture, organisation development and organisation change and confirms the need for further research in this area.
2.3.1 Coaching as a leadership development intervention
Coaching as a specific leadership development intervention has been studied extensively – one example of outcome research is the study by Kampa-Kokesch (2002) that used the multi-factor leadership questionnaire to assess the impact of coaching on leadership behaviour. The results suggested that coaching has a positive impact on leadership behaviour with increased scores on charismatic behaviour, impact on followers and inspiration action (Kampa-Kokesch and White, 2002). An example of outcome research using a multi-rater feedback instrument with over 400 managers found that executives who worked with a coach showed improvements in performance as rated by their direct reports and their supervisors (Smither et al., 2003). Leadership development literature sheds some light on the progressive increase in using coaching as part of a blended learning approach.
In his study of integrated leadership development programmes, Coates (2013) concludes that deploying ’a combination of 360 feedback, experiential learning, peer feedback, reflection and one-to-one coaching is the ideal combination’ (Coates, 2013, p. 43). He stresses the importance of having a high level of coaching at each step – ’from dyadic through group/team coaching and possibly peer/co-coaching’ (Coates, 2013, p. 43). His study concurs with previous studies (Ladyshewsky, 2007; Weiss and Molinaro, 2006) on the importance of the alignment of the leadership development programme with
organisational strategy in developing competency. This is in addition to having coaching as one of the components that add value to each other (Weiss and Molinaro, 2006).
Bryant (2016) identifies three dimensions for high impact leadership development: the learning context, the moment of learning and the depth of learning. The learning context refers to the proximity of the learning context to the learner’s daily work with the ends of the dimension labelled in-context and de-contextual learning. Moments of learning refers to the proximity of the moment of learning to the event or experience – whether it is reflective after the experience or in action as work is happening – the dimensions are called reflective learning or in the moment learning (Bryant and Svalgaard, 2016). Depth of learning refers to the cognitive factors that inhibit learning – this can be learning that concerns easy to fix problems – called surface learning. These are in contrast to in-depth
36 learning that is directed at unconscious patterns of behaviour that are embedded, concern identity and are uncomfortable to change (Bryant and Svalgaard, 2016). They apply these dimensions to three leadership development tools and practices: diagnostic tools
(psychometric instruments, 360 degree feedback), experiential and action learning and coaching and therapy. Bryant and Svalgaard (2016) found that coaching as an intervention is often sustained over time and that regardless of the specific approach taken creates a safer place to learn and reflect on the real work context. This safe environment allows for in-depth learning which is reflective rather than in the moment.
Bryant and Svalgaard (2016) identify challenges for organisations seeking to develop leaders as the leadership context becomes more complex, ambiguous and constantly changing. They hypothesise that in complex situations, ’at the very moment when it might be most impactful, learning is most likely to go into the background and become
retrospective’ (Bryant and Svalgaard, 2016, p. 8). They cite mindfulness practices as being one significant way in which leaders can learn from reflecting in the moment. In conclusion, they recognise that attention must be placed on the interplay between all three
dimensions to enable optimum effectiveness in leadership development and they
recommend an integrated or portfolio approach to leadership development that includes leadership coaching – both individual and collective.
Many organisations have included systemic awareness as a necessary requirement for their leaders and for organisational learning (Scharmer, 2009; Senge, 2006). These organisational learning theorists argue that the group itself becomes a microcosm of the organisational environment, and that individual and group performance improves due to extended awareness, accountability and shared alignment obtained through dialogic processes (Senge, 2006; Scharmer, 2009; Schein, 2003).
2.3.2 Coaching as organisation development
Group work has also had a long history within the organisational development (OD) school of practice and thought and OD has at its heart the group and group dynamics which form the central point of intervention (Lewin, 1947). Further work by Schein over many decades has centred on group processes – beyond a set of techniques he views it as a philosophy, and an attitude about the process of helping groups, communities and individuals. His perspective is that the primary role of the group process consultant is to help the human system to help itself (Schein, 1999). He makes a distinction between group process
consultation and consultant as expert and the consultant as diagnostician. Schein refers to
37 his type of process consulting as ’facilitation’ rather than group coaching – he terms the work that process consultants do with individuals ’coaching’. Schein explicitly defines coaching as being a subset of consulting with the coach moving between the stages of expert, diagnostician and process consultant, as required (Schein, 1999).
This presents the view that group coaching could be the same as group process consulting or group facilitation. Brown and Grant (2009) report on the debate citing the breadth of theories that group facilitation, like coaching, draws upon: action research (Lewin, 1947), double loop learning (Argyris, 1991), action learning (Revans, 1982), process consulting (Schein, 1999), and the concept of the learning organisation (Senge and Suzuki, 1994).
Clutterbuck (2007) has attempted to draw a distinction between facilitation and coaching when applied to a team setting. He views the coach as being more active as a member of the team, providing feedback and creating a ’separate space where the team can
collaborate in seeking understanding of the issues’ (Clutterbuck, 2007, p. 101). In his view, the facilitator is detached from the team and focused on the team process. However, as Brown and Grant observe, ’Although some clarity on distinguishing between the roles of coach and facilitator is achieved here, a level of overlap and ambiguity still remains’ (Brown and Grant, 2010, p. 37).
Bushe and Marshak (2009) identify what constitutes organisation development (OD) – citing traditional OD as being diagnostic OD and based on the traditional, objectivist perspective requiring data to be gathered as a form of diagnosis – ’the organisation exists as an entity that needs examination prior to prescribing remedies’ (Bushe and Marshak, 2009, p.350). As such, diagnosis is needed and even viewed as the precursor ’for informed and effective organisation development and change’ (Cronshaw and McCulloch, 2008, p.
89). They also state that virtually all of the early formulations of OD are based on positivist open systems theory and, as such, organisations are assessed against standards for
’healthy’ organisations and prescribed interventions based on ’objective’ diagnosis. Bushe and Marshak (2009) challenge these foundations as being the only form of OD and
introduce what they term dialogic OD practices. The practices most clearly operating from a different stance from diagnostic OD are the appreciative inquiry approaches (Cooperrider et al., 1995). Rather than attempting to diagnose and manage change levers, appreciative inquiry seeks to generate new ideas that will result in self-organising change (Bushe and Kassam, 2005). Search conferences and future search are additional OD interventions designed to enable large groups to self-organise and co-construct their futures and the
38 actions they wish to take to achieve them (Weisbord and Janoff, 2010; Bunker and Alban, 2005). In the dialogic model of OD, change processes involve ’confronting, engaging or otherwise raising consciousness about alternative perspectives (paradigms, schemas, mindsets, social realities, etc.) leading to new syntheses, perspectives or outcomes’ (Bushe and Marshak, 2009, p. 356). In this way, the descriptions of change processes are broadly similar to processes involved in group coaching (Clutterbuck, 2007; Hawkins, 2014). From these examples, it can be seen that the previous ontological perspectives that might have been cited as key differences between organisation development and group or systemic coaching are becoming blurred with the growth of dialogic OD methodologies and perspectives (Marshak and Bushe, 2009).