1
Developing Leaders
by Executive
Coaching
Practice and Evidence
Andromachi Athanasopoulou
Sue Dopson
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Andromachi Athanasopoulou and Sue Dopson 2015 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2015
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014950913 ISBN 978–0–19–968195–2
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
brother, Leonidas: thank you for always being the wind beneath
my wings.
Andromachi Athanasopoulou
To Julian, for your support and love over the last thirty years.
In the years since 1993 that I have studied, researched, taught, and prac-tised coaching psychology, there have been significant shifts in the executive coaching landscape. From a novel commercial offering, viewed with some suspicion by many (Hall et al., 1999), executive coaching has become an essential and respected part of contemporary organizational life. Indeed, the leadership development genre has itself become a significant industry—and one which continues to develop and grow.
It is clear that this is now a well-established global industry, focused on delivering executive coaching and workplace coaching to a broad range of organizational clients worldwide. Indeed, the growth of those engaged in the coaching and leadership development industry is well documented. For example, the largest professional association in the coaching industry, the International Coach Federation (ICF), was founded in 1995 and now has over 20,000 members in 100 different countries. The ICF estimates the total annual revenue from coaching to be in the region of $2 billion (ICF, 2013).
Precise data on the coaching industry is hard to obtain, but in 2009 it was estimated that there were approximately 40,000 professional coaches globally—up from approximately 30,000 in 2006 (Frank Bresser Consulting, 2009). In the US, over 90 per cent of US-based Global 100 companies use executive coaches (Bono et al., 2009), with similar figures for the use of coaching in the workplace reported from the UK (Jarvis et al., 2005). In 2006 in Australia, 64 per cent of business leaders and 72 per cent of senior manag-ers reported using coaches (Leadmanag-ership Management Australia, 2006), and the figures are probably even higher in 2013. Interestingly, for some organi-zations the pressures and tensions inherent in the Global Financial Crisis served only to highlight the need to provide good coaching to key staff in order to help them deal with the challenges inherent in a post-financial crisis environment (Farndale et al., 2010).
The growth in the applied practice of executive and workplace coaching has been parallelled by a significant increase in the number of academic institu-tions and universities worldwide that now offer postgraduate qualificainstitu-tions in aspects of coaching. To this author’s knowledge, in 2000 there were perhaps only two or three universities offering Master’s degrees in coaching worldwide (key examples being the University of Sydney, Australia and Oxford Brookes University, UK). At the time of writing there are over thirty such courses on offer worldwide, and executive coaching can now be studied to doctoral level at an increasing number of respected universities globally, with many world-class universities now offering non-degree courses in executive coaching.
In addition, there has been a significant growth in the amount of peer-reviewed coaching-related research: a search of the database PsycINFO using the keywords ‘executive coaching’ and limiting the search to peer-reviewed publications found 32 citations published in the five years between 1995 and 2000, but 184 citations published in the five years between 2007 and 2012. This is indicative of the increase in the number of academic institutions worldwide who are now seriously interested in the research and practice of executive coaching. Such attention from respected academic institutions bodes well for the ongoing development of evidence-based approaches to executive coaching, in terms of bringing a rigorous evaluative eye to the practice and impact of executive coaching, as well as providing solid tertiary-level education for those interested in executive coaching. In short, and in stark contrast to early warnings about the supposed widespread dangers of executive coaching (e.g., Berglas, 2002), executive coaching has moved well beyond being a ‘management fad’ (Tobias, 1996), and now has an important and apparently permanent role to play in leadership development.
It is this contemporary context that makes this book such an important and exciting addition to the evidence-based literature on executive coaching. The afore-mentioned growth of the leadership development and executive coach-ing industry is to be welcomed if such executive coachcoach-ing interventions do indeed improve the quality of leadership and enhance the performance and productivity of organizations, whilst also ensuring the well-being of those employed in such contexts. While the contemporary executive coaching research suggests that this is the case, the extant knowledge-base on coaching is still somewhat nascent. More work is needed here.
Both industry and academia have important and complementary roles to play here in developing new knowledge and insights about executive coach-ing—in evaluating the effectiveness of coaching, perfecting the practice of executive coaching, as well as exploring the mechanics of purposeful positive change within the context of executive coaching.
The discipline of executive coaching has much to offer to the organiza-tional change and development literature. There is a wealth of knowledge related to organizational development, but it would appear that most of this body of knowledge sits at the organizational or systemic levels—there is rela-tively less literature within this body of knowledge that explicitly examines the mechanics of individual change within the organizational context, how such individual change can be fostered through coaching and how such indi-vidual change meshes with organization or systemic perspectives. The disci-pline of executive coaching has much to offer here in terms of theory building and the extension of existing theoretical frameworks.
On a practical level, I believe that the emerging discipline of executive coaching has much to offer in terms of leadership development. This book represents the contemporary edge of knowledge about executive coaching,
combining solid theoretical frameworks with extensive practitioner exper-tise, whilst drawing on the emerging empirical knowledge-base related to the subject. Both coaching practitioners and their clients are demanding increas-ingly sophisticated approaches to leadership development—approaches which explicitly combine these three key facets. In my view this approach is vital if we are to make manifest the potential of executive coaching in devel-oping our existing and future leaders—and well-rounded, capable leaders are sorely needed as we begin to navigate the emerging and complex challenges of the twentieth-first century.
Anthony M. Grant
Associate Professor
Director: Coaching Psychology Unit, School of Psychology, the University of Sydney
LIST OF FIGURES xiii
LIST OF TABLES xv
ABBREVIATIONS xvii
Introduction 1
1 What Is Coaching and Executive Coaching? 7
1.1 Historical Overview 7
1.2 Defining Executive Coaching 12
1.3 What Is not Executive Coaching 15
1.4 Coaching Applications 17
1.5 The Context of an EC Intervention: An Introduction 22
1.6 Executive Coaches: Background, Key Characteristics, and Traits 30
1.7 Reflection and Learning 35
1.8 Key Learning 36
2 Competing/Complementary Theoretical Approaches 37
2.1 Cognitive, Behavioural, and Cognitive-Behavioural Approaches 38
2.2 Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic Approach 44
2.3 Transactional Analysis Approach 47
2.4 Existential Approach 48
2.5 Humanistic/Person-centered Approach 50
2.6 Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) 51
2.7 Gestalt Psychotherapy 52
2.8 Solution-focused Approach to Coaching 53
2.9 Key Learning 53
3 Implementing Executive Coaching 55
3.1 Internal versus External Coach: Similarities and Differences 55
3.2 Tasks/Process 57
3.3 Duration 62
3.4 Coaching Frameworks and Tools 63
4. Executive Coaching Impact: Evidence, Standards, and Success Criteria 81
4.1 In Search of Evidence on Executive Coaching Outcomes:
An Introduction 81
4.2 Personality and Ability Assessment Inventories Used in EC 84
4.3 A Systematic Review of EC Outcome Studies 85
4.4 Comparison of the Effectiveness of EC to Other Leadership
Development Interventions 108
4.5 Key Learning 109
5 Current Debates, Future Trends 111
5.1 Current Debates 111
5.2 Coaching Standards and the Field 112
5.3 The Rise of the EC Profession and the Challenges for the
Coaching Industry 113
5.4 EC Synergies from the Use of Multiple EC Techniques and
Approaches 115
5.5 Key Learning 116
6 Leadership Theories and Their Links to EC 117
6.1 Defining Leadership 117
6.2 Leadership Theories 118
6.3 Reflections on Leadership Theories 140
6.4 Key Learning 141
7 Reflections on the Role of EC in Leadership Development
and Management Education 143
7.1 Introduction to Leadership Development 143
7.2 Leadership Development and the Role of Context 144
7.3 Leadership Development, EC, and Mindfulness 145
7.4 EC and Management Education: Combining Forces for Better
Leadership Practice 148
7.5 Key Learning 150
8 Conclusions and the Future of EC Research 151
8.1 Towards More Effective EC Practice and Research 151
8.2 Possible Future Research Agendas 151
8.3 Summing Up 161
APPENDIX I: THE STAGES OF THE EXECUTIVE COACHING PROCESS 163
APPENDIX II: A REVIEW OF THE EXISTING EC OUTCOME STUDIES 167
REFERENCES 211
7.1 EC and Management Education Combining Forces for Better
Leadership Practice 149 8.1 A Contextual Mapping of the EC Intervention 154
1.1 A Timeline: The Emergence of the Coaching Industry—Factors
and Key Events 11
1.2 The Many Definitions of Executive Coaching Provided in the
Literature 13
4.1 Condensed Summary of Executive Coaching Outcome Studies
(up to December 2012) 87
4.2 Characteristics of Executive Coaching Outcome Studies (as
of December 2012) 94
4.3 A List of Intangible Outcomes of EC Interventions 103
AFT action frame theory
CBC cognitive-behavioural coaching CBT cognitive-behavioural therapy CEST cognitive-experiential self theory EC executive coaching
EI emotional intelligence
EMCC European Mentoring and Coaching Council EMDR eye movement desensitization reprocessing ESM experience sampling method
FoR Frame of Reference HR human resources
ICF International Coach Federation IES Institute for Employment Studies I–O industrial–organizational LD leadership development LSI learning style inventory
MSCEIT Mayer–Salovey–Caruso emotional intelligence test NLP neurolinguistic programming
ROI return on investment
REBT rational emotive behaviour therapy RET rational-emotive therapy
SAMT sensory awareness mindfulness training SDT self-determination theory
TA transactional analysis TPP Three principles psychology
Introduction
How many professional practices can claim that during their young history as a profession—spanning just a quarter of a century—they have not only managed to grow from strength to strength and become a global multibil-lion dollar market but have also changed day-by-day the lives of milmultibil-lions of business professionals who have received such services? According to a 2009 Global Coaching Survey (cited by Segers et al., 2011: 204), executive coaching (EC) has so far reached the maturity phase of its product life cycle as an industry in only two of the 162 countries surveyed, and in 83 countries it is still in the introduction or growth phase. What ten years ago was seen as an emergency measure to address toxic behaviour in leader-ship has now become a privileged service provided to the high-potentials to help them further develop their capabilities and successfully ascend the organizational hierarchy (see the Harvard Business Review survey of 140 leading coaches; Coutu and Kauffman, 2009: 92). Executive coach-ing has also permeated the traditional management education boundaries with an increasing number of business schools globally incorporating EC practices into their postgraduate and executive education programmes. A recent survey of executives and business school deans (Datar et al., 2010) identified a clear need for business schools to do more on leadership development, including the incorporation of individual coaching into their curricula.
At the same time, the EC field remains a ‘developing field’ (Ennis et al., 2008a: 19) striving to keep up with these rapid developments. This is reflected in the status of the empirical research on EC outcomes, which is one of the youngest streams of empirical research within the broader leadership development field. In fact EC empirical work is so young that in their review of the literature up to 2000 Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson (2001: 206) identified only seven empirical studies that explore the efficacy of executive coaching (Foster and Lendl, 1996; Olivero et al., 1997; Judge and Cowell, 1997; Gegner, 1997; Hall et al., 1999; Laske,1999a; and Garman et al., 2000). Essentially, most of the empirical research on EC has been produced since then, but how much of that provides rigorous, scientific evidence of the outcomes of EC practice? This is the question we examine in this book.
Our findings are partly surprising and partly anticipated. There are several weaknesses in the existing research and great opportunities, too. To our knowledge, our book is the first systematic review of all published peer-reviewed articles on EC outcome studies undertaken in order to assess the quality of the EC research and discuss its impact on coaching practice and management education. We have designed the book in such a way that our readers, whatever their background and stake in EC practice, can reflect on the potential that EC can offer to transform organizational practice.
Before closing this introduction with a discussion of why we feel a system-atic review of the EC field is important now, more than ever before, we want to give our sincere thanks to several people without whose support this work would not have been possible.
First, this research was undertaken under the auspices of the Executive Education division of the Saïd Business School of the University of Oxford. As we explain in the introduction of Chapter 1, the term ‘coach’ in the sense of ‘instructor/trainer’, as we now know it, was first born within the University of Oxford in the 1800s to reflect the work of Oxford tutors. For those unaware of the Oxford tutorial system, it is in essence a ‘coaching’ sys-tem that is set up to help students succeed in their academic endeavours by the asking of questions and to help develop reflective thinking and analysis. This coaching logic has also been nurtured within the Saïd Business School’s Executive Education Programmes and has led to the development of the University of Oxford Saïd Business School Coaching Community, a group that is leading the application of EC practices across a breadth of execu-tive education programmes offered by the Saïd Business School. The selected group of experienced coaches (tried in local and international contexts) who form the University of Oxford Saïd Business School Coaching Community have assisted us by reflecting and sharing their practice as we worked on the book. At the same time, this has been a two-way process: as our research for this book progressed, we found that our work gradually informed the University of Oxford Saïd Business School Coaching Community approach to coaching practice.
We are also particularly grateful to the following University of Oxford Saïd Business School Coaching Community members and Associate Fellows at the Saïd Business School who generously provided particularly helpful feedback and encouragement on an early draft of our book: Jon Stokes (Director of the organizational consulting firm Stokes & Jolly), Anthony Grant (Director of the Coaching Psychology Unit and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney), and Ian Saunders (Executive Fellow at Henley Business School and
a visiting tutor at Cranfield University). We owe special thanks to Anthony Grant also for writing the preface.
Last but not least, none of this would have been achieved without the gen-erous support and vision of the Associate Dean of Executive Education, Dr Andrew White and the Dean of the Saïd Business School, Professor Peter Tufano, to maintain the School’s position as an internationally leading insti-tution dedicated to the development of the new generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs.
Why a Book on Executive Coaching
Is Important Now?
The world is becoming increasingly complex and the current economic crisis appears to be just one additional factor; growing global competition, energy constraints, climate change and political instability are turning complexity into the norm (Heifetz et al., 2009a: 62). In such an environment character-ized by a ‘(permanent) crisis’ (Heifetz et al., 2009a: 62), it is essential to have leaders who are able to cope with uncertainty and successfully lead others. It requires ‘adaptive leadership’ (Heifetz et al., 2009a, 2009b) and executive coaching is the type of leadership development practice that can help individ-uals manage complexity more effectively (Abbott and Rosinski, 2007: 68; Ives, 2008: 102; Natale and Diamante, 2005: 363). The proposed book fills a signifi-cant gap in the existing executive coaching literature and we hope that it will serve as an essential reference to anyone (academic or practitioner) with an interest in coaching (executive coaching in particular) and more broadly as a reference for leadership development. Unlike the numerous ‘how-to’ books on coaching, our book is different because it offers a thorough study not only of the history of the field and the various coaching theories and tools but also of the field’s empirical work.
Specifically:
a. We provide a conceptual background of the executive coaching field and its practice (its history and applications); this can be helpful both for
practitioners and for academics in this area.
b. We review the quality of the empirical studies of the executive coaching field, particularly with regards to the executive coaching outcomes; this
can be an important source of reference particularly for academics doing empirical work in this field.
c. We provide an appreciation of the current debates and possible future trends of the executive coaching field; again, this is helpful both for
aca-demics’ and practitioners’ purposes.
d. We link our findings on executive coaching with the broader field of leadership development (both in terms of research and practice) and we relatedly discuss the implications our findings have for man-agement education; this can be of interest for both academics and
practitioners.
Overall, the book contributes to both the coaching literature and the lead-ership development literature. Since executive coaching draws on the fields of management and psychology, we expect that our book will be a help-ful resource for those readers with a background in either or both of these disciplines.
Our purpose is to offer an objective, but also a reflective study of the execu-tive coaching practice and research rather than provide a critique of each school of thought or approach. We intentionally wrote this book without ‘professional jargon’, using language that can be understood by those that do not have a background in coaching-related disciplines.
In Chapter 1 we start by providing a historical overview of the ori-gins of executive coaching, from the birth of the term ‘coach’ to the most recent developments in the field, which saw executive coaching becoming an important part of leadership development activities. We then provide a discussion of the various definitions of executive coaching, including what is not executive coaching. As part of that discussion, we present and briefly describe what other coaching applications we identified in the literature. We then discuss what executive coaching consists of, includ-ing how the initiation of executive coachinclud-ing happens, who are the typi-cal executive coaching candidates, and what are the purposes, objectives, and overall effects and potential benefits from an executive coaching intervention.
In Chapter 2 we present an overview of the eight main theoretical approaches to coaching and their variations as they appear in literature. These are: cognitive, behavioural and cognitive-behavioural approaches (which also includes smaller theoretical streams such as rational emotive behaviour therapy, multimodal approach and mindfulness coaching); psy-chodynamic/psychoanalytic approach; transactional analysis approach; existential approach; humanistic/person-centered approach; neurolin-guistic programming (NLP); Gestalt psychotherapy; and solution-focused approach to coaching. In each of them we typically start with an overview of the conceptual/theoretical background and origin of the approach, we then discuss its application to coaching and particularly executive coaching
and (where such information exists) we also discuss what evidence there is of its impact.
Having established the various theoretical backdrops of executive coach-ing practices, in Chapter 3 we go on to discuss the more practical aspects of executive coaching. This chapter includes a presentation of the tasks and processes typically included in an executive coaching intervention and the duration and frequency of the executive coaching sessions. We then present an extensive overview of the various coaching frameworks and tools that can be used by executive coaches. Typically, as the empirical evidence also suggests (i.e., evidence from different types of research—both qualitative and quantitative—undertaken with a view to explore the outcome of EC practice), coaches tend to use a combination of frameworks. The frame-works we are presenting in this book are: the GROW model; social systems interventions/the systems perspective and the family therapy perspective; experiential learning/action learning/adult learning; adult development; competency modelling; positive psychology coaching/strengths coaching and action frame theory.
We consider Chapter 4 as the cornerstone of this book in terms of its con-tribution to the executive coaching literature. It offers valuable information to academics and practitioners about the existing evidence on executive coach-ing outcomes. Havcoach-ing presented the theories and practices associated with coaching, in this chapter we search the evidence that exists as to whether and how executive coaching works—and what does not work. We accompany our analysis with a table that summarizes the peer-reviewed empirical studies on executive coaching outcomes which we identified based on systematic litera-ture review.
In Chapter 5 we discuss the current debates and controversies regarding executive coaching practice. We include a discussion on the standardisa-tion of coaching practices and provide an overview of what we see as the key trends in the field. Having presented what executive coaching includes and what evidence exists with regards to its impact, in Chapter 6 we link execu-tive coaching with the broader leadership field. We present a brief overview of each of the main leadership theories found in the organizational literature and then discuss how the current developments in leadership theorizing call for executive coaching.
In Chapter 7 we discuss the role of executive coaching as a promising leadership development approach to lead in complexity. We provide an overview of the leadership development field and its role in promoting leader effectiveness and organizational effectiveness. We suggest that one of the key benefits from executive coaching as a leadership development practice is that it allows developing self-awareness and organizational mindfulness.
In our final chapter (Chapter 8) we discuss the possible future research agendas as these emerge from the work in this book. We stress the impor-tance of more active consideration of the context within which EC interven-tions take place and conclude by discussing the implicainterven-tions that EC has on the future of leadership development and management education.
What Is Coaching and
Executive Coaching?
Executive coaching is much more like sailing, capturing the wind and maneuvering the uncharted coast, than charting the course and serving as the expert captain with a steady hand on the wheel and full steam ahead.
Stern, 2009: 271
1.1 Historical Overview
According to a ‘myth’ the term ‘coach’ dates back to the 1550s (see Gray, 2006: 476). Stern (2004: 154) cites Hendrickson (1987) who once suggested that the word ‘coaching’ originates from a Hungarian village called Kocs and, specifically, a covered wheeled wagon or carriage (koczi), which was first developed in that area to carry passengers through the difficult terrain, protecting them during their trip. This is possibly just a ‘myth’ and noth-ing more, but even ‘myths’ are part of the identity of a phenomenon—hence, worth mentioning. Under such symbolism, Stern (2004: 154) describes execu-tive coaching (EC) as ‘one more evolution of the term where a coach helps to carry an executive from one point to another’. The term ‘coach’ in the sense of ‘instructor/trainer’ was first used in 1830 at the University of Oxford as slang for ‘a tutor who ‘carries’ a student through an exam’ (Online Etymology Dictionary, 2014). The term ‘coach’ in the athletic sense was created later— in 1861. This chapter provides an overview of the historical development of coaching and particularly EC field. For those readers interested in learning more about historical developments in the field, other resources offer more in depth information (see Palmer and Whybrow, 2007; Garvey et al., 2009).
1.1.1 THE BIRTH OF EC: LOCATING ITS FIRST DEVELOPMENTS
It appears that Gorby (1937) was the first to use the term ‘coach’ within a business environment—in sales, particularly (see Berg and Karlsen, 2007: 4; see also Grant’s 2011 annotated bibliography on workplace, executive and
life coaching from 1937 to 2011). It is believed that coaching first appeared within the context of management in the work of Lewis (1947) and Mold (1951). Another early reference to the term in the management literature is in a 1955 article by R. C. Parkes, president of the Philadelphia-based National Drying Machinery Company, in which he explains the seven guides used in his company to develop executives (‘coaching’ is the fourth ‘guidepost’ in his list) (see Parkes, 1955; see also Eggers and Clark, 2000: 67, who locate the first appearance of the term within the context of management in a chapter by Myles Mace, titled ‘On-the-Job Coaching’, in the 1958 publication Developing
Executive Skills, ed. H. E. Merrill and E. Marting, American Management
Association, in which Mace described coaching as an employee job develop-ment tool aiming at increasing productivity). Mace (1950) had also previously published a book at Harvard University entitled The Growth and Development
of Executives.
By the 1970s sports coaching techniques appeared in management lit-erature, including Tim Gallwey’s 1974 bestseller The Inner Game of Tennis. Gallwey’s work revolutionized the EC field by suggesting that expertise as a manager is often a handicap to being an effective coach, because instead of facilitating coachees to learn from their experiences and reach their own conclusions, management expertise tends to encourage the coach to ‘tell’ the ‘trainee’ how to do it (Stokes and Jolly, 2009: 227–8; see also Gallwey, 2000).
By the 1980s, coaching was seen as a developmental activity that was not necessarily linked to sports. EC became part of the corporate language in the 1980s (Tobias, 1996: 87). Specifically, Natale and Diamante (2005: 362) and Hyatt (2003) locate the beginning of EC in the 1980s when a financial planner in Seattle (called Thomas Leonard) first offered life-planning consultations to his clients and, in 1992, started Coach University, a training programme for professionals. Leonard played a definitive role in the emergence and devel-opment of the coaching industry. He also founded the International Coach Federation (Hyatt, 2003), an industry group that remains a leader in the pro-motion and regulation of professional coaching standards globally and the provision of coach accreditation. Judge and Cowell (1997: 71) give a different version of the story, referring to O’Hefferman (1986) who maintained that the first person to ‘coin’ the term ‘executive coaching’ was a practitioner in Palo Alto, California, named Dick Borough, who used this term in 1985 to describe his leadership development activities.
By 1988 EC started to become mainstream and caught the attention of Forbes magazine. In an article by Dyan Machan (1988), titled ‘Sigmund Freud Meets Henry Ford’, EC was described as a hybrid of management consult-ing and psychotherapy (Judge and Cowell, 1997: 71). Marshall Goldsmith, Warren Bennis, Jim Kouzes, and Tim Gallwey were some of the key early pro-ponents of EC (see Stokes and Jolly, 2009: 227). Also, several training initia-tives on personal development contributed to the emergence of the executive
coaching field such as the Erhard Seminars Training (est), a training pro-gramme on personal transformation and responsibility developed by Werner Hans Erhard and first delivered in 1971 and the consequent establishment in 1991 of Landmark Education (now Landmark Worldwide, a San Francisco, California, headquartered personal training and development company).
In the 1990s coaching emerged as a part of employee empowerment, with the coach seen as a ‘thought partner’, asking the right questions instead of providing answers (see Eggers and Clark, 2000: 67). The next phase in this conceptual development saw EC as a relationship developed between the coach and the participant through which people are motivated to advance and exceed previous achievements (ibid.: 67).
1.1.2 EMERGENCE OF EC: WHY?
Until the 1980s, EC was informally conducted, if at all, by internal to the organization HR professionals (Stokes and Jolly 2009: 226) with coaching focusing on legal, accounting or marketing issues. Furthermore, up to the mid-1980s even the term ‘executive coaching’ was rarely used and practition-ers did not have any formal training. There are different reasons put forward to explain the emergence of the EC field. It has been suggested that EC emerged through an effort of psychologists to find new work (and hence, a new source of income) in response to changes in the healthcare industry, which affected particularly the mental health field (see Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001: 207). Other reasons include the use of coaching by high-performance individuals (e.g., athletes) to improve their performance; the rapidly chang-ing global economy that has created the need for continued development; the fact that executives lack opportunities for growth; the realization by the business world that poor executive leadership can lead to financial ruin; and the acknowledgement that interpersonal skills allow for the effective manage-ment of oneself and others in a organization (Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001: 209).
Another set of reasons for these changes is highlighted by Stokes and Jolly (2009: 226–7), who identified four macro changes that impacted on the demand for professionally trained executive coaches (with expertise in human psychology and workplace relationships): (a) less stress on formal hierarchy and more emphasis on the right to express individual views; (b) changes in HR departments, which became larger and placed more emphasis on devel-opment activities for staff with a view to retaining the best staff; (c) the rise of the self-help book and self-development programme industries in response to the breakdown of traditional hierarchical institutions in the West, which prompted individuals to seek success by better managing themselves person-ally, professionperson-ally, and performance-wise; and (d) the rise of a more explicit
merit-based approach for executive promotion, which increased the pressure on executives to perform.
Brock (2008: 4–13, 17) also discussed the emergence of coaching as a field and suggested that some of the root professions of coaching (sociology, edu-cation, adult eduedu-cation, human resource management, communications, management consulting, organization development and training) were in parallel struggling to become recognized (see ibid.: 7). Brock further argued that coaching emerged in response to shifts in social, cultural, and economic conditions. Despite starting as a human development movement, it was largely due to developments in the economy that the coaching movement was boosted, with more people having more leisure time and disposable income and a social climate that encouraged spending on self-development. Parallel to the rise of the self-help industry, the fields of organization development, management consulting and psychology evolved in response to these shifts (Brock, 2008: 17–18).
A recent Harvard Business Review survey (Coutu et al., 2009) of 140 lead-ing coaches explorlead-ing the practice of EC also confirmed a link between the development of EC and changes in the broader organizational environment. The survey showed that over time there has been a change in the reasons companies hire executive coaches. Coaches reported that, although ten years ago most companies hired a coach to help in the case of toxic behaviour in leadership practice, today most executive coaches are hired to develop high-potential performers’ capabilities (see Coutu and Kauffman, 2009: 92). Despite these changes and the apparent need to formalize EC practice, Coutu and Kauffman (2009: 92) conclude that, although coaching as a business tool continues to gain legitimacy, the fundamentals of the industry ‘are still in flux’.
The timeline of birth and development of coaching as a profession is pre-sented in Table 1.1.
1.1.3 THE CONTRIBUTION OF SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY
IN EXECUTIVE COACHING
Instrumental in the coaching field’s history has been the influence of sports psychology. As we have seen, Tim Gallwey’s 1974 bestseller The Inner Game
of Tennis first introduced sports coaching techniques to the management
literature. According to Bluckert (2006: 104), organizational and consulting psychology and sports psychology were in the past the main sources to which coaching looked for its theory, with the introduction of concepts from psy-chotherapy and counselling coming more recently. Indeed, empirical studies of EC have also used models from sports coaching (see Jowett et al., 2012) or
1550s The word ‘coach’ is ‘born’: the word koczi is first used in Hungary to refer to a covered wheeled wagon or carriage.
1830s First use of the term ‘coach’ in the sense of ‘instructor/trainer’ within the University of Oxford.
1930s–1970s Coaching introduced in the business environment.
1937 Gorby (1937) publishes the first article in which the term ‘coach’ is used in a business context (in sales).
1947, 1951 1958
The work of Lewis (1947), Mace (1950), Mold (1951), Parkes (1955), and Mace (1958) are the first publications where coaching is used within the context of management. 1971 Werner Hans Erhard starts the delivery of his ‘est’ personal development courses. 1974 Tim Gallwey’s 1974 bestseller The Inner Game of Tennis is published and sports
coaching techniques are introduced to management literature. 1980s Executive coaching introduced in the corporate language, but only
informally conducted. 1980s
(exact date not specified)
Thomas Leonard offers life-planning consultations to his clients—it is now considered an early format of ‘coaching’.
1985 Dick Borough (in Palo Alto, California), uses the term ‘executive coaching’ to describe his leadership development activities.
1988 Forbes publishes an article by Dyan Machan, titled ‘Sigmund Freud Meets Henry Ford’, describing EC as a hybrid of management consulting and psychotherapy. 1990s The formalization of Coaching: Development of coaching courses and the introduction of the coach in organizations as an agent of motivation and personal development for leaders.
Key changes throughout the late 1980s and 1990s
• Changes in the healthcare industry (and particularly the mental health field) led psychologists to pursue new areas of work and new sources of income. • Changes in the global economy led to pressures for improved performance, but
also led to higher income and more leisure time with individuals encouraged to devote time to self-development.
• Emphasis on the role of leadership in achieving financial success.
• Use of coaching by other high-performers (e.g., in sports) alerts the interest of the business world to the benefits that coaching can offer.
• The rise of an organizational culture that provides more emphasis on the right to express individual views.
• Changes in HR departments: they gradually become larger and their emphasis is on development activities aimed at staff retention.
• Rise of the self-help book and self-development programme industries. • Increased pressure on executives to perform due to rise of more explicit
merit-based approach for executive promotion.
1991 A large international personal training and development company, Landmark Education (now known as Landmark Wordwide), is founded, acquiring programmes and intellectual material that had been earlier developed by Werner Hans Erhard. 1992 Thomas Leonard establishes the Coach University.
1995 The International Coaching Federation is founded with a view to ‘to advance the
art, science, and practice of professional coaching’ (ICF website).
2000s–now The professionalization of the coaching industry. Late 1990s early
2000s
Executive coaching introduced in organizations with a view to help high-potential leaders who display toxic behaviour.
Early 2000s–now A change of reason: executive coaching employed to help maximize the effectiveness of high-performers (not associated with problematic behaviour).
have looked into the similarities between high-achievers coached in business and in sports (see Jones and Spooner, 2006). Yet it has also been suggested that the influence of sports psychology in executive coaching practice can undermine coaching outcomes. For instance, Berglas (2002: 88–9) argued that those executive coaches who draw on coaching techniques from sports coaching ‘may sell themselves as purveyors of simple answers and quick results’, which can be a ‘great selling point to CEOs’, but can also have ‘dis-astrous consequences’ in the long term for the company. Whether this is the case or not will depend on the coaching and organizational context. However, sports psychology has been and continues to serve as one of the main influ-ences in executive coaching practice.
1.2 Defining Executive Coaching
Coaching, it is argued in this book, emerges as one of the most important approaches to senior managers’ and executives’ professional development (Gray, 2006: 475). According to Orenstein (2002), the EC literature can be sorted into two categories: one that focuses on the description of specific EC methodologies by practitioners in the field and the other that focuses on the definition and designation of the practice.
Overall, it appears that defining EC and its practices is not an easy task. When the coaching movement was still in its infancy, Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson (2001: 208) saw EC as a poorly defined practice, with very lim-ited research, and observed that the difficulty of defining EC may stem from ‘the many different individuals and disciplines involved in providing execu-tive coaching services’ (Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001: 224). Several years later the same observations is made, and it appears that not only has the fuzziness characterizing the industry not decreased but in fact it seems to have increased over time. Ennis et al. (2008a: 5) noted that there is still ‘no widely agreed definition or set of professional standards’ for EC and it remains a ‘developing field’ (Ennis et al., 2008a: 19). Coutu and Kauffman (2009: 92) also observed a lack of consensus in the field based on the results of an HBR survey of 140 leading coaches and on the view of five experts that were asked to comment on these results. All ‘felt that the bar needs to be raised in various areas for the industry to mature, but there was no consensus on how that could be done’ (ibid.: 92).
A classic executive coaching definition has been provided by Kilburg (1996: 142), who described EC as ‘a helping relationship formed between a cli-ent who has managerial authority and responsibility in an organization and a consultant who uses a wide variety of behavioural techniques and methods to help the client achieve a mutually identified set of goals to improve his or
her professional performance and personal satisfaction and, consequently, to improve the effectiveness of the client’s organization within a formally defined coaching agreement’ (Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001: 208) considered Kilburg’s 1996 definition as representative of what has been discussed in the field). A sample of some representative definitions indicating how scholars approach EC is presented in Table 1.2.
(continued)
Table 1.2 The Many Definitions of Executive Coaching Provided in the Literature
Author Provided Definition/Definitions
Witherspoon and White (1996) • EC is ‘a confidential, highly personal learning process’ (p. 127).
• It ‘helps executives learn, grow, and change’ (p. 125). Tobias (1996) • The coaching definition can have several levels: in its
narrowest sense coaching is seen as help to someone who ‘has irritated others in the organization’, on a broader sense it would refer to someone who has conflictual relationships with others or trouble in adjusting to organizational or personal changes and crises, at an even broader sense, the problem might be not the individual but a circumstance to which the individual may need to manage and at a further extent, coaching is used without any specific problem identified, but rather with the view to enhance an executive’s ‘style, future options, and organizational impact’ (pp. 87–8). • Most coaching is ongoing, but may vary from a couple
of sessions to a lengthy series of meetings over a long period and therefore, coaching as a term can be broadly used to include any useful intervention by the consultant (p. 88).
Garman et al. (2000) • Coaching is ‘one-on-one consultation, provided by outsiders (individuals who do not have organizational ties), regarding the consultee’s individual performance as it relates to a specific organizational context or contexts’ (p. 202).
• This definition has three key parts: firstly, sees coaching as a service delivered in a one-on-one format, which distinguishes itself from other types of classroom-based training in supervisory skills; secondly, coachees are not direct reports of their coaches; and thirdly, focuses on performance improvement within a specific organizational context, which is different from career counseling psychotherapy and other interventions with an objective the individual’s improvement (p. 202). Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson (2001) • EC is ‘a highly confidential personal learning process
that focuses not only on interpersonal issues, but also on intrapersonal ones’ (p. 208).
Peltier (2001) • EC ‘provides one-on-one services to top level leaders in an organization, on the principle that positive changes can be leveraged to filter down and enhance the entire organization’ (p. xv).
All these definitions highlight several aspects associated with EC and its practice. Several authors describe EC as a ‘process’ (e.g., Witherspoon and White, 1996; Kampa-Kokesch and Anderson, 2001; O’Neill, 2007; Ennis et al., 2008a); however, it is important to note that coaching is only a methodology for creating and sustaining purposeful positive change and the way that such a methodology is applied and the reasons for using it varies considerably.
Michelman (2004) • Coaching is a ‘three-way partnership between the executive, the coach, and the organization, in which all involved agree on specific goals and parameters’ (p. 4). O’Neill (2007) • EC is ‘the process of increasing the client’s effectiveness’
in meeting three responsibilities: (a) communicating the territory (i.e., the organization’s purpose, vision, and goals) to key constituencies and outlining opportunities and challenges, (b) building commitment and relationships and facilitating interactions to achieve outstanding team performance, and (c) producing results and outcomes through the efforts of the executive and others (p. 6).
Ennis et al. (2008a) • EC is a ‘transition tool’ for leadership development aiming at the retention of top talented staff and for this reason it is now ‘bundled’ with leadership development programmes and introduced as a key element in leadership transitions (p. 5).
• It is ‘a multiparty set of relationship-based activities involving the client, her coach, and her organization. The goal is to enhance the capability of the executive and her ability to help the organization achieve short- and long-term goals’ (p. 9).
• EC is ‘an experiential and individualized leader development process that builds a leader’s capability to achieve short- and long-term organizational goals. It is conducted through one-on-one and/ or group interactions, driven by data from multiple perspectives, and based on mutual trust and respect. The organization, an executive, and the executive coach work in partnership to achieve maximum
impact’ (p. 19).
• It focuses on the development of the executive’s ability to influence, motivate, and lead others and the development of strategic thinking skills (p. 20). • EC is based on the coaching partnership, which is
a ‘win-win approach in which all partners plan the process together, communicate openly, and work cooperatively toward the ultimate accomplishment of overarching organizational objectives’ and the executive coach can be external to the organization or an employee (p. 21).
Stokes and Jolly (2009) • EC is the ‘work with senior level executives that focuses on the executive becoming more self-aware in order to carry out their leadership role more effectively’ (p. 225). Author Provided Definition/Definitions
1.3 What Is not Executive Coaching
There are several activities that may resemble EC, but are not the same as EC. These are:
Mentoring: Coaching is not exactly the same as mentoring, although
men-tors often use coaching tactics and techniques in their work. Comparing the two, mentoring ‘at its best, involves a longer term relationship in which there is an emotional attachment between mentor and protege’ (Hunt and Weintraub, 2004: 42), with the objective being the mentee’s career development; whereas in coaching the objective is skills develop-ment and performance enhancedevelop-ment (Passmore, 2007a: 12). ‘Mentoring’ is defined as ‘typically a more informal relationship with a more expe-rienced colleague’ (Stokes and Jolly, 2009: 226; also see Clutterbuck and Megginson, 2005; Gray, 2006: 476). However, the boundary between the two is more blurred than is often suggested (Passmore, 2007a).
Psychotherapy: Numerous discussions have been made about the
similari-ties and differences between coaching and therapy (see Bluckert, 2005a). It is beyond doubt that there are some strong similarities; however, ‘typi-cally the intention is different, with coaching strongly grounded in work effectiveness and performance rather than wider life issues’ (Bluckert, 2005a: 96). Although coaching and therapy share similarities in terms of certain skill-sets, the training of therapists entails work at a deeper level focusing on the past and addressing personal issues (particularly psycho-logical and emotional ones) that may be painful and remain unresolved for the individual, whereas experienced executive coaches will tend to have a higher level of competence in corporate issues (ibid.: 93 and 96). As McKenna and Davis (2009: 257) note, among the important ways in which EC and psychotherapy differ is that executive coaches tend to meet less frequently with clients (i.e., every four to six weeks) than psy-chotherapists (i.e., every one to two weeks). In an empirical study that examined the views of thirty professionals who do either coaching or therapy (or both) regarding their perceptions on coaching and therapy, Hart et al. (2001: 233) asked interviewees to describe the differences between these two with regard to time. It was suggested that in coaching the timeframes are not as rigid as in therapy: coaching sessions may be broken up into half-hour time blocks, they may be weekly or monthly, they vary from the traditional one hour therapy and the coach needs to guide the process, not direct it, while the client (not the coach) should be the one establishing the agenda for the coaching. Furthermore, in contrast to psychotherapy, in coaching there is a strong trend towards using e-mail, text messaging, and video conference calls (McKenna and Davis, 2009: 258). It is often argued that although many executive
coaches come from a psychotherapeutic background, the use of psy-chotherapeutic techniques may not be always appropriate for coaching within a business setting, since psychotherapy entails longer-term pro-cesses whereas commissioning organizations prefer shorter-term rela-tionships (Gray, 2006: 490). This is confirmed also by Hart et al.’s (2001) empirical study where coaching was described by professionals as ‘more goal directed, action based, and outwardly defined’ than therapy (Hart et al., 2001: 231).
EC is no longer seen as just remedial work for poor performers: In its initial
developmental phase as a professional movement, EC was mostly used by companies to help executives who had the potential to be successful but were displaying problematic behaviour that impacted on their per-formance and for which EC served as an ultimate rescue effort. However, now this is hardly ever the case in EC practice. Remedial work for poor performers is not the current focus of coaching practice—instead, coach-ing is now focused on mid and senior executives with high potential and responsibilities (Stokes and Jolly, 2009: 225).
Is not only about the individual executive: Unlike career counselling and
life coaching, which focus on the individual client’s needs and goals, EC (which shares similar techniques with career counselling and life coaching) focuses on the needs of both the executive and the sponsoring organization (Ennis et al., 2008a: 19). Unlike career coaching, EC is based on the partnership of the executive, the coach, and the organization; fur-thermore, the individual goals of EC must ‘always link back and be sub-ordinated’ to strategic organizational objectives (Ennis et al., 2008a: 23).
Is not personal, career, or life coaching: Stern (2004: 157) suggests that
exec-utive coaching has some similarities with other types of coaching but is differentiated from them in its dual focus of working one-on-one with the executive to develop positive leadership behaviours and positive busi-ness results. Some types of coaching, such as personal or life coaching, require a different set of skills from those of an executive coach. Personal or life coaching focuses on the individual’s personal goals, thinking, feeling and how to change the person’s life, whereas EC focuses on the individual’s short- and long-term career objectives (ibid.: 157).
While this section indicates that EC does not fully belong to these categories, it is not irrelevant to them either. In fact, the domains of mentoring, psy-chotherapy, and life coaching do overlap with EC. Often, during a coaching session, family/home issues are brought up in the discussion since these may be hindering the development of the coachee’s full potential. Executives often need to talk about these aspects of their life in order to gain some mental clar-ity and, in doing so they are then able to refocus on their workplace issues.
The boundaries in EC practice are not clear and distinct. This is what makes EC such a challenging enterprise.
1.4 Coaching Applications
Although in the present book we focus on EC provided by providers external to the organization, there seems to be a rise in recent years of coaching pro-vided internally. Frisch (2005) attributes this rise to the fact that when HR departments started appointing dedicated staff to manage external coaches and measure the effectiveness of coaching provided within the organiza-tion, such staff gradually ended up assuming the role of coaching delivery to cover a wide range of HR activities from management development to suc-cession planning and from multi-rater performance appraisal to organiza-tional development. As a result, the internal coach as an organizaorganiza-tional role was created. However, internal EC ‘has not garnered the “cachet” of external coaching’ (Frisch, 2005: 23).
Several authors have attempted to organize the different types of coach-ing into categories (e.g., see Morgan et al.’s 2005 classification of coachcoach-ing into five categories, with either a business issues focus or a behavioural issues focus or Berman and Bradt’s 2006 four-category model of EC with each cat-egory being the product of a different combination of short-term/targeted or long-term/exploratory and business focus or personal focus).1
We have identified the following types of coaching as part of our literature review:
1. Academic coaching 2. Career coaching*
3. Coaching to provide feedback debriefing and development planning* 4. Conflict coaching*
5. Developmental coaching (also known as development coaching)* (Hunt and Weintraub 2004)
6. Executive coaching 7. Financial coaching
8. Group coaching* (which is different from team coaching) 9. Health coaching
10. High-potential coaching* 11. Knowledge coaching*
1 These are: (a) coaching leaders/behavioural coaching, (b) career/life coaching, (c) coaching for leadership development, (d) coaching for organizational change, and (e) strategy coaching.
12. Leadership coaching* 13. Legacy coaching*
14. Managerial coaching* (i.e., manager as coach) 15. Newly assigned leader /new leader coaching* 16. Performance coaching*
17. Personal or life coaching*
18. Presentation/Communication skills coaching/video coaching* 19. Project Management coaching*
20. Relationship coaching* 21. Results coaching*
22. Skill coaching (or feedback coaching)* 23. Spiritual coaching
24. Sports coaching 25. Succession coaching*
26. Targeted behavioural coaching* 27. Team coaching*
28. Transactional coaching* 29. Transformational coaching* 30. Virtual coaching
31. Workplace coaching*
The types of coaching marked with an * are those used by organizations as ways to develop their staff. They have several similarities with EC, but are not the same.
According to Stokes and Jolly (2009: 232), executive coaching is different from other forms of coaching in that:
a. The primary client is the organization, rather than the individual, b. The aim is to align the individual’s abilities with the organization’s
ambitions and work towards achieving the organization’s objectives, c. The aim of the coaching is informed by and often agreed with the
individual’s line manager, who also receives feedback on the coaching process,
d. Matters relating to personal issues that do not have implications for the organization are not the primary focus of EC,
e. The coach’s fees are paid by the organization, not the individual. The other types of coaching which are applied within an organization—and we found in the systematic review—are briefly presented here:
1. Career coaching is ‘coaching designed to help individuals make enlight-ened career choices’, helping them to identify what they want from their career, decide and take the required actions to accomplish it (Ennis et al., 2008a: 22–3), focusing both on short- and long-term career objec-tives (Stern, 2004: 157).
2. Coaching to provide feedback debriefing and development planning refers to the process by which a coach helps employees to interpret their assess-ment or 360 feedback processes in the context of a person’s personal and professional history. This coaching is employed within the organization to help employees in their career decisions and professional develop-ment plans (Ennis et al., 2008a: 24–5; Stern, 2004: 158).
3. Conflict coaching is a practice first developed in January 1996 at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (see Brinkert, 2006: 520) and is ‘the process in which a coach and disputant communicate one-on-one for the purpose of developing the disputant’s conflict-related understanding, interaction strategies, and interaction skills’ (Brinkert, 2006: 517). The aim for the coachee is to make sense of conflict and develop plans for actively managing conflict as well as specific commu-nication behaviours that he/she can enact (Brinkert, 2006: 517).
4. Developmental coaching (or development coaching) is coaching that is based on the idea that ‘employees will learn more when pursuing goals that they have defined, rather than goals defined by others’ (Hunt and Weintraub, 2004: 42) and it is often regarded as same as EC. It draws on the existential approach to coaching and involves the process of coaching a manager or his/her team members to ‘get more interesting and challenging work tasks where the person’s experience and knowledge is used to the fullest poten-tial’ (Berg and Karlsen, 2007: 7). It often involves career and life coaching aiming at helping individuals gain life balance and also contributes to mak-ing a more flexible, project-oriented, and learnmak-ing organization. (For an extensive review on developmental coaching see Bachkirova, 2011.)
5. Group coaching is about working with individuals within groups and its focus ranges from leadership development to career development and from stress management to team building. Group coaching is different from team coaching and combines the resources of groups with the ben-efits of individual coaching. Via group coaching, individuals learn from each other and from their interactions as a group (Ennis et al., 2008a: 23). 6. High-potential coaching aims at helping high-potential individuals who
are key to the future of the organization or a part of the organization’s succession plan (Ennis et al., 2008a: 24; Stern, 2004: 158). Related to that is the practice of ‘succession coaching’ (described in 15, below).
7. Leadership coaching can have a wide scope. One aspect is to develop ‘authentic leadership’ in the sense of enabling managers ‘to be more con-sciously aware’ and hence, create a ‘personally distinctive and organi-sationally attuned’ leadership style (Lee, 2003: 17). In general, EC can be used as a methodology for a wide range of leadership frameworks, including ‘emotionally intelligent leadership’, and ‘transformational leadership’. (For leadership coaching see also, Morgan et al., 2005; Goldsmith and Lyons, 2006.)
8. Legacy coaching aims at helping leaders who are about to retire or wind down from a key role to identify what legacy they would like to leave behind and how to do so—it also includes counseling on transitioning out of the leadership role (Ennis et al., 2008a: 25; Stern, 2004: 158).
9. Newly assigned leader/new leader coaching is about helping newly assigned leaders to clarify what the main responsibilities and delivera-bles associated with their new role are and how to define and imple-ment their new business objectives along with key constituencies and their team (Ennis et al., 2008a: 24; Stern, 2004: 157–8).
10. Performance coaching is about helping employees at all levels to under-stand better their job requirements, required competencies, and pos-sible gaps in performance as well as what are the opportunities for improved performance. Working with the employees, their bosses, and others within the organization the aim is to fill performance gaps and plan the coachee’s professional development (Ennis et al., 2008a: 24: Stern, 2004: 157).
11. Personal or life coaching is about gaining awareness of and clarifying personal goals and priorities and taking actions to change one’s life (Ennis et al., 2008a: 23), in order to achieve greater personal effective-ness and satisfaction (Stern, 2004: 157).
12. Relationship coaching aims at helping two or more coachees to form, change, or improve their interactions within a work, personal, or other setting for greater productivity and satisfaction (Ennis et al., 2008a: 24; Stern, 2004: 158).
13. Presentation/Communication skills coaching (also referred to as video
coaching—see Stern, 2004: 158) is about helping individuals to gain
self-awareness about how they are perceived by others and why they are perceived so. This includes video-recording of the coachees and pro-vision of feedback on the basis of their recorded performance as well as coaching them on the use of verbal and non-verbal communication (i.e., use of the right language and body language to convey their mes-sages) (Ennis et al., 2008a: 25).
14. Project Management coaching refers to a coaching process employed by organizations to address those problems that challenge projects and relate to leadership, uncertainty, stress, and motivation (see Berg and Karlsen, 2007). Berg and Karlsen (2007: 6–7) suggest that for a pro-ject manager and his/her team the following types of coaching might be relevant (in order of complexity, starting with the easiest and less time-consuming): Knowledge coaching, which is parallel to what would be described in EC as ‘content coaching’ and provides project members knowledge and skills in specific areas. It is considered the easiest type of coaching since project team members know what areas to improve. Skills
coaching (or feedback coaching) builds on the behavioural approach to
coaching and focuses on skill development and instead of aiming at raising the project manager’s or team manager’s level of knowledge, it aims at changing their leadership behaviour. Personal coaching, which is similar to life coaching, builds on the existential approach as well as the humanistic and cognitive approaches, aims at helping the project manager and his/her team members in terms of ‘attitudes, feelings, self-confidence, self-efficacy, self-esteem, confidence in one’s own capa-bility, tolerance of stress, need to assert oneself, and fear of failure’ (Berg and Karlsen, 2007: 7). Results coaching focuses on helping the project manager and his/her team members to achieve different types of goals either personal or related to project milestones and results. Also, accord-ing to Berg and Karlsen (2007: 7) development coachaccord-ing is also relevant to project management coaching.
15. Succession coaching is about the assessment of potential candidates for senior management positions and preparing them for promotion to more senior roles. It is said to be particularly helpful in the case of fam-ily businesses so as to maintain the firm’s viability—often independent consultants are used for the assessment and coaching for promotion (Ennis et al., 2008a: 25).
16. Targeted behavioural coaching is about helping individuals who are either very successful in their current job or assume new responsibility, but need to alter a particular behaviour or habits (such as intimidation, risk aversion, non-assertiveness) or learn new and more effective ways of working and interacting with others currently and in the future (Ennis et al., 2008a: 25; Stern, 2004: 158).
17. Team coaching is about working with a leader and each member of a team so as ‘to establish their team mission, vision, strategy, and rules of engagement with one another’. The process may also include individual coaching to every team member so as to learn how to facilitate meet-ings and other interactions, become more effective as a team so as to have high performance and obtain set goals (Ennis et al., 2008a: 26). 18. Transactional coaching focuses more on ‘surface-level issues such as
tactical actions, follow-up, and advice’ with clients learning technical skills and personal effectiveness techniques (it has a strategic focus) (Anderson and Anderson, 2005: 19).
19. Transformational coaching ‘enables coachees to create fundamental shifts in their capacity through transforming their way of thinking, feeling and behaving in relation to others’ (Hawkins and Smith, 2010: 231). Its pur-pose is to guide coachees to ‘reach’ their ‘inner resources’, gain insight and use it so as to create personal and organizational change (Anderson and Anderson, 2005: 20). The continuous exchange of insight and action fuels one another to form the core of transformational coaching (ibid.).
According to Hawkins and Smith (2010: 231–2) transformational coach-ing consists of four elements: (a) shiftcoach-ing the ‘meancoach-ing schemes’ of the coachee (i.e., his/her specific beliefs, attitudes, and emotional reactions), (b) working on multiple levels simultaneously (i.e., on the physical, psy-chological, emotional, and purposive elements and their combination at a given situation), (c)‘shift in the room’ in the sense of freeing the coachee from his/her ‘stuck’ perspective’ during the session and hence, experi-ence an integrated transformation of perspective with the help of the CLEAR model (Contracting, Listening, Exploring, Action, Review), and (d) use of the ‘four levels of engagement’ model to map the connection of coachee’s assumptions, values and beliefs (about the presenting issue) to the feelings that drive the behaviour so as to generate the particular responses that the coachee tries to modify.
1.5 The Context of an EC Intervention:
An Introduction
1.5.1 EC INITIATION AND THE TYPICAL EC CANDIDATE
Who Initiates EC?
According to Michelman (2004: 3) the idea of engaging a coach can be initi-ated in two ways: either by HR and leadership development professionals or by executives themselves, with the latter way appearing to become more com-mon over time. However, findings from a recent Harvard Business Review survey provided a more diverse picture. Specifically: 29.5% of the 140 coaches that were surveyed mentioned that HR typically initiates the coaching rela-tionship, 28.8% mentioned the coachee, 23% referred to the coachee’s man-ager and 18.7% mentioned others (see Coutu et al., 2009: 93). Normally, a coach is approached by a variety of organizational sponsors, from line man-agers to human resources specialists or executives themselves (McMahon, 2005: 10) who then go on to agree the terms of the coaching intervention (the processes involved are described in more detail in Chapter 3).
A Typical EC Candidate
According to a 1996 survey conducted by Judge and Cowell (1997: 73) a typi-cal EC recipient is a senior to mid-level manager and slightly more than half of the coachees are CEOs or reporting to CEOs. Among them, there are three types of executives who typically participate in coaching (Judge and
