In terms of inter-organizational leadership, Obolensky (2014)
describes a coach as a leader who assume their followers know what needs to be
done and simply serves the role of supporter or cheerleader from behind the
scenes. This role turns into something quite different when the coach
originates from outside of the organization. Instead of mentoring followers
within the organization, executive coaches are hired as independent consultants
and are considered experts in rounding out the skills of up-and-coming talent.
Executive coaching is becoming increasingly popular and has grown to be an
industry with $1.5 billion in estimated annual revenues with over 20,000 paying
members (Stanley, 2016).
What Is an Executive Coach?
Traditionally, executive coaches were used to fix a problem caused
by bad behavior at the leadership level (Coutu & Kauffman, 2009). When leaders
at the top didn’t know how to manage people, an executive coach was brought in
to help. When executives were weak on financial acumen or strategy development,
executive coaches provided education and practical application opportunities to
strengthen such weaknesses. In summary,
the role of executive coaches has always been to come in and help an existing executive
eliminate a major deficiency. With the passing of time, the role of executive
coaches has changed too. Now, executive coaches are hired to help
high-potential performers develop and strengthen their capabilities (Coutu
& Kauffman, 2009). Instead of eliminating deficiencies, coaches expand and
highlight strengths in order to make high potential employees even more
valuable to the organization.
Who Coaches & Who Needs Coaching?
The best leaders are those used to be followers, and the same
is true for executive coaches. Many executive coaches are retired executives,
including CEOs, university experts, and government officials (Coutu &
Kauffman, 2009). These candidates make the perfect coaches because they’ve
experienced organizational progression in their own careers. Often, these
executives started out at lower levels within their own companies and grew to
an executive position through strong leaders and coaching; this results in a strong
foundation of knowledge and real-life experience.
Risks and Benefits in
Executive Coaching
Risks
Although executive coaches are hired to address an individual’s
business skills, they often turn into psychiatrists. This trend isn’t very
surprising considering how intimately our business lives and personal lives co-exist.
There are key events in both personal and professional lives that shape an individual’s
values and develop their attitudes and behaviors…and consequently their
approach to decision making (LaBier, 2013). The trouble with allowing an executive
coach to double as a life counselor is that it can result in executives who
have a long-term dependency on their coaches. This, of course, is less worrisome
to the coach because “coaches have an economic incentive to ignore the problem
of dependency” (Coutu & Kauffman, 2009). Not all coaches will take
advantage of this situation, but the simple truth is that the longer the coach
stays employed by the executive, the more revenue they earn from the firm
employing both the person being coached.
Benefits
Companies that don’t use executive coaches typically utilize
other leaders within the organization
to serve as a mentor to high-potential employees. This can be less effective
because on-the-job leaders solve problems in ways that fit within their own
unique leadership styles. One of the
benefits of using a professional executive coach is that they are expertly
trained in many different leadership styles, which means they understand the
approaches that work and don’t work for different types of individual (Collier,
2016). According to Collier (2016), “A
good coach will gather not only a lot of data about a coach’s behavior,
leadership styles, and overall effectiveness, but they will go to many sources
to get the clearest picture.” On-the-job mentors simply don’t have time to do
all of this research about the up and coming leaders, so this is one area where
professional executive coaches really bring value.
Do I Need an Executive Coach?
Not yet, but if I am assigned an executive coach one day, I
will consider it to be a sign that I’m moving in the right direction. Executive
coaching used to have a negative connotation associated with it because being
“coached” meant you needed a professional to help you fix your issues. Now,
working with executive coaches “is often considered a badge of honor” because
it means you’ve been identified as a candidate for catapulting high into the
executive ranks (Coutu & Kauffman, 2009). Now a day, “It’s become so common
for top executives to be coached that it’s viewed as a perk, a sign of having
arrived at the top” (Stanley, 2016).
Coaching has become more and more popular with organizations
because it helps them prepare high potential talent early and secure a more
stable future for their company. Coaches spend a lot of their time working with
executives on things I consider “people skills” like listening, showing
empathy, developing interpersonal relationships, and being self-aware (Stanley,
2016). These are qualities that I believe stand out as strong points for me
already. Although one of the first steps of coaches is to perform an assessment
that of the executives in order to determine strengths and weaknesses, the fact
is that most executives are already well aware of where they shine and where
they struggle, even if they don’t say it out loud. Some of the areas where I
would benefit most from executive coaching include building upon technical and
financial acumen and comfortably networking with superiors.
Before organizations decide whether or not to hire an
executive coach, they should ask themselves a few key questions, as suggested
by Mckenna (2009): (1) How valuable is the coach to the organization? (2) what
challenges is the high potential executive currently facing? (3) How willing is
the executive to be coached? (4) Are there alternatives to coaching available? (5)
Are other leaders in the organizations supportive of the attempt at coaching?
As many companies face an increasingly aging workforce, there
seems to be an increased focus on identifying young talent early in their
careers. In other worse, executive coaches aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. In
fact, almost all of the largest companies hire executive coaches today
(Stanley, 2016). In the coming years, developing economies like Russia, China,
India, and Brazil are going to have “tremendous appetites” for executive coaches
because they have a very youthful population of management. If executive coaches
continue to show their value as they have for the past several years, I expect
their popularity to continue to grow in corporate America as well.
Resources
Coutu, D., & Kauffman, C.
(2009). What can Coaches Do for You? Harvard Business Review, 87(1),
91-97
Collier, C. (2016). How Does
Executive Coaching Really Work? Forbes.
Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/03/21/how-does-executive-coaching-really-work/#57396ee84003
LaBier, D. (2013). Why CEOs don’t
want executive coaching. Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-labier/why-ceos-dont-want-execut_b_3762704.html
Mckenna, D. (2009). Who needs
an executive coach? Forbes. Retrieved
from https://www.forbes.com/2009/08/04/need-executive-consultant-ceonetwork-leadership-coach.html
Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing
Paradox and Uncertainty (2nd ed.). New York, New York: Gower Publishing.
Stanley, O. (2016). The No. 1
thing CEOs want from executive coaching? Self-awareness. Quartz. Retrieved from https://qz.com/670841/the-no-1-thing-ceos-want-from-executive-coaching-self-awareness/
No comments:
Post a Comment