Much has been published on how to improve leadership performance, yet its practice remains uneven. Could coaching hold the key to transferring learning to the workplace, asks Jonathan Passmore
There is no shortage of books on leadership, many of which claim to offer a unique model or a shortcut to greatness. Yet despite such wide access to advice, leadership performance remains mixed.
Of course, there is a leap from reading about something to doing it – I’ve read Pelé’s book on football skills but Fabio Capello didn’t select me for his World Cup squad. This is where coaching comes in.
Coaching can contribute to leadership development in a number of ways. The first is by helping leaders and managers transfer learning from the classroom to the workplace. Coaching helps the learner personalise the teaching material and make links from theory to practice – often missing in training or from abstract case studies and examples – to real-world challenges faced by the individual learner. While limited in scope, research by Olivero et al1 (1997) argues that such benefits could be achieved by combining training with coaching to enhance learning.
A second benefit is skills enhancement. The leader and coach can use coaching to develop the new skills identified from the learning engagement, developing a personal plan for applying them. They can consider barriers that might get in the way and allies who may support their new behaviour change. Forming new habits is difficult and support from our wider network is critical in successfully breaking old habits and building new ones.
A third area is the development of greater self-awareness. This may come from training, yet the Socratic questions of coaching can be particularly useful in bringing new insights and learning. This may be achieved through reflecting on feedback or a discussion about a model, personal strengths and areas for development.
A fourth potential benefit is enhancing leaders’ and managers’ motivation. Managing others can be challenging and isolating. It’s not surprising that having someone to talk to in confidence is viewed by leaders as intrinsically motivating. This may result, in part, from the goal-setting aspect of coaching, which in itself has strong motivational properties, but essentially arises from the feeling that someone is truly listening to them.
The fifth area is in helping leaders develop stronger personal confidence or self regard2. This may come via reflection on strengths and a recognition that these are adequate for achieving the tasks in hand or from developing plans to address perceived weaknesses.
The final area where coaching can have an impact on leadership is through well-being. A host of studies have been undertaken in this area. These include the positive effects of coaching on stress reduction3, 4 and in building resilience and hope5.
Others have argued that the impact of coaching on leaders is slightly different. They highlight the benefits in terms of improved people management, relationships with managers, goal setting and prioritisation, engagement and productivity, and dialogue and communication6 .
Models and frameworks
How can coaches help bring about these positive effects in leaders and their organisations? They need tools that will help them talk about the nature and difficulties of leadership. They need to support managers in order to gain fresh insights on how they can be different and better tomorrow. They need to be able to use leadership models so they can be of maximum service to their client.
Leadership models don’t necessarily help us to apply our new knowledge in a sophisticated way but they do have many benefits, offering a shorthand way to understand complex problems.
First, they offer a lens through which to view the situation, providing positioning points that can frame the problem, a little like longitude and latitude. The model does not exist by itself, but these points help to measure, assess and explore the issue the leader faces.
Second, they offer a common language so the coach and leader can talk about the issue. They provide words and phrases to describe leadership behaviours. They allow a common way for leaders to engage with and discuss the issue, not only with their coach but across the management team.
Third, they can help normalise events for executives and also challenge their perspective when wider issues have been left unconsidered.
Finally, in some cases the model has been developed into a questionnaire, offering feedback for the manager on their personal situation or style. This, along with the common language, can help build a plan of action7.
Dr Jonathan Passmore is director of coaching psychology programmes at the University of East London
Tools of the trade – the advantages
Leadership models can offer:
- a lens to view the situation through, providing positioning points to frame it
- the coach and leader a common language with which to talk about issues
- a way to normalise events
- a way to challenge leaders’ perspectives
- a way to offer feedback through a questionnaire
Two popular models of leadership
Leadership styles
One model I frequently use is the six leadership styles described by Fitzsimmons and Guise8. Leaders often relate well to it. The model is simple to describe and the number of styles small enough to remember without reference to notes. I find many managers note that they use two or three styles frequently and ignore the others.
Discussing the styles with managers offers two useful paths for conversation depending on the client and the stage of the coaching contract and its goals.
The first is to explore why these one or two styles have been ignored – commonly Pace setting and Commanding – often by those keen to be liked and who believe a more authoritative style may result in conflict and negativity. This then allows a discussion about self-esteem, the nature of being a manager/leader and what team members look for in a manager/leader.
The second is to focus on the development of these absent aspects of behaviour, and explore the situations and ways that the manager could authentically use the styles. It’s not about acting out of character, but authentically developing new behaviours so the manager becomes more ‘choiceful’ in how they act to achieve the outcomes they want.
Decision making
I find Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework9 useful for coaching around decision making. The framework allows managers a language for the range of decisions they face. Some are simple or complicated – common sense or specialist knowhow can sort them out. Others are complex, where the relationship between cause and effect is not obvious. Most difficult are chaotic problems where multiple factors mean there is no direct relationship between cause and effect.
Learning points
Coaching can help leaders:
- transfer learning from the classroom to the workplace, personalising the teaching material and making links from theory to practice
- develop new or enhance existing skills, creating a personal plan and identifying obstacles and allies to help them form new habits
- develop greater self-awareness
- enhance their motivation through goal-setting and having a confidante in them
- develop stronger personal confidence or self regard
- enhance well-being
- improve their people management and relationships with others
- set goals and prioritise
- be more productive
- boost their communication skills
References and further information
- G Olivero, K D Bane and R E Kopelman, “Executive coaching as a transfer of training tool: effects on productivity in a public agency”, in Public Personnel Management, 26 (4), pp461-469, 1997.
- W J Evers, A Brouwers and W Tomic, “A quasi-experimental study on management coaching effectiveness”, in Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 58 (3), pp174-182, 2006.
- L M Taylor, “The relation between resilience, coaching, coping skills training, and perceived stress during a career-threatening milestone”, in DAI-B 58/05, p2,738, November, 1997.
- S Palmer and K Gyllensten, “How cognitive behavioural, rational emotive behavioural or multimodal coaching could prevent mental health problems, enhance performance and reduce work related stress”, in Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive Behaviour Therapy 26 (1), pp38-52, 2008.
- S Green, A Grant and J Rynsaardt, “Evidence-based life coaching for senior high school students: building hardiness and hope”, in International Coaching Psychology Review, 2 (1), pp24-32, 2007.
- F Kombarakaran, J Yang, M N Baker and P B Fernandes, “Executive coaching: it works!”, in Consulting Psychology, 60 (1), pp78-90, 2008.
- Using questionnaires in coaching is explored in detail in the Association for Coaching’s second book in a series, Psychometrics in Coaching (J Passmore, Kogan Page, 2008.)
- G Fitzsimmons and S Guise in the Association for Coaching’s fourth book, Leadership Coaching (2010).
- D J Snowden and M Boone, “A leader’s framework for decision making”, in Harvard Business Review, pp69-76, November 2007.
Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 5