Executive coaching for leadership development
The popularity of executive coaching is increasing continuously. Executive coaching may no longer be considered just as the latest trend in management. In ever increasing complexity of business environments and increasing pressures on executive performance, executive coaching is becoming necessity for reformulating values and goals and reaching solutions. Most importantly, it is evolving as a natural form of leadership facilitating leadership development (Volckman, 2005), retention of top staff, management succession planning or ensuring success after promotion or new hires (Zeus and Skiffington, 2005).
Executives have to provide top performance in complex and dynamic situations, solve ill-structured problems and effectively lead people in the context of continuous and turbulent changes. They also need to satisfy demands from shareholders, achieve employee satisfaction and maintain accountability for strategic decisions (Greene and Grant, 2003; Flaherty, 1999). This requires an excellent level of physical, mental and emotional strength that may not be easy to sustain over longer time span (Sieler, 2003), (Berman and Bradt, 2006). Executive coaching cannot only help high achievers to sustain high performance, it is also crucial to achieve a higher level of performance and excellence (Birchall, 2004).
There is an increasing number of studies that investigate empirically the effectiveness of executive coaching. For example, Manchester Consulting Inc. conducted one of the first major studies into the impact of executive coaching. In a study of 100 executives who received coaching, they found that the estimated return on investment (ROI) was 5.7 times the initial investment expenditure (Zeus and Skiffington, 2005). Gegner (1997) investigated the benefits of executive coaching from interpersonal and intrapersonal perspectives. Executives, who took part in this study, reported that they have become more aware of self and others, they took more responsibility for their actions and they achieved positive changes in performance as a result of coaching. According to the CIPD Annual Survey Report on Training and Development (2005), 85% percent of survey participants undertook leadership development activities. The main leadership skills gaps reported included: leading people and people management, leading and managing change, strategic thinking and coaching and developing staff. Interestingly, 84% of respondents indicated external executive coaching as one of the most effective development activities. According to a survey that involved 410 leaders from the UK and 4559 leaders from 42 countries (Bernthal and Wellins, 2006), the respondents from both UK and the global survey identified coaching with external coaches as one of the preferred leadership development methods.
The issues of leadership development have been subject of much research (e.g. Goleman, 1995; Goleman et al. 2002; Knippenberg and Hogg, 2003; Owen et al. 2004; Goleman, 2004; Furnham, 2005; Neuschel, 2005; Porter et al. 2006; Jokinen, 2005). Likewise, the theories and concepts of leadership and the key issues that lead to leadership success have been researched for decades (e.g. Bass, 1981; Bass, 1985; Bennis, 1989 & 1999; Goleman et al., 2002, Palmer, 2001). The main emphasis has usually been on understanding how to make use of new models and concepts to make leaders more effective.
Many researches agree that leaders should make a difference and have profound effect on organisational future. It is believed that leaders conceive and initiate strategies that create and sustain competitive differentiation and advantage. The organisational success depends largely on how effective leaders manage both interpersonal and intrapersonal skills (Adair, 1997), and this is becoming increasingly important particularly in the context of “new leaders” (Goleman, 1995). According to Goleman (2002), ‘the fundamental task of leaders is to prime good feeling in those they lead…and the primal job of leadership is emotion’.
Even though there are many theories and concepts of how to become an effective and efficient leader, many leaders find difficult to cope with the increasing demand on their excellence in the environments of continuous changes and uncertainty of globalisation. It appears that there is a lack of an effective and efficient leadership management approaches focussed on leaders, their subordinates, and their work. To deal with this situation, transformation of leaders in terms of self development, thinking, behaviour and beliefs, is necessary to cope with a shift towards an uncertainty of a changing era (Owen et al. 2004). The question is what is an effective tool for leadership development to cope with the demand for leadership excellence? It is becoming increasingly apparent that executive coaching can equip leaders to face such challenges more effectively and easily (Morgan et al, 2005).
Specific benefits of executive coaching for leadership development include (Zeus and Skiffington, 2005):
- Increased productivity,
- Improved communication,
- Increased staff commitment and loyalty,
- Decreased stress levels and tension within companies,
- Facilitating leaders to cope with global business hours, language barriers, differing work ethics and economic fluctuations,
- Preventing executive derailment,
- Improving interpersonal skills,
- Facilitating strategic thinking and risk management,
- Developing a culture of trust and personal responsibility,
- Developing leadership qualities associated with the success: cognitive capacity, social capabilities, personality style, motivation, knowledge and expertise,
- Sustaining a momentum,
- Developing a team spirit,
- Recognising new competencies to be learnt,
- Helping others to increase their levels of responsibility.
According to Offerman (2004), executive coaching can help leaders get at truth within their companies, as they can often get into trouble when they are surrounded by followers who fool them with flattery and isolate them from uncomfortable realities.
Individual and group executive coaching as well as personal and professional excellence related training courses provided by Senior Executive Excellence provide a holistic and interdisciplinary support for executives. These services are designed to address a wide range of issues enabling clients to achieve their full potential and excel in performance.
Further details can be obtained at www.seniorexecutiveexcellence.com.
References
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- Bass, B.M. (1981). Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. Free Press, New York.
- Bass, B.M. (1985). Leadership and performance Beyond Expectations. Free Press, New York.
- Bennis, W. (1989). On Becoming A Leader. Hutchinson, London.
- Bennis, W. (1999). The Leadership Advantage. Leader to Leader. 12, pp.18-23.
- Bernthal P.R. and Wellins R.S. (2006). United Kingdom Global Comparisons, Leadership Forecast 2005/2006, Best Practices for Tomorrow’s Global Leaders. Development Dimensions International Inc, Pittsburgh.
- Berman W.H. and Bradt G. (2006). Executive coaching and consulting:” Different strokes for different folks”. Professional Psychology – Research and Practice, 37(3), pp.244-253.
- Birchall B. (2004). Top performance requires a good coaching. Money Management, 18 (1), pp.14.
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- Furnham A. (2005). The people business: Psychological Reflection on Management. Macmillan, Wale.
- Gegner C. (1997). Summary of Executive Coaching Research Project. www.coachingnetwork.org.uk
- Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence & Working with emotional intelligence. Bloomsbury, London.
- Goleman, D. (1996). Emotional Intelligence. Bloomsbury, London.
- Goleman, D. (2000).’Leadership that gets results’. Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp. 78-91.
- Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., and Mckee, A. (2002). ‘The New Leaders’: transforming the art of leadership into the science of result. Clays Ltd, St Ives Plc, Great Britain.
- Greene J. And A.M. Grant (2003) Solution-focused Coaching: Managing People in a Complex World. Momentum.
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- Neuschel R. P. (2005). The Servant Leader : Unleashing the Power of Your People. Northwestern University Press, Illinois.
- Offerman L R., (2004), When followers become toxic, Harward Business Review, 82(1), 54, January 2004.
- Owen H., Hodgson, V., and Gazzard, N. (2004). The leadership Manual: Your complete practical guide for effective leadership. Biddles, Great Britain.
- Palmer B., Walls, M., Burgess, Z. and Stough, C. (2001). Emotional Intelligence and Effective Leadership. Journal of Leadership & Organisation Development, 22 (1), pp. 5-10.
- Porter, K., Smith, P. and Fagg, R. (2006). Leadership and Management: for HR Professional. Biddles ltd, Norfolk, Great Britain.
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