Developing leaders and managers via Coaching

Wahab Khan Page 1

Leadership and management development is significant to organisation success.

Organizations invest a lot on training and development of the leaders and managers

as part of talent management and succession planning for many reasons such as

retention and promotion. Some organizations hire new leaders; this will be discussed

separately in detail in recruitment, whereas some develop their own using various

methods. Furthermore, organizations use different methods and tools for the

development of leaders and managers, coaching is one of the key methods used by

organisations. Therefore, developing leaders and managers via coaching will be

specifically discussed in this blog.

It is important to understand coaching, and it will be appropriate to start with some

definitions of coaching first. Lloyd (2005: pg. 133) define “coaching as the art of

facilitating the unleashing of people’s potential to reach meaningful, important

objectives”. Others state that “It is a relationship between the coach and the

coachee, focusing on developmental discussions and on current and future

performance or behaviour” (Boyatzis and Akrivou, 2006 as cited in Rezania and

Lingham, 2009: pg. 578). Furthermore, Kilburg (1996) as cited in Rider (2002: pg.

233) define coaching as “helping relationship between a client (who has managerial

authority and responsibility) and coach 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 organisation within a

formally defined coaching agreement”. CIPD (2013) states that “Coaching and

mentoring are development techniques based on the use of one-to-one discussions

to enhance an individual’s skills, knowledge or work performance”. Thus, coaching is

one of the key methods used for leadership and management development because

of its various advantages, so it essential to know the importance of coaching in

leadership and management development.

Developing leaders and managers via Coaching

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Day (2001) as cited in Vardiman et al, (2006) suggests that there are plenty of

popular organisational practices such as coaching, mentoring, action learning and

360- degree feedback which are used for leadership development and human

capitol. Effective coaching is one of the main core elements for developing leaders

and managers (Gold et al, 2010). Furthermore, Toit (2007) suggests that coaching

environment provide opportunity to offer valuable feed back from those in the

leadership position. Mullins (2010) suggests that the role of existing line managers

play crucial role in developing leadership skills by sharing their tacit knowledge,

unwritten knowledge learnt practically on the job, with potential individuals. IRS

(2003) as cited in Marchington (2011) suggests that coaching has various

advantages, such as it helps in identification of personal learning and development

needs, provide feedback on strength and weaknesses and a developmental tool for

effective learning. This means that coaching can help in identification of

weaknesses, and as a result leaders and managers can be further developed or

those with high potential can be coached for leadership and managerial role.

In addition, Toit (2007) argues coaching is based on active experimentation learning

not on a passive methodology, and coaching as tool play a bigger role in

development of senior management and most importantly when it comes to skills

related to managing employees effectively. Conlon (2004) suggests that coaching is

also a type of informal learning where employees with high potential can learn from

various perspectives, in other words facilitating and encouraging individuals to focus

their attention for further development. However, in the constant shifting world,

workforce should take initiative themselves to develop their skills for effective

leadership (Dalakoura, 2009). In other words, this comes from inside of individual

which is called intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, Clutterbuck (2005) proposed that by

polishing existing skills via coaching, talented individual can jump into next step of

professional ladder. Therefore, Coaching has great importance in leadership and

management development, if proper coaching methods are used, not only

individuals can flourish but also organisations can obtain competitive advantage over

its competitors in terms of saving cost related to recruitment and retention. So, after

learning the importance of coaching, the next significant and critical part is to learn

and understand various types of coaching.

Ulrich (2008) suggests some types of coaching: behavioural coaching and result

coaching. Behavioural coaching facilitates managers to identify and build up their

approach, whereas result coaching facilitates leaders on focusing and the delivery of

required results (ibid). The outcomes come out from behavioural and results

coaching build up the individual leadership brand (ibid). In addition, developing

middle or top level managers, external coaches in majority of the firms around the

globe today use one to one coaching technique which play fundamental role in the

development of leadership skills (Wilson, 2011). In other words, organisations can

effectively develop middle and top level managers with the help of external coaches.

In contrast, Rock and Ruth (2008) argues that study shows that external coaches

Developing leaders and managers via Coaching

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had powerful influence over developing leadership skills, and bringing external

coaches will dramatically increase the cost per person being coached at higher level.

Internal executives and middle managers if used in coaching role can help in

reducing down the massive cost (ibid). Therefore, organisations should develop their

middle level managers in order to do effective coaching, that will not only reduce

their cost and bring organisational change but will also develop effective leadership.

Moreover, Bloch (1995) claims that plenty of firms believed that one-to-one coaching

is one of the main dominant methods which is used in developing the “soft skill”, and

survey conducted by Career management consultancy revealed that almost half of

the respondents agreed that coaching can be used as important method in the

development of future leaders. Case and Kleiner (1993) proposed that there are

plenty of useful coaching techniques, and cautioned that top management should

choose according to the needs of their subordinates. And keep in mind that people

are individuals, and management should make sure that certain coaching technique

works on one might not works on other (ibid). This means that to achieve sustainable

result, management should be careful in applying coaching technique and must

place proper measurement system.

Styhre (2008) suggests that executive coaching is an instituted social exercise which

facilitates more organized and productive self-reflection leading. Jones et al (2006)

argues that executive coaching is a personalised type of learning support, helps in

construction of individual’s strengths and identifying and removing the weaknesses.

Furthermore, face-to-face discussion held on regular bases between coach and the

coachee help not only help in observing the behaviour, but also bringing new forms

of communication and information (Styhre, 2008). Furthermore, Jones et al, (2006)

emphasise executive coaching technique that it could have a positive impact on

leadership development, such as developing new skills, which could assist

executives to accomplish tasks.

Paese (ND) argues that coach must be third party who holds no internal favouritism

or organisational agenda. In addition, great coaches have following roles (ibid):

Catalyst: initiating action that could not have been taken by someone else.

Listener: great listener and acting as a collaborator in understanding difficult issue.

Facilitator: facilitating a “simple and repeatable process” for setting up a focus.

Integrator: connecting ideas, people and theme.

Independent in Perspective: sharing unbiased feedback, opinion and reflection in

order to bring positive outcome.

Honest and accurate: collecting objective and accurate information.

Developing leaders and managers via Coaching

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Moreover, Xavier (2007) argues that one to one coaching is a precious tool in

developing important skills, and senior leaders should coach potential employees in

order to advance to the next level of leadership. Bowles et al (2007) suggest that

coaching can facilitate individuals by encouraging them to exercise new leadership

skills together with continuous feedback during coaching. Likewise, another

important advantage of coaching is that it helps managers to stay on track or in other

words to keep their focus in right direction when encountering difficult situation on

the job (Landale, 2005). Therefore, the above discussion concludes that coaching is

an important tool in developing leadership skills, such as senior managers can be of

assistance to existing and emerging leaders by continuous feedback on the job.

Rock and Donde (2008) argue that managers can be developed to coaching role by

training that cannot only boost their skills but also knowledge as well, and

consequently the newly developed coaches can then further develop new talent.

However, managerial development depends upon the organisational culture, if

learning environment inside organisation is conducive than such development can

take place (ibid). Wilkins (2006) suggests that building effective teams are critical to

business success, and leaders can be facilitated by coaching to build up high

performing team as one leader commented that “with the support of the coach, he

developed techniques to create high performing team”. An alternative approach in

the development of new leaders is that executives generally like coaching, and

senior executives can empower the potential people by sharing their workload with

them to develop themselves (Rock and Donde, 2008). Similarly, Ideus (2005)

proposed that executive leaders can be developed to gain coaching skills which will

bring constructive change as they can than easily develop other senior managers on

one to one coaching.

Features of coaching: (Chapman, 2010)

Usually coaching contains some or all of these features:

1. one-to-one - involving a coach (teacher, trainer, mentor, coach) and learner

(student, trainee, sometimes called the 'coachee')

2. on-going and regular - coaching is commonly a continuing arrangement

3. personalised - by the coach for the individual learner

4. enabling - rather than prescriptive or imposed

5. adapted and adaptable - to the changing needs of the learner

6. planned - the coach normally works to a plan or structure

7. model-based - coaching tends to be based on a structured 'proven' tested

concept or methodology

Developing leaders and managers via Coaching

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8. focused on aims - coaching normally works towards achieving agreed

measurable outcomes or targets

9. measured and recorded - by the coach, and/or the learner

10. time-based - coaching sessions, schedules, and outcomes normally are time-

bound

To sum up the above discussion, coaching is one of the key methods used for

leadership and management development. Coaching helps in identification of

weaknesses, if proper coaching methods are used, not only individuals can flourish

but also organisations can obtain competitive advantage over its competitors in

terms of saving cost related to recruitment and retention. Furthermore, Organisations

and management should be careful in applying coaching technique and must place

proper measurement system.

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acknowledged and reference or link is made to the

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