| |
| |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Get
Our FREE Working Resources Newsletter |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Things That Get in the Way of Executive Coaching
Things That Get in the Way of Executive Coaching
The following article is based on the book Your Executive Coaching
Solution: Getting Maximum Benefit from the Coaching Experience,
by Joan Kofodimos, Davies-Black Publishing, 2007.
Too many executives receive poor or no coaching. They miss opportunities
to become more effective in their positions of influence and are
often denied promotions they deserve.
Some leaders struggle in their careers,
failing to recognize that hiring an executive coach can help
them enormously. It’s
the right tool to alleviate common leadership problems, but executives
frequently don’t take advantage of it. They don’t know
how to get the most from coaching to improve their performance
and enhance their career growth.
While hiring the wrong coach can be
a waste of time and money, hiring the right coach can also be
wasteful if the executive isn’t
fully engaged in the process. As an executive, you can get more
out of coaching when you are fully informed about things that can
get in the way of your progress.
What Is Executive Coaching?
Broadly defined, executive coaching
is a one-on-one consulting relationship dedicated to improving
high-level managers’ leadership
capabilities and performance. It’s
a uniquely effective developmental approach that has become increasingly
popular in U.S. corporations.
Close to 60 percent of U.S. corporations
employ coaches, and approximately 10,000 executive coaches are
practicing today. Hiring decisions
have evolved from seeking help to handle “problem people” to
bona fide status symbol for the enlightened or high-potential leader.
Coaching helps conquer ingrained leadership behaviors in ways
that few other developmental approaches can muster. Senior executives
value the privacy the experience affords, while managers appreciate
learning how to coach their reports.
The quality of the relationship between
manager and employee is a major predictor of the latter’s
intentions to remain in an organization. Coaching helps managers
talk with subordinates about their needs, leading to a big payoff
in developing positive relationships. Thus, coaching has a trickle-down
effect throughout the organization.
Risky Business
Despite the explosion in coaching services, working with coaches
can be risky. There are no generally accepted standards for membership
in the profession. A few organizations purport to screen and train
coaches, but their authority is not universally accepted.
Many of the great executive coaches lack official credentials
or membership in a trade organization. Many come from related fields
like psychology, human resources or management. And there are experienced
coaches, with good track records, who come from sports, real estate
and unorthodox backgrounds.
Apparently, good coaches without credentials abound, as do bad
ones with good credentials. This makes it difficult to know how
to choose the right coach. The most serious consequences from engaging
an ineffective coach range from wasting money and time to damaging
careers. This lack of clear standards for a popular profession,
whose practitioners earn impressive fees, has been discussed in
the New York Times, USA Today, Fast Company and Fortune.
Despite concerns, however, a common discipline does exist and
has been evolving for more than 25 years. Executives are now forewarned:
To get the most from coaching, you must be an informed partner.
The Coaching Partnership
The more you know about what goes on
in the coaching process, the better you’ll be able to make a good choice of coach,
and the more you’ll be an active participant in your coaching
goals.
When executives truly understand what’s involved in creating
lasting change and new behaviors, they’re well on their way
to success, no matter the quality of the coach. In
the final analysis, a leader—not the coach—is responsible
for making change happen.
What You Need to Know
As an active participant in the coaching process, you are required
to:
| • |
Understand
executive coaching, what it can accomplish and its limitations |
| • |
Realize
why specific strategies are necessary to overcome special
barriers to executive development |
| • |
Decide
whether and how coaching is likely to help you become more
effective |
| • |
Discover
how to assess potential coaches and choose the best fit
for your particular needs |
| • |
Recognize
the critical steps in the coaching process and learn how
to manage them with the aid of your coach |
| • |
Learn
not only how coaching can help you change your own behavior,
but also how it can help you influence colleagues to perceive
you in the way you want to be perceived |
|
The Road to Enlightenment
Executive coaching is designed to effect sustained behavioral
changes to improve performance. To achieve this goal, the coaching
program must deliver on these prerequisites:
| 1 |
Provide
insight into your leadership behavior and style: You
must have a clear understanding of your current behaviors
and of how colleagues perceive you. This is the first
step, and it often creates difficulties.
Executives often assume their current approach is the
right one and are blind to its downside. You aren’t
likely to change if you embrace this idea. You must request
feedback on the effects of your style and actions. While
this may be difficult to hear or fully appreciate, your
coach can facilitate the feedback process. |
| 2 |
Clarify your
purpose and interests: One
of coaching’s basic
premises is that the way you lead is intimately connected
to who you are as a person.
To improve your leadership skills, you must bolster
your integrity by strengthening the connections between
your inner self and your external actions. |
| 3 |
Improve interpersonal
relationships: This is
as vital to coaching’s success
as is improving performance. People’s previous
experiences with you and their preexisting judgments
should be addressed.
Involving colleagues in your development process can
help change their perceptions of you. In turn, this will
make it easier for you to alter patterns of interaction
with them. This step, however, is far from easy, and
it requires courage coupled with attuned coaching. |
| 4 |
Broaden your
perspective: Executives succeed because of their strong
abilities to conceptualize and think strategically, but
they can sometimes become too attached to being right.
In most real-life situations, there are multiple correct
answers. The ability to see and understand increasing
complexity is essential. Coaching helps develop this
perspective. |
| 5 |
Develop new leadership
skills: What are the key activities in a new role? Where
should a newly appointed leader focus attention and energy?
A skilled coach can help with role expectations and skills-building. |
| 6 |
Identify and
overcome barriers to change: Change should occur over
time, with implementation assistance from your coach.
A coach helps you practice new behaviors in ways that
gradually build skills.
You and your coach will encounter resistance and denial,
especially when dealing with ingrained habits. Many behaviors
have served as strengths in the past, but they now hinder
you. New behaviors often feel difficult and uncomfortable.
It’s up to you to develop awareness of personality
roadblocks that trap you in old patterns. |
| 7 |
Improve your
ability to learn: One
of coaching’s most important
goals is to teach you to internalize the ability to question,
learn and continually grow. You must be able to modify
your style and behavior as situations demand.
This involves learning to step back, identify your and
others’ interests, and choose actions that will
satisfy most. You must reflect on your actions and their
effects, seeking others’ feedback about your impact
and modifying subsequent actions on the basis of this
information. |
|
Boulders Along the Road
Attending a leadership-development
training program or receiving feedback from a survey won’t
create real, sustainable improvement. Executives face other unique
challenges when it comes to change:
| • |
Executive
positions are complicated by power and pressures. |
| • |
The
type of person who seeks and achieves a high-level position
is often hard-driving, highly confident, and not reflective
or introspective. |
|
These are significant barriers, even
though executives may say they’re motivated to change. But
change isn’t easy.
And for highly successful people, it’s even harder to see
how and why to change.
Here are five key potential hurdles to developing executives and
convincing them to change their behaviors:
| 1 |
Lack
of authentic feedback: The more authority you have, the
less likely you are to seek and receive authentic feedback.
You may present an air of confidence and dominance that
discourages meaningful interactions.
In addition, you may think others are judging you, prompting
you to become cautious about what you say and do. This
increases distance in relationships, which minimizes opportunities
for useful feedback.
Finally, you may have isolated yourself from others
by relying on a select group of trusted advisors who
protect you from distractions and annoyances. |
| 2 |
Lack of time or
value placed on reflection: Most
executives face enormous, continuous and widely varying
demands on their time. The likelihood of having time to
reflect on behavior is minimal. Furthermore, it’s
not in the nature of most hard-driving, results-oriented
personalities to be introspective. |
| 3 |
Reluctance to reveal
weaknesses to others: This is a major barrier to getting
leaders to change. They strive to continually project an
aura of confidence and competence.
Complicating matters, the organization and your peers may
discourage you from appearing vulnerable. Demonstrating
your weaknesses to outsiders, they reason, can have a detrimental
effect on investors’ confidence. |
| 4 |
Reluctance to
acknowledge weaknesses to oneself: Not only will executives
avoid letting others see their vulnerabilities, but they
will also steer clear of acknowledging them internally.
It can be scary to think you may be wrong.
When
your behaviors lead to positive business results, you
may rationalize weaknesses in interpersonal style.
If it’s not broken, you
may think, why fix it? But what works for you today
may not carry you through tomorrow. Denial works for
only so long before complexity, stress and challenges
take their toll. |
| 5 |
Fear of letting
go of a previously successful style: If
your leadership style has been working just fine for a
few years, you may fear that modifying it puts your effectiveness
at risk. But in the words of accomplished executive coach
Marshall Goldsmith, “What got you here won’t
get you there.” |
|
How Coaching Addresses the Challenges of Executive Change
The challenges and barriers inherent in executive change suggest
some coaching strategies:
| • |
Procure
and provide authentic feedback:
• Ensure a confidential setting
• Use specific descriptions of behavior |
| • |
Make
the benefits of behavioral change compelling:
• Reveal how behavior
conflicts with values
• Reveal how behavior impedes desired outcomes |
| • |
Design
a path to behavioral change:
• Suggest behaviors that
will support desired outcomes
• Create scripts that put new behaviors and dialogue into action |
| • |
Ensure
privacy:
• Create confidential
space to discuss weaknesses and practice skills
• Gradually expand efforts to riskier areas and relationships |
| • |
Involve
others:
• Share information about
developmental efforts
• Enlist colleagues’ feedback and support |
| • |
Link
training to real-life challenges:
• Tailor skills to the
executive’s individual style
• Get the executive to apply skills to daily work |
|
No coach, no matter how talented, can
effect change and development in a leader who fails to understand
how barriers can sabotage one’s
efforts.
When executives agree to change and improve, coaching works. When
they see themselves as responsible for making change, coaching
once again works. The return on investment for organizations is
exponential.
Working
Resources is a Leadership Consulting, Training and Executive Coaching
Firm Helping Companies Assess, Select, Coach and Retain Emotionally
Intelligent People; Emotional Intelligence-Based Interviewing and
Selection; Multi-Rater 360-Degree Feedback; Career Coaching; Change
Management; Corporate Culture Surveys and Executive Coaching.
Dr. Maynard Brusman
Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach
Trusted Advisor to Senior Leadership Teams
Subscribe to Working Resources FREE E-mail Newsletter.
E-mail:mbrusman@workingresources.com . Type Subscribe Newsletter.
Voice: 415-546-1252 Web:www.workingresources.com
E-mail This Article to a Collegue...
Return
to Professional Effectiveness Articles Index
|
|
