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Coaching   
 

EXECUTIVE COACHING: Frequently Asked Questions

What is executive coaching?

Executive coaching is a collaborative and unique relationship between an individual and a coach, the aims of which are to bring about sustained behavioural change and to transform the quality of the individual's (or professional’s) working and personal life. Although executive coaching always focuses on the individual’s working life, coaching sessions frequently centre on interpersonal development, personal change and transformation.

How was executive coaching developed?

The term  “executive coaching” developed as a component of Executive leadership programmes in the USA in the late 1980’s.
Executive coaches work with individuals or teams within large organisations. Some areas of individual executive coaching include
  • leadership development
  • interpersonal and communication skills
  • career coaching to enhance personal satisfaction and career opportunities
  • specific skills coaching
  • executive strategic planning as well as problem solving
  • performance coaching
  • management of time, conflict resolution, stress and other challenging performance issues  

How can executive coaching help poor performance?   

It has to be stated that at some stage in the process, executive coaching will always address performance at work. However executive coaching specifically requested to help poor performance at work will look at helping to clarify the client’s current competencies in his or her job. A medical manager may feel that he or she is underperforming in one or more aspects of the management role and may request coaching. For example concerns may have been raised about his or hers leadership skills.

The following cases are not based on individuals, but rather the types of challenges that coaching can be used to help.


Case Study

JB is a clinical director in his early forties. He works in a busy Medical Department. His Annual Appraisal, although highlighting his excellent clinical skills was very critical of his leadership skills. He knows that he is a very shy man who whenever possible prefers to retreat to the quiet of his office to get on with mounds of paperwork. He has recognised for some time that his leadership skills are poor but he has neither had the time nor inclination to pursue any formal leadership programme. After some years of dedicated high quality services, he has just been turned down for the post of Medical Director, for the reasons given above. The Trust Chief Executive recommends some development and JB takes up the offer of executive coaching.  

Because JB was unsure of specific areas that he needed to work on, he and his coach first developed, and then prioritised, a list of leadership competencies. Clarifying the competencies and expectations of his role was very helpful to JB. He had always pretty much assumed that leadership skills were innate and not easily learned.
At the onset of coaching the coach administered the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a simple instrument that looks at how individuals prefer to receive information, make decisions, relate to work colleagues, and generally conduct their working lives. The emotional competencies of JB were also assessed by the coach.
With several 2- hour monthly sessions over the following 6 months, JB and the coach developed goals and action plans to improve his leadership skills. At the end of each session, JB received “homework” to try out in his workplace. He was actively encouraged to ring the coach between sessions for support, if he wished.


Coaching and managing conflict

Case-Study

DS is a 45-year-old senior partner in a 6 person GP practise. He is a self described “nice guy” who is having difficulty with 2 recently employed GP’s who are causing dissension amongst staff. DS avoids conflict whenever possible. The situation has reached the point where morale is deteriorating amongst all staff and patients have complained to the practise manager. DS employed a coach and during the coaching sessions he was able to acknowledge that he had always believed that if one is nice to others, they should be nice in return. It became clear that he regularly uses his “niceness” to get his own way and to control colleagues. The coach and DS also discussed the potential benefits of a certain degree of conflict within a work setting and the undesirability of completely avoiding it. The coach and DS developed a model of conflict resolution which DS found fairly easy to put into practise.

Possible causes of “difficulty” in the above scenario
  1. DS’s desire to control colleagues.
  2. Conflict can be a function of differences in age, gender, culture and education. It is of note that the 2 recently employed GP’s above are in their late 20’s, female, and graduates from France and Germany respectively. DS as their manager needs to be able to facilitate free and frank discussion that allows the 3 doctors to understand their differences and how these impact on their working together.
  3. If communications within the practise are unclear the 2 new doctors may be unsure of what is expected of them.
  4. Stressors in the workplace such as inadequate monies for training or even poor safety conditions can cause distress and conflict.

DS needs to be able to do the following:
Firstly to be able to acknowledge that unless the matter is resolved then there will continue to be wider ramifications for the practise as a whole.
DS’s coaching sessions should help him to:
  1. Identify the cause of the conflict.
  2. Ask both GPs for suggested solutions
  3. Offer win-win solutions
  4. Give feedback
  5. Be directive in a non threatening manner.
  6. In the above case it would be very helpful at the outset for DS and his 2 new colleagues to complete the MBTI and to have feedback from the coach. If they were to agree to share their results, it will help them to gain a greater understanding of their working styles and preferences.

Coaching as a tool to help managers to delegate

Many managers and clinicians state that they have difficulty in the delegation of tasks. Delegating involves coaching, in that it offers the opportunity for employees to learn new skills, develop a sense of self worth and also to have the chance to be more independent and accountable. Effective delegation should not simply involve a manager or clinician “dumping” their workload onto others. Some managers resist delegating tasks because
  1. They always need to feel in control.
  2. They have little interest in the people that they manage.
  3. They do not trust the competence of others.
  4. They fear that they may lose power or position or be manipulated.

Coaching may assist a manager or clinician in drawing up some sensible guidelines for delegating. It may help the manager to decide:
  • What tasks can be effectively delegated?
  • Is there time to delegate and what does the task involve?

To delegate effectively there is the need to allocate adequate resources, begin with an easy task, reward the correct performance and gradually increase the task difficulty.
Coaching will stress the importance of ongoing guidance, support and encouragement and of course most importantly-ensuring that feedback is given.

A case for coaching in the team

John is a manager at Sharecare Ambulance Trust. He is a relatively new appointee and was appointed against a strong field.

In his new post, he started fairly quickly to have some work related problems. His colleagues complained that he was unapproachable, intimidating and “bit their heads off”.
Sally, his line manager felt concern about this as she believed harmony and good relationships were key priorities within the clinical team. After one of John’s fellow managers had complained to her on two occasions, she decided to tackle John about these areas. Complaints were rare and she took them very seriously. From a technical perspective, John’s work was excellent and she did not wish to see him fail to develop on the basis of his poor interpersonal style and indifferent team working style.

Questions

  1. What should Sally do next?
  2. What might help John?
  3. If Sally meets John to discuss the issues, what approach might work best?

At the discussion, which took place during a pre-appraisal session, John stated that he viewed his colleagues as inflexible and unwilling to change, and gave Sally some examples. Although Sally partly agreed that there were challenges on  both sides, she also felt  that the way John had dealt with it could have inflamed the situation. She asked John to put himself in the shoes of his colleagues. Although he initially thought that it was “a waste of time”, he came round to seeing the issues on both sides. He agreed with Sally’s suggestion that discussions between them such as this could be of benefit to him; he particularly saw the need in respect of his personal development and the need to be able to demonstrate team working skills (Knowledge and Skills Framework, Leadership Qualities Framework).
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