Executive Coaching Fifth Quadrant

Prepared in partnership with and for
United Nations and Fifth Quadrant.
Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching
Provides an opportunity for senior
management to:
• Get honest feedback on personal
performance, management and
leadership style and the
organizational culture
• Discuss sensitive issues
• Help think aloud
• Plan and review the desired
outcomes

Executive Coaching is:
• Just-in-time cost-
effective development
option
• Practical, on-the-job,
results-oriented and
time-effective
• Satisfactory process for
self-development

Executive Coaching
• One of the fastest growing
areas of consulting
• Stand-alone and/or a
component of personal
development
programme which may
include training
workshops or action
learning

Executive Coaching is:
• NOT telling someone what to do
• A process of self-discovery
• Extremely demanding consulting intervention

Executive Coaches
• Establishes one-to-one relationship
within the organization and work
context
• Encourages and support:
 Self-awareness and social awareness
 Reflections on dilemmas, choices and
alternatives
 Problem solving and decision-making
 Learning

Roles of the Executive Coach
• Responding to
the needs of each
individual
• The different
roles are
identified in the
Executive
Coaching Arena

The Executive Coaching Arena
DIRECTIVE
FACILITATIVE
CHALLENGING
SUPPORTING
Organizational
Sponsor
Manager
Careers
Adviser
Counsellor
MentorHR Adviser
Goal
Setter
Role
Model
Guide
Catalyst
Listener
Sounding
board
Bridge
Information
Provider
Collaborator
Challenger

• They might not have the
ability to transfer their
knowledge and skills
• They cannot tell someone
how to run his/her
business
• They might not have the
relevant training,
background and
experiences
Executive Coaches are not like
Sports Coaches

• Interpersonal
relationships
• Conflict
Resolution
• Strategy
• Marketing
to
Executive Coaches deal with a wide
range of issues from:

• “flying by the seat of their
pants”
As a result, many Executive
Coaches are

• Provide coaching and mentoring
skills
• Help people understand the
theoretical bases of effective
coaching
• Provide opportunities for
practicing new coaching skills
and interventions
Development programme for
Executive Coaches must:

Core competencies for Executive
Coaches
1. Conceptual
understanding of
the role of the
individual coach
2. The coaching
contract and its
scope, limitations,
pitfalls
3. Understanding
organizations,
human processes
and dynamics
4. Innovation and
creativity
5. Managing
challenging
clients
6. Appreciation of
the
multicultural
context
7. Ethics

Good Executive Coaches
• Give honest, realistic and challenging
feedback
• Good listeners
• Suggest smart action ideas

Good Executive Coaching results in
• Greater self-knowledge
• New perspectives
• Improved performance
• Greater adaptability

Great Executive Coaching
• comes from a depth and quality of the
relationship between the coach and the
client

Coaching Relationship
• Establishing a meaningful relationship between the
Executive Coach and the client is vitally important
• Far more important than the application of theories and
models

Executive Coaches
• Must resist the urge to
impart knowledge or
theories at the expense of
building a good relationship

Mutual respect and
empathy
A clear and shared
agreement of the
coaching
intervention – the
direction and the
desired outcome
An understanding of how
the executive coaching
work will happen and
what will be the roles and
tasks of the coach and the
client
Creating a good coaching relationship
requires a coaching contract

Coaching contract
• Private agreement –
issues of
confidentiality,
financial loyalty, ‘best
interest’, conflict of
interest
• Emphatic
relationship – feeling
safe enough and
valued enough

Foundation for effective
coaching relationship
• Opportunity for understanding
• Build on existing strengths
• Develop skills and encourage experimentation
• Facilitate a sense of achievement
• Prevent ‘relapse’

The way managers think about
organizations
• One of the most
interesting and
fruitful areas of
exploration in a
coaching
relationship
• Any meaningful
coaching
intervention should
explore the basic
assumptions of
managers

Executive coaches
• Raise the managers’ awareness
of how organizations really
work
• Help managers perceive more
clearly how decisions are made,
how change occurs (or fail to)
and how they interact in the
complex web of interaction

Organizations
are social processes

Managers in organizations are engaged in:
• Innovation,
• Leadership, and
• Change

The Role of the Executive
Coach in the organizational
context
Challenging Conventional views of organizations
Concept of stereotypical ‘hero’ leaders
The view that innovation and change can be planned and predicted.
Educating Sharing new perspectives of organizations and leadership
Sharing new perspectives on how innovations and change occurs
Support The concept of being in charge but not in control
Managing the present while leading for the future and managing innovation
Balancing advocacy with inquiry
Develop The ability to hold tension and live with paradox
The individual style and presence of the leader
The ability to develop other people and create a culture for innovation
Awareness of impact on others
The ability to reflect and learn

• Executive coaching is a transformational rather
than a remedial process
• Executive coaches needs certain qualities which
are both a skill and attitude
Facilitating change through
Executive Coaching

Coaching as a strategic process
• To ensure sustainable change,
the Executive Coach may
encourage the client to
undertake any or all of the
following tasks before the
session
1. Develop views on the
changes they envisage in their
working lives
2. Discuss with the manager
about this
3. Get 360-degree feedback
from their place of work
4. Collect broad
data/information about
themselves from friends,
family, customers, etc.

Coaching as a strategic process
(cont’d)
• The coach in turn may
consider a range of actions to
extend the engagement
beyond the actual coaching
session:
1. ‘Shadow’ for a period of time
2. Sit in on meetings, give
feedback
3. Interview colleagues, distil
feedback
4. Facilitate the analysis of
feedback – explore, debrief,
interpret
5. Take part in a three-way
discussion with the line
manager

Strategies during the Coaching Session
Exploring
• Awareness raising
• Clarification of goals,
options, actions
• Patterns of thinking,
feelings, behaving
• Patterns from past to the
present
• Dynamics in the room
• Life story and dynamic
choices, changes, etc.
• Learning styles
• Nothing – providing space
Teaching & Experimenting
• Skills practice/role play/video
• Designing and delivering
training inputs
• Administering psychometric
tests
• Using different media –
artwork, music, movement
• Referring client to another
source of training

Strategies for the client
in between sessions
• Keeping record of significant new
insights
• Practicing new skills and different
behaviours
• Writing up the coaching session
and later comparing with the
coach’s impressions
• Making arrangement with
colleagues and co-workers to
ensure on-going feedback
• Developing supportive networks
• Reading books, articles, using the
web

• How the client might response to the end of the
session
• The significance of transitions for the client
• What other forms of on-going development can be
put into place
• What contract might be needed with the manager
• How to ensure that the client gets on-going feedback
• What other areas of growth have been identified
The coach and the client may
address:

The Executive Coach must
• Use a blend of
skills and strategies
custom-made for
the client
• This strategic mix
will create new
options for the
client rather than
being exposed to
standardized
techniques and
methods

Expectations of the clients
• Appropriate boundaries
and contracts are
established with the
coach
• Confidentiality is assured
• High quality of coaching
provided
• Success of the coaching
session can be
systematically and
rigorously evaluated

Boundaries
• Assumptions about
executive coaching
influences the
expectations and have
an impact on the
evaluation of the
coaching process
Coaching is seen as:
• A social exchange and the client
performance after the coaching
session can be rationally measured
in terms of the cost-benefit for the
organization
• Providing support to key people in
the organization as part of a
strategic process for sustainable
change

Coaching contracts
• The executive coach must examine the
expectations of both the client and the
organization
• The goals for the entire coaching process
and for each specific coaching session
must be identified
• The coaching contract also establishes
clear roles ands responsibilities of all
involved
• Clear coaching contracts setting out
specific goals, the number of coaching
sessions the confidentiality limits and
the nature of any reporting arrangements
helps the coaching sessions
• It is important to establish whether the
‘client’ is the client or the organization
• The coach’s approach must be non-
judgemental and the coaching
relationship must be based on trust in
order to ensure a truly innovative and
creative coaching
• The social and professional roles must
be separated with the coach exercising
only the professional role.

Confidentiality
• Clients expect the coaching process to be entirely confidential which
provides them with a safe space to express their inner most feelings
• The need to assure the client that the coach is on your side is essential
• Without the client’s permission the coach will not share the results of
the coaching sessions with anyone else even though the organization
had paid the coach
• Coaches must be aware of the dangers of dependency and how people
experience difficulties in ending the coaching relationship

High Quality Coaches
• Highly trained
• Come from a variety of
backgrounds
• Never stopped developing
themselves
• Much more eclectic in their
approach
• Seek out and discover new
training and development
opportunities
• Knows about business
strategy, the core business
process and typical
management issues

Supervision of Executive Coaches
• Examining the coaching
approaches used, the
relationships established, the
dynamics created and the
impact, results and outcomes
reached
• Providing opportunities to
reflect on current levels of
skills and the appropriate level
of skill and feedback required
• Opportunity to support
coaches facing potential
difficult issues such as
dependency

Evaluation of Coaching
• Need to establish the
type of support and
help the individual
received from the
Executive Coach
• Quality measures such
as optimism and se;lf-
sufficiency left behind
after the coach has
gone provide an
indication of the
impact of coaching

Executive Coaching Fifth Quadrant

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