companies wasting money on executive coaching? This question is not about coach credentials or coach experience or coaching methodology. Rather, it's about the people who are coached: Which executives are most likely to benefit from coaching? This question is considered in the section titled Sustainability of Learning and/or Behavior Change as a Result of Coaching. I suggest the use of a typology for evaluating prospective coaching engagements.
DemographicsAn overview of the demographics is presented in Table 1. The unusually high response rate (82%) is attributed to strong relationships I established and maintained with many clients as well as to the persistent combination of written, phone, and e-mail follow-up efforts. The great majority (79%) of the executive participants were in the 40-50 year age group, male, and held at least director-level responsibility in their places of
Psychologists working in the emerging competency area of “executive coaching” must promote a more complete understanding of what constitutes effectiveness in this arena-particularly when the expected outcome is sustained behavior change. Experienced psychologists must accept accountability for the need to inform and educate corporate decision makers about the core skills, competencies, experience, and related professional issues critical for successful outcomes. These educative efforts are essential if executive coaching for sustained behavior change is to be established as a respected consultative area adding value to organizationally based leadership development initiatives. The purpose of this article is to begin the dialogue among psychologists about the need to become more proactive in our educative efforts with these decision makers.
An in-depth case study is used to illustrate the transition senior consultants can make from the role of executive coach to a role conceptualized by the author as trusted leadership advisor (TLA) in long-term engagements with senior business executives. In this engagement, spanning several years, the client ultimately became CEO of a global entity. Factors addressed in the case include the client's development issues, his progress, and the challenge of his simultaneously making developmental progress while managing a difficult boss and understanding how the company culture in some ways exacerbated his leadership issues. A number of key practice factors are specified as potential guidance for practitioners already working or aspiring to work with CEOs and other senior business leaders. These factors, embedded in the application of an integrated practice model, include how the TLA guided and conceptualized the engagement, useful tools including written summaries and constructive triangulation, and the management of multiple roles.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.