LEADERSHIP COACHING AS A GROWTH CYCLE: FROM TRANSITION TO TRANSITION A James LoPresti, Ph.D., PCC;  Edward Mwelwa, Ph.D., PCC

 

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him to discover it within himself.”

― Galileo Galilei

Introduction

 

Coaching is, when done well, a growth cycle process for both the client and the coach. The cycle we propose starts in transition; an impulse, compulsion, or recommendation to seek change. From there, the relationship moves to the real job of coaching; the transformational work toward the client’s goal or objective. Working in close collaboration, the coach and client create a shift in the coaching dynamic from “I” to “We” through the evolving dialogue (Glaser 2016). Our primary focus, here, is on individual coaching rather than team coaching.

 If the client and the coach do their work well, the resulting leadership transformation in the client – improved skills, enhanced competencies, behavioral changes – should naturally lead to a new transition to a higher level of leadership capability and, perhaps, even promotion. Transformation for the coach, on the other hand, may be a new insight into the use of intuition in his or her questioning methodology, a deeper sense of vocational purpose, or, perhaps, a new or renewed sense of accomplishment and pride in a job well done. The coach’s transformation, therefore, can become his or her next step, or transition, toward greater effectiveness and efficiency in his or her practice.

In short, what we wish to emphasize in this discussion is that not only is the leadership coaching engagement a cycle of growth, from transition to transformation and back to transition, but that it also can and should be a reciprocal one for both client and coach.

Transition

 

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”

― Isaac Asimov

        Transition is defined as ‘change or passage from one state to another; the period of time during which something is changed from one state to another.’ The leadership coaching growth cycle begins at some point of transition for the client. Typically, clients find themselves stuck in an uncomfortable place or stage in their career. They may be stagnating in their position, or they may have lost their initiative or sense of purpose for the work they have been doing for decades or merely a couple of years. They wake up one morning to the hard reality that they need to make a change. Sometimes the need for change is recommended by a boss or HR. In these cases, coaching has to be owned by the client for it to be meaningful. We, as coaches, always find our clients at some level of transition, eager, sometimes desperate, to move from somewhere, to somewhere. The destination may not always be crystal clear for the client, but the impulse to begin the journey, to change, is strong and motivating. The coach’s job is to be a catalyst for effective and actionable change for each individual with whom he or she engages.  

         Coaching is not mentoring, nor is it counseling or training. Occasionally, in the client development process, a coach may act as trusted advisor or counselor. That, however, is the exception and not the rule. The coach’s primary objective is to facilitate the client’s transition.   Fortunately, there is consensus among most in the professional coaching community about what a coach is not:

• Directive advisor: this takes away control from the client and creates dependence on the coach
• Cheerleader: the client fails to develop self-motivation and relies on an external source of drive; the coach’s praise and accolades
• Therapist: it is clearly not a coach’s role to resolve the client’s past, unresolved emotional issues
• Evaluator: this approach has a judgmental function associated with it and can hinder the development of trust between coach and client
• Inauthentic: lack of transparency from the coach can create mistrust and interfere with the coaching process

On the other hand, what a coach is can be summed up as someone who rigorously practices self-awareness (Siminovitch 2017).  Great coaches are continually assessing and evaluating their skills, challenges, strengths, and personal goals through a reflective practice, such as journaling or routine discussions with another or other coaches. Great coaches are emotionally intelligent and genuinely curious about the world around them. They are non-judgmental, caring and compassionate, build strong relationships, listen acutely, know their own boundaries and respect those of others. More importantly, they use their intuition and presence to help guide the incisive questions they ask their clients. These qualities are a result of their keen and constant focus on their own personal growth and development. In essence, that personal growth is a transition in the coach’s skill and competency level.

What a coach needs to fully comprehend is that even if he or she is coaching two CFOs from the same industry, with the same issue of being stuck in the same job for eight years, and possessing the same goal to move to the next level; clients are unique and distinct as individual human beings and in what they bring to coaching. Yes, they are both at a transitional point in themselves and their careers, but that is where the similarity ends. Although the methodology the coach uses will be fairly standard – probing questions, intuitive responses, deep, active listening – the process itself will be continually shaped and reshaped by the depth of connection and interaction between client and coach, as well as by the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical uniqueness of each client. For the coach, every client, and every client session, is a transition to a unique experience of a particular mood, energy level, commitment, focus or distraction, etc. that is wholly distinct within that encounter.    

Therefore, it is incumbent on the coach to be clearly aware of not only the discrete differences between clients, but also between each session with the same client. In other words, even though we begin to identify and develop a history with the client – opinions, insights, assumptions, educated guesses about him or her – we must be careful not to fall into a coaching routine that recycles old questioning and methodologies that may be of no further practical use.  Each session has the potential to be a breakthrough experience with a transformative quality, transitioning the client and the coach, perhaps, to a whole new level of engagement. 

Client Transformation

 

“Transformation does not happen by learning new information. It happens when you change how you view and react to other people, events, and things around you.”

― Med Jones

Transformation is defined as ‘a change in form, appearance, nature, or character; a change or alteration, especially a radical one.’  Clearly, the heart and soul of coaching is realistic and sustainable change. The coach and the client begin the process by exploring the local habitation of the client:

• Where are you right now, in your career, in your mission, in your vision, in your professional cycle, as well as in your personal life?
• What is the pain point, frustration, apprehension, fault or flaw, or aggregate of some or all of these that compel you to seek change?
• Why the change now?
• Where, through this journey of change, do you want and need to find yourself at the end?

Once the client has decided that he or she can no longer accept the status quo, and answers the questions with honesty, candor, insight, and integrity, the transition towards transformation can begin.

As coaches, we ask probing questions that help us to gain insight into where our clients have been, where they are now, and where they wish to be. We explore their professional personas, their achievements, their promotions, their political gains and sacrifices. In short, our questions should promote deep reflection within our clients, encouraging them to appreciate and value who they really are, including recognizing vulnerability as a source of strength with the potential to influence others positively. In the beginning, we just get a peek at the man or woman behind the professional curtain – the mother or father, son or daughter, the husband or wife. The details are always different, but the situation is overall the same. Everything that encompasses who the client is – his or her beliefs, values, aspirations, dreams, hopes, fears, and challenges – are brought to the coaching experience for deep and meaningful exploration. Therein lies the power of coaching, and coaches have a tremendous influence on their clients’ lives (not to mention organizations) because they stimulate clients to deeply reflect, reframe, and adjust behavior to the realities of the current situation. In terms of the coach/client relationship, coaches become trusted partners with their clients and their work occurs at the client’s most vulnerable times when he or she could be highly influenced by the coach’s ideas.

Therefore, coaches need a good dose of humility and a deep understanding of their power to influence. The coach’s responsibility is considerable, yet many coaches are not well trained or up to the task of skillfully supporting an executive’s discovery of his or her own resources. At the end of the day, executive leaders need coaches who are very smart, intuitive about business and interpersonal dynamics, have done their own personal development work, neutral in their assessment of their client, and can tailor the coaching to individual needs – there are no canned approaches in effective leadership coaching.

            Executive coach Angus McLeod emphasizes the equal importance of both the personal and the professional qualifications of the coach. McLeod observes: “We should consider not only the coach’s professional coaching background and aspects including certifications, but also their life and work experience in a holistic framework of coaching capability. As coaches, we should consider: what were the coach’s own transformative learning experiences and can they apply to the coach’s insight and skill set? Have they 'walked in the shoes of their clients to understand client’s challenges and the organizational and people-dynamics, which affect their client’s leadership effectiveness?” (McLeod, 2015).  McLeod, like many other professional coaches, clearly understands the real work that coaches do; to deftly facilitate achievement of the leader’s desired objective(s). More importantly, he also clearly articulates the critical work that coaches must do on themselves. There is a genuine need for not only well trained, certified coaches, but for coaches who have done much of the self-awareness work on themselves that they are facilitating with their clients, as pointed out earlier. The burgeoning number of coaching certification and training programs in the mainstream marketplace need to be facilitating and strongly encouraging their coaching protégés to be actively working on their own personal growth. As recent research has pointed out: “Executive coaching, both in the United States and abroad, is experiencing explosive growth. What began as developmental counseling in the 1960s…evolved into its present-day form. The International Coach Federation reports an excess of 15,000 members. Beyond its own ranks the federation estimates over 30,000 practitioners in the business of executive coaching…” (Bartlett, Boylan, Hale, 2014).  It is quite possible that many coaching programs may not see the urgent need for the coach’s personal development as the demand for executive/leadership coaching rapidly increases. That would be a grave mistake and disservice to aspiring coaches and their future clients.

           Several years ago, a Stanford University study identified a big gap between the number of executives who want coaching and the number who actually get it. Gretchen Gavett points out that “two-thirds of CEOs shared that they don't receive any outside advice on their leadership skills, and yet almost all would be receptive to suggestions from a coach.” (Gavett, 2013). 43% said they would be very receptive, while 57% shared that they would be receptive. These statistics are from a Stanford University/The Miles Group survey, mentioned above, released in August, 2013, which asked 200 CEOs, board directors, and other senior executives, questions about how they receive and view leadership advice. What is most important to note from this survey, in our opinion, is that virtually all executives admitted or realized that coaching can be a “transformational experience that carries the potential to change not only themselves, but their organizations in a meaningful way.” (Gavett, 2013).

Of course, the potential for leader and organizational transformation is very real and the Stanford/Miles Group’s findings are very encouraging for all executive coaches, executives, and organizations. The professional relationship created during the coach-client pairing forms a microcosm of the work relationships an executive creates in the larger organization. Therefore, a trusting coaching relationship provides a model for the executive to emulate and to use as a lens through which to see and create professional relationships in the wider work context. Since executives work with a wide variety of people, relationship issues can hinder the effectiveness of a leader’s influence within his or her organization. One likely cause of this problem is that most leadership development focuses solely on performance or career advancement, particularly skill development and strategic planning. As useful as these activities are, outcomes may be superficial or fleeting unless development also includes a deeper focus on professional relationship management (Boyatzis and McKee, 2005). When leaders intentionally focus on developing their relational skills, they are afforded the opportunity to:

• Live their values and have an impact on purpose and meaning at work
• Focus their vision on the future with hope and optimism
• Create professional relationships that are caring and supportive and an organizational culture where employees feel respected, acknowledged, and appreciated by their leaders
• Foster a climate where employees feel trusted, happy, and look forward to going to work.

It’s important to note the undervalued benefits of hope, optimism, and happiness not only for the leader, but also for his or her organization (Sappala and Cameron, 2015). As ‘happiness at work’ guru Annie McKee points out in her book, How To Be Happy At Work, “When we feel hopeful, we are more open and willing to consider our own and others’ strengths, our dreams, and a desired vision for our collective future [of the organization]. Hope affects both our brains and our hormones in a way that changes our perceptions of the events around us. We are more likely to see people’s actions as positively motivated and to view difficulties through the lens of problem-solving.” (McKee, 2017).

Coaching is never impersonal or just focused on work goals or performance. As we have stated, it is a growth process that promotes intimacy as a result of the deep connection and trust that develop between coach and client. Additionally, every person inside the company has an agenda of some sort which adds to the complexity of being a leader in an organization. This makes the coaching environment a rare and safe place in which to explore, receive honest feedback, experiment, and take safe risks while thinking through what is in the executive’s best interest as a leader in order to guide the organization more effectively in the face of competing agendas (Siminovitch 2017).  The coach is not only concerned with the executive’s personal transformation, but also with the transformation of the executive’s organization.

Remember, transformation, as we have defined it here, implies not just change, but radical change; change that is observable and sustainable. To achieve this kind of radical change, a coach, in our opinion, needs to be cognizant of a systems approach to leadership coaching. In her book, Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, Mary Beth O’Neill observes: “A systems perspective is highly relevant to executive coaches. When you focus too narrowly on your client alone – his personal challenges, the goals he has for himself, and the inner obstacles that keep him from being successful – you miss the whole grand “ecosystem” in which he functions.” (O’Neill, 2000). People working together on a regular basis create a social interactional field. That field is a unitary whole in which everything affects everything else and influences should be understood as multiple, mutual, and complex. Executives act and react within this field, along with everyone else they lead. If coaches fail to see how the system affects their clients, coaches will not understand why their interventions are sometimes ineffective. The client is both influencing and being influenced by a broad network of inter-relationships in and around his or her organization. Add to that network external contexts, such as the national and global economy and the natural environment, and the field of interrelated connections widens exponentially. “By taking a systems perspective, the coach can avoid pointing to one person or element within the organization as the root cause of a thorny problem.” (O’Neill, 2000).

A Plan to Transform

 

“Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.”     

― W. Edwards Deming

Real and sustainable change takes time and should not be rushed. Most of us may be familiar, at least in the Western World, with “the New Year’s resolution” and what happens after a few days or weeks (Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, 2002). Too often, as with the New Year’s resolution, coaching leads with the creation of a plan. But many plans fail because they are not taken seriously enough by the client or the client perceives, usually erroneously, that he or she doesn’t have the time to commit regularly to a plan. But this is when the real work starts and when a good coach can be most valuable. The trusting, professional relationship that coach and client both honor is critical to the success or failure of the engagement.  A plan focused on the client’s successful achievement of his or her goal (Boyatzis, McKee, 2005) is facilitated more effectively and efficiently by the coach when he or she provides the following as a manner of course:

• Emotional support when change is hard or when failure looms
• Energy by emphasizing the lessons learned from failure (and success)
• Shared resilience by encouraging the cultivation of optimism
• A place where a client can feel safe enough to mourn failures, be vulnerable, and truly celebrate success

What is key to these coaching best practices is that executives must know unequivocally that these are the behaviors that they can depend on when their resolve or optimism begin to wane.

So, we have established that coaching supports both personal and professional development in the leader. We have also established that good coaches facilitate and witness deep exploration of purpose, hope, and relationships at work with their client.  Now it is time to plan. A plan is necessary because it provides a road map or direction for coaching and makes it possible to measure the progress being made during the coaching journey. As client and coach assess their progress, they can shape and alter the path to the goal(s) as appropriate. In this sense, the plan is organic and changes as new insights surface through the coaching cycle without losing focus on the end goal or objective.

One approach helpful in supporting the creation of an effective transformation plan is a visioning process referred to as intentional change discussed in Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. The visioning is a result of extensive research in how adults learn and change in meaningful and sustainable ways. Their research concluded that there were five main steps that form a realistic and sustainable change process once the client has established a firm desire and momentum for change. Intentional change is an awareness of the need to change or improve behavior and then intentionally applying oneself to the following steps:

• The dream –  visioning
• The reality – the current situation
• Gaps and learning plan – the difference between vision and reality
• Experimentation – practicing new behavior and receiving feedback
• ‘Board of Directors – significant peers and colleagues who support my success

“The coach and client spend a good deal of time embellishing the elements of intentional change, especially the visioning component (step one), so that the client thinks and feels that he or she is “living the dream.” (Boyatzis, McKee, 2005). This is the opportune time for the client to predict and design the future that he or she wants. Visioning taps into the brain’s pre-frontal cortex to stimulate creativity in shaping the future.” (Glaser 2016).  Extended focus on visioning is time well spent and reaps great dividends. Too often the visioning concept is shortened by a desire to go rapidly to achieve faster results, as if a person were a machine that can be programed to achieve behavior change at the speed of light. What is achieved by going through this phase slowly is a deeper, meaningful, and reflective exploration of the inherent capabilities that are dormant within the client.

When visioning is done well and is followed by exploration of one’s current reality (step two), noticing the gaps between current leadership and desired leadership as envisioned becomes easier. Creating a plan for getting to the desired future state from the current one moves more smoothly, since the leader’s requirements can be seen, felt, and understood more clearly.

Once a plan is created (step three), the leader starts to practice and implement the plan (step four). Putting the plan into practice, the leader gathers data about potential obstacles to new, desired behavior(s). As the obstacles are brought into the coaching discussion, the coach supports refining or altering the plan to minimize or eliminate the obstacles to the plan’s realization. The leader is, therefore, encouraged and coached to continue to practice the new behavior(s).

Finally, enlisting of board of directors (step five) comes into play as the leader asks for support from trusted colleagues and others for feedback as he or she practices new behaviors. The coach checks in with the client during the coaching sessions on how implementation of the new behavior is progressing. Intentional change requires practice for a dedicated period of time for new behavior(s) to become the norm and for others to notice and believe in the behavior change exhibited by the executive. A period of extended coaching becomes very necessary and helpful in supporting the leader to embed the new behaviors into his or her routine so that they become the new, preferred way of behaving.

Coach Transformation

 

“Transformed people transform people.”

― Richard Rohr

The demands on, and responsibilities of, a coach are not to be taken lightly and require that the coach continually hone his or her coaching skills. Beyond basic executive coaching training, coaches need to be continually learning and challenging themselves to be better people, as we have already noted. By refining and reinforcing their own emotional intelligence competencies, they create their own rich emotional reserve for reference. Angus McLeod notes that good coaches can facilitate the transformative process of their clients through informed questions: “When coaches learn to ask questions that are designed to help the coachee learn, those coachees invariably become interested and excited to learn more about themselves; they become more engaged and committed to the coaching process and to real personal development.” (McLeod, 2015). Shouldn’t we say the same thing here about coaches? The more they engage themselves in deep, authentic self-awareness, the more they become “engaged and committed to the coaching process and to real personal development.” 

We have found, through discussions with other executive coaches, that the coach’s process of personal development can include a wide variety of different practices, interests, and engagements. One of the more common methods, we have discovered, is peer support from other coaches. Some coaches organize peer support groups that meet once a month or so to discuss hard topics in coaching or “case study” issues about which a coach may wish to solicit other coaches’ perspectives.  Of course, many successful coaches have their own coach with whom they do their own development work.

In addition, as executive coaching has become more mainstream, countless books, videos, and articles have been published on a broad range of coaching topics.

Finally, there are the questions we need to ask ourselves. No series of questions fits all coaches, of course. But there are certain foundational queries that, we believe, need to be on every coach’s list. These include:

• What is your life’s purpose?
• What are your personal/professional relationship needs?
• What is your passion as a person? As a professional?
• What are your demons?
• What are your thoughts and feelings on power and diversity?
• Why do you want to be a coach?

As we have already noted, executive coaches, themselves, have a wonderful opportunity in their coaching experience to professionally and personally grow. Once the coach has begun and continues to explore his or her own self-awareness and personal development rigorously, as already suggested, what he or she brings to and takes away from the coaching engagement can be quite substantive on a number of levels. On a professional level, a coach may help facilitate not only a transformation in an executive leader, but also within his or her organization. One’s enhanced coaching skills have the potential to affect many lives, not just the one in the “C” suite.

For one of these authors, eight months of coaching an executive at a small to mid-size organization resulted in tangible, sustained behavioral changes in the executive. In turn, the executive’s organization of just over 500 employees reaped the benefits of the leader’s changes in the observable culture change within the organization. People were happier, more productive, more collaborative, and more comfortable in communicating their needs and feedback in the new “safe” environment. For this coach, the experience was transformational in how it underscored executive coaching’s potential power to affect an organization in a systemic fashion. In addition, the author came away with a more fulfilled sense of accomplishment and several additional “intuitive” tools to apply to future coaching engagements. This experience recalls an observation by Warren Bennis on leadership: “It is important that the quality of our lives is dependent on the quality of our leadership. Only when we understand leaders will we be able to control them.”

On a more economic level, one highly effective coaching engagement can lead to a word-of-mouth expansion of one’s practice. Executives talk with other executives. If one finds high value in your coaching skills and competency, he or she will tell other executives.

On the personal level, many coaches relate stories of subsequent friendships that evolved from the coaching relationship after the engagement had ended. Both authors of this article have established long term friendships with several clients as a consequence of the strong coaching relationships we cultivated. Additionally, a good coach has the potential to take away lessons learned about him or herself in in any particular session. Often, the client may mirror our own fears, challenges, needs; as well as our strengths, core values, and insights. When we bring our intuition to the coaching session, our questions may not only be intended for the client’s growth, but for our own, albeit unconscious and inadvertent, personal development.

Transition, Again

 

“A transition period is a period between two transition periods.”

― George Stigler

When the time comes when both coach and client agree that their work together is complete, both experience a transition. In a best-case scenario, the client has achieved his or her objective(s). The root cause of the initial discontent has been identified and the client has a plan in place to address the issue(s) and is intentional in his or her commitment to change. If the coach and client have worked well together, the client is now unstuck and on a new level of leadership awareness and action. Gone is the dysfunctional behavior(s) that initially prompted the pursuit of coaching support and the repetitious patterns of poor judgment, weak communication, indecisiveness, or strained relationships. Or perhaps the client engagement was not focused on dysfunctional behavior(s), but on strengthening particular skills. Nevertheless, the client has transformed him or herself with the deft guidance of the coach, perhaps transitioning to a new role in the organization, or transforming his or her old role into one more in tune with his or her core values, vision, and dreams of a better future for the organization.

The coach, too, is in transition from the role of coach, confidant, and trusted advisor for one client to his or her next executive engagement with a new client. Coaches may also transition to new tools or insights in their practice from the previous engagement that they think and feel may be useful to future clients.  

Conclusion

 

“Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes around again in its cycle.”

― Marcus Aurelius

As we have tried to point out, executive coaching is a cyclical process that engages both client and coach in a reciprocal relationship of give and take, where both parties benefit from an objective or goal driven relationship between coach and client. It is a co-creation process that ends with the client being less dependent on the coach and the implications of the conclusion of the engagement are explored, discussed, and next steps are identified and planned. For simplicity’s sake, it is a process starting in transition, moving to transformation, and finally back to transition for both parties if each fully commits to his or her respective role in the coaching engagement.

 

 

 

Glaser, Judith E. (2016). Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. New York, NY.: Routledge  

Siminovitch, Dorothy. E. (2017). A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness IQ. Gestalt Coaching Works, LLC

 

Goleman, Daniel, Boyatzis, Richard, McKee, Annie. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Gavett, Gretchen. (2013, August 15). What CEOs Really Want from Coaching. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2013/08/research-ceos-and-the-coaching

McKee, Annie. (2017). How to be Happy at Work. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business School Press.

Boyatzis, Richard. E. & McKee, Annie. (2005). Resonant Leadership. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

McLeod, Angus. (2017, June 15). When Coaching Standards Don’t Deliver, What Next? Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-coaching-standards-dont-deliver-what-next-dr-angus-mcleod?

O’Neill, Mary Beth. (2000). Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart. San Francisco, CA.: Jossey -Bass.

Peltier, Bruce (2010). The Psychology of Executive Coaching. New York, NY: Routledge.

McKee, Annie (2014). Being Happy at Work Matters. Harvard Business Review Nov 14, 2014

Sappala, Emma and Cameron, Kim (2015). Proof That Positive Workplace Cultures Are More Productive. Harvard Business Review, Dec. 2015

Bartlett II, J.E., Boylan, R.V. and Hale, J.E. (2014) Executive Coaching: An Integrative Literature Review. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies 2, 188-195. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jhrss.2014.24018

In short, what we wish to emphasize in this discussion is that not only is the leadership coaching engagement a cycle of growth, from transition to transformation and back to transition, but that it also can and should be a reciprocal one for both client and coach.

Transition

 

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”

― Isaac Asimov

        Transition is defined as ‘change or passage from one state to another; the period of time during which something is changed from one state to another.’ The leadership coaching growth cycle begins at some point of transition for the client. Typically, clients find themselves stuck in an uncomfortable place or stage in their career. They may be stagnating in their position, or they may have lost their initiative or sense of purpose for the work they have been doing for decades or merely a couple of years. They wake up one morning to the hard reality that they need to make a change. Sometimes the need for change is recommended by a boss or HR. In these cases, coaching has to be owned by the client for it to be meaningful. We, as coaches, always find our clients at some level of transition, eager, sometimes desperate, to move from somewhere, to somewhere. The destination may not always be crystal clear for the client, but the impulse to begin the journey, to change, is strong and motivating. The coach’s job is to be a catalyst for effective and actionable change for each individual with whom he or she engages.  

         Coaching is not mentoring, nor is it counseling or training. Occasionally, in the client development process, a coach may act as trusted advisor or counselor. That, however, is the exception and not the rule. The coach’s primary objective is to facilitate the client’s transition.   Fortunately, there is consensus among most in the professional coaching community about what a coach is not:

• Directive advisor: this takes away control from the client and creates dependence on the coach
• Cheerleader: the client fails to develop self-motivation and relies on an external source of drive; the coach’s praise and accolades
• Therapist: it is clearly not a coach’s role to resolve the client’s past, unresolved emotional issues
• Evaluator: this approach has a judgmental function associated with it and can hinder the development of trust between coach and client
• Inauthentic: lack of transparency from the coach can create mistrust and interfere with the coaching process

On the other hand, what a coach is can be summed up as someone who rigorously practices self-awareness (Siminovitch 2017).  Great coaches are continually assessing and evaluating their skills, challenges, strengths, and personal goals through a reflective practice, such as journaling or routine discussions with another or other coaches. Great coaches are emotionally intelligent and genuinely curious about the world around them. They are non-judgmental, caring and compassionate, build strong relationships, listen acutely, know their own boundaries and respect those of others. More importantly, they use their intuition and presence to help guide the incisive questions they ask their clients. These qualities are a result of their keen and constant focus on their own personal growth and development. In essence, that personal growth is a transition in the coach’s skill and competency level.

What a coach needs to fully comprehend is that even if he or she is coaching two CFOs from the same industry, with the same issue of being stuck in the same job for eight years, and possessing the same goal to move to the next level; clients are unique and distinct as individual human beings and in what they bring to coaching. Yes, they are both at a transitional point in themselves and their careers, but that is where the similarity ends. Although the methodology the coach uses will be fairly standard – probing questions, intuitive responses, deep, active listening – the process itself will be continually shaped and reshaped by the depth of connection and interaction between client and coach, as well as by the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical uniqueness of each client. For the coach, every client, and every client session, is a transition to a unique experience of a particular mood, energy level, commitment, focus or distraction, etc. that is wholly distinct within that encounter.    

Therefore, it is incumbent on the coach to be clearly aware of not only the discrete differences between clients, but also between each session with the same client. In other words, even though we begin to identify and develop a history with the client – opinions, insights, assumptions, educated guesses about him or her – we must be careful not to fall into a coaching routine that recycles old questioning and methodologies that may be of no further practical use.  Each session has the potential to be a breakthrough experience with a transformative quality, transitioning the client and the coach, perhaps, to a whole new level of engagement. 

Client Transformation

 

“Transformation does not happen by learning new information. It happens when you change how you view and react to other people, events, and things around you.”

― Med Jones

Transformation is defined as ‘a change in form, appearance, nature, or character; a change or alteration, especially a radical one.’  Clearly, the heart and soul of coaching is realistic and sustainable change. The coach and the client begin the process by exploring the local habitation of the client:

• Where are you right now, in your career, in your mission, in your vision, in your professional cycle, as well as in your personal life?
• What is the pain point, frustration, apprehension, fault or flaw, or aggregate of some or all of these that compel you to seek change?
• Why the change now?
• Where, through this journey of change, do you want and need to find yourself at the end?

Once the client has decided that he or she can no longer accept the status quo, and answers the questions with honesty, candor, insight, and integrity, the transition towards transformation can begin.

As coaches, we ask probing questions that help us to gain insight into where our clients have been, where they are now, and where they wish to be. We explore their professional personas, their achievements, their promotions, their political gains and sacrifices. In short, our questions should promote deep reflection within our clients, encouraging them to appreciate and value who they really are, including recognizing vulnerability as a source of strength with the potential to influence others positively. In the beginning, we just get a peek at the man or woman behind the professional curtain – the mother or father, son or daughter, the husband or wife. The details are always different, but the situation is overall the same. Everything that encompasses who the client is – his or her beliefs, values, aspirations, dreams, hopes, fears, and challenges – are brought to the coaching experience for deep and meaningful exploration. Therein lies the power of coaching, and coaches have a tremendous influence on their clients’ lives (not to mention organizations) because they stimulate clients to deeply reflect, reframe, and adjust behavior to the realities of the current situation. In terms of the coach/client relationship, coaches become trusted partners with their clients and their work occurs at the client’s most vulnerable times when he or she could be highly influenced by the coach’s ideas.

Therefore, coaches need a good dose of humility and a deep understanding of their power to influence. The coach’s responsibility is considerable, yet many coaches are not well trained or up to the task of skillfully supporting an executive’s discovery of his or her own resources. At the end of the day, executive leaders need coaches who are very smart, intuitive about business and interpersonal dynamics, have done their own personal development work, neutral in their assessment of their client, and can tailor the coaching to individual needs – there are no canned approaches in effective leadership coaching.

            Executive coach Angus McLeod emphasizes the equal importance of both the personal and the professional qualifications of the coach. McLeod observes: “We should consider not only the coach’s professional coaching background and aspects including certifications, but also their life and work experience in a holistic framework of coaching capability. As coaches, we should consider: what were the coach’s own transformative learning experiences and can they apply to the coach’s insight and skill set? Have they 'walked in the shoes of their clients to understand client’s challenges and the organizational and people-dynamics, which affect their client’s leadership effectiveness?” (McLeod, 2015).  McLeod, like many other professional coaches, clearly understands the real work that coaches do; to deftly facilitate achievement of the leader’s desired objective(s). More importantly, he also clearly articulates the critical work that coaches must do on themselves. There is a genuine need for not only well trained, certified coaches, but for coaches who have done much of the self-awareness work on themselves that they are facilitating with their clients, as pointed out earlier. The burgeoning number of coaching certification and training programs in the mainstream marketplace need to be facilitating and strongly encouraging their coaching protégés to be actively working on their own personal growth. As recent research has pointed out: “Executive coaching, both in the United States and abroad, is experiencing explosive growth. What began as developmental counseling in the 1960s…evolved into its present-day form. The International Coach Federation reports an excess of 15,000 members. Beyond its own ranks the federation estimates over 30,000 practitioners in the business of executive coaching…” (Bartlett, Boylan, Hale, 2014).  It is quite possible that many coaching programs may not see the urgent need for the coach’s personal development as the demand for executive/leadership coaching rapidly increases. That would be a grave mistake and disservice to aspiring coaches and their future clients.

           Several years ago, a Stanford University study identified a big gap between the number of executives who want coaching and the number who actually get it. Gretchen Gavett points out that “two-thirds of CEOs shared that they don't receive any outside advice on their leadership skills, and yet almost all would be receptive to suggestions from a coach.” (Gavett, 2013). 43% said they would be very receptive, while 57% shared that they would be receptive. These statistics are from a Stanford University/The Miles Group survey, mentioned above, released in August, 2013, which asked 200 CEOs, board directors, and other senior executives, questions about how they receive and view leadership advice. What is most important to note from this survey, in our opinion, is that virtually all executives admitted or realized that coaching can be a “transformational experience that carries the potential to change not only themselves, but their organizations in a meaningful way.” (Gavett, 2013).

Of course, the potential for leader and organizational transformation is very real and the Stanford/Miles Group’s findings are very encouraging for all executive coaches, executives, and organizations. The professional relationship created during the coach-client pairing forms a microcosm of the work relationships an executive creates in the larger organization. Therefore, a trusting coaching relationship provides a model for the executive to emulate and to use as a lens through which to see and create professional relationships in the wider work context. Since executives work with a wide variety of people, relationship issues can hinder the effectiveness of a leader’s influence within his or her organization. One likely cause of this problem is that most leadership development focuses solely on performance or career advancement, particularly skill development and strategic planning. As useful as these activities are, outcomes may be superficial or fleeting unless development also includes a deeper focus on professional relationship management (Boyatzis and McKee, 2005). When leaders intentionally focus on developing their relational skills, they are afforded the opportunity to:

• Live their values and have an impact on purpose and meaning at work
• Focus their vision on the future with hope and optimism
• Create professional relationships that are caring and supportive and an organizational culture where employees feel respected, acknowledged, and appreciated by their leaders
• Foster a climate where employees feel trusted, happy, and look forward to going to work.

It’s important to note the undervalued benefits of hope, optimism, and happiness not only for the leader, but also for his or her organization (Sappala and Cameron, 2015). As ‘happiness at work’ guru Annie McKee points out in her book, How To Be Happy At Work, “When we feel hopeful, we are more open and willing to consider our own and others’ strengths, our dreams, and a desired vision for our collective future [of the organization]. Hope affects both our brains and our hormones in a way that changes our perceptions of the events around us. We are more likely to see people’s actions as positively motivated and to view difficulties through the lens of problem-solving.” (McKee, 2017).

Coaching is never impersonal or just focused on work goals or performance. As we have stated, it is a growth process that promotes intimacy as a result of the deep connection and trust that develop between coach and client. Additionally, every person inside the company has an agenda of some sort which adds to the complexity of being a leader in an organization. This makes the coaching environment a rare and safe place in which to explore, receive honest feedback, experiment, and take safe risks while thinking through what is in the executive’s best interest as a leader in order to guide the organization more effectively in the face of competing agendas (Siminovitch 2017).  The coach is not only concerned with the executive’s personal transformation, but also with the transformation of the executive’s organization.

Remember, transformation, as we have defined it here, implies not just change, but radical change; change that is observable and sustainable. To achieve this kind of radical change, a coach, in our opinion, needs to be cognizant of a systems approach to leadership coaching. In her book, Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, Mary Beth O’Neill observes: “A systems perspective is highly relevant to executive coaches. When you focus too narrowly on your client alone – his personal challenges, the goals he has for himself, and the inner obstacles that keep him from being successful – you miss the whole grand “ecosystem” in which he functions.” (O’Neill, 2000). People working together on a regular basis create a social interactional field. That field is a unitary whole in which everything affects everything else and influences should be understood as multiple, mutual, and complex. Executives act and react within this field, along with everyone else they lead. If coaches fail to see how the system affects their clients, coaches will not understand why their interventions are sometimes ineffective. The client is both influencing and being influenced by a broad network of inter-relationships in and around his or her organization. Add to that network external contexts, such as the national and global economy and the natural environment, and the field of interrelated connections widens exponentially. “By taking a systems perspective, the coach can avoid pointing to one person or element within the organization as the root cause of a thorny problem.” (O’Neill, 2000).

A Plan to Transform

 

“Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.”     

― W. Edwards Deming

Real and sustainable change takes time and should not be rushed. Most of us may be familiar, at least in the Western World, with “the New Year’s resolution” and what happens after a few days or weeks (Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, 2002). Too often, as with the New Year’s resolution, coaching leads with the creation of a plan. But many plans fail because they are not taken seriously enough by the client or the client perceives, usually erroneously, that he or she doesn’t have the time to commit regularly to a plan. But this is when the real work starts and when a good coach can be most valuable. The trusting, professional relationship that coach and client both honor is critical to the success or failure of the engagement.  A plan focused on the client’s successful achievement of his or her goal (Boyatzis, McKee, 2005) is facilitated more effectively and efficiently by the coach when he or she provides the following as a manner of course:

• Emotional support when change is hard or when failure looms
• Energy by emphasizing the lessons learned from failure (and success)
• Shared resilience by encouraging the cultivation of optimism
• A place where a client can feel safe enough to mourn failures, be vulnerable, and truly celebrate success

What is key to these coaching best practices is that executives must know unequivocally that these are the behaviors that they can depend on when their resolve or optimism begin to wane.

So, we have established that coaching supports both personal and professional development in the leader. We have also established that good coaches facilitate and witness deep exploration of purpose, hope, and relationships at work with their client.  Now it is time to plan. A plan is necessary because it provides a road map or direction for coaching and makes it possible to measure the progress being made during the coaching journey. As client and coach assess their progress, they can shape and alter the path to the goal(s) as appropriate. In this sense, the plan is organic and changes as new insights surface through the coaching cycle without losing focus on the end goal or objective.

One approach helpful in supporting the creation of an effective transformation plan is a visioning process referred to as intentional change discussed in Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. The visioning is a result of extensive research in how adults learn and change in meaningful and sustainable ways. Their research concluded that there were five main steps that form a realistic and sustainable change process once the client has established a firm desire and momentum for change. Intentional change is an awareness of the need to change or improve behavior and then intentionally applying oneself to the following steps:

• The dream –  visioning
• The reality – the current situation
• Gaps and learning plan – the difference between vision and reality
• Experimentation – practicing new behavior and receiving feedback
• ‘Board of Directors – significant peers and colleagues who support my success

“The coach and client spend a good deal of time embellishing the elements of intentional change, especially the visioning component (step one), so that the client thinks and feels that he or she is “living the dream.” (Boyatzis, McKee, 2005). This is the opportune time for the client to predict and design the future that he or she wants. Visioning taps into the brain’s pre-frontal cortex to stimulate creativity in shaping the future.” (Glaser 2016).  Extended focus on visioning is time well spent and reaps great dividends. Too often the visioning concept is shortened by a desire to go rapidly to achieve faster results, as if a person were a machine that can be programed to achieve behavior change at the speed of light. What is achieved by going through this phase slowly is a deeper, meaningful, and reflective exploration of the inherent capabilities that are dormant within the client.

When visioning is done well and is followed by exploration of one’s current reality (step two), noticing the gaps between current leadership and desired leadership as envisioned becomes easier. Creating a plan for getting to the desired future state from the current one moves more smoothly, since the leader’s requirements can be seen, felt, and understood more clearly.

Once a plan is created (step three), the leader starts to practice and implement the plan (step four). Putting the plan into practice, the leader gathers data about potential obstacles to new, desired behavior(s). As the obstacles are brought into the coaching discussion, the coach supports refining or altering the plan to minimize or eliminate the obstacles to the plan’s realization. The leader is, therefore, encouraged and coached to continue to practice the new behavior(s).

Finally, enlisting of board of directors (step five) comes into play as the leader asks for support from trusted colleagues and others for feedback as he or she practices new behaviors. The coach checks in with the client during the coaching sessions on how implementation of the new behavior is progressing. Intentional change requires practice for a dedicated period of time for new behavior(s) to become the norm and for others to notice and believe in the behavior change exhibited by the executive. A period of extended coaching becomes very necessary and helpful in supporting the leader to embed the new behaviors into his or her routine so that they become the new, preferred way of behaving.

Coach Transformation

 

“Transformed people transform people.”

― Richard Rohr

The demands on, and responsibilities of, a coach are not to be taken lightly and require that the coach continually hone his or her coaching skills. Beyond basic executive coaching training, coaches need to be continually learning and challenging themselves to be better people, as we have already noted. By refining and reinforcing their own emotional intelligence competencies, they create their own rich emotional reserve for reference. Angus McLeod notes that good coaches can facilitate the transformative process of their clients through informed questions: “When coaches learn to ask questions that are designed to help the coachee learn, those coachees invariably become interested and excited to learn more about themselves; they become more engaged and committed to the coaching process and to real personal development.” (McLeod, 2015). Shouldn’t we say the same thing here about coaches? The more they engage themselves in deep, authentic self-awareness, the more they become “engaged and committed to the coaching process and to real personal development.” 

We have found, through discussions with other executive coaches, that the coach’s process of personal development can include a wide variety of different practices, interests, and engagements. One of the more common methods, we have discovered, is peer support from other coaches. Some coaches organize peer support groups that meet once a month or so to discuss hard topics in coaching or “case study” issues about which a coach may wish to solicit other coaches’ perspectives.  Of course, many successful coaches have their own coach with whom they do their own development work.

In addition, as executive coaching has become more mainstream, countless books, videos, and articles have been published on a broad range of coaching topics.

Finally, there are the questions we need to ask ourselves. No series of questions fits all coaches, of course. But there are certain foundational queries that, we believe, need to be on every coach’s list. These include:

• What is your life’s purpose?
• What are your personal/professional relationship needs?
• What is your passion as a person? As a professional?
• What are your demons?
• What are your thoughts and feelings on power and diversity?
• Why do you want to be a coach?

As we have already noted, executive coaches, themselves, have a wonderful opportunity in their coaching experience to professionally and personally grow. Once the coach has begun and continues to explore his or her own self-awareness and personal development rigorously, as already suggested, what he or she brings to and takes away from the coaching engagement can be quite substantive on a number of levels. On a professional level, a coach may help facilitate not only a transformation in an executive leader, but also within his or her organization. One’s enhanced coaching skills have the potential to affect many lives, not just the one in the “C” suite.

For one of these authors, eight months of coaching an executive at a small to mid-size organization resulted in tangible, sustained behavioral changes in the executive. In turn, the executive’s organization of just over 500 employees reaped the benefits of the leader’s changes in the observable culture change within the organization. People were happier, more productive, more collaborative, and more comfortable in communicating their needs and feedback in the new “safe” environment. For this coach, the experience was transformational in how it underscored executive coaching’s potential power to affect an organization in a systemic fashion. In addition, the author came away with a more fulfilled sense of accomplishment and several additional “intuitive” tools to apply to future coaching engagements. This experience recalls an observation by Warren Bennis on leadership: “It is important that the quality of our lives is dependent on the quality of our leadership. Only when we understand leaders will we be able to control them.”

On a more economic level, one highly effective coaching engagement can lead to a word-of-mouth expansion of one’s practice. Executives talk with other executives. If one finds high value in your coaching skills and competency, he or she will tell other executives.

On the personal level, many coaches relate stories of subsequent friendships that evolved from the coaching relationship after the engagement had ended. Both authors of this article have established long term friendships with several clients as a consequence of the strong coaching relationships we cultivated. Additionally, a good coach has the potential to take away lessons learned about him or herself in in any particular session. Often, the client may mirror our own fears, challenges, needs; as well as our strengths, core values, and insights. When we bring our intuition to the coaching session, our questions may not only be intended for the client’s growth, but for our own, albeit unconscious and inadvertent, personal development.

Transition, Again

 

“A transition period is a period between two transition periods.”

― George Stigler

When the time comes when both coach and client agree that their work together is complete, both experience a transition. In a best-case scenario, the client has achieved his or her objective(s). The root cause of the initial discontent has been identified and the client has a plan in place to address the issue(s) and is intentional in his or her commitment to change. If the coach and client have worked well together, the client is now unstuck and on a new level of leadership awareness and action. Gone is the dysfunctional behavior(s) that initially prompted the pursuit of coaching support and the repetitious patterns of poor judgment, weak communication, indecisiveness, or strained relationships. Or perhaps the client engagement was not focused on dysfunctional behavior(s), but on strengthening particular skills. Nevertheless, the client has transformed him or herself with the deft guidance of the coach, perhaps transitioning to a new role in the organization, or transforming his or her old role into one more in tune with his or her core values, vision, and dreams of a better future for the organization.

The coach, too, is in transition from the role of coach, confidant, and trusted advisor for one client to his or her next executive engagement with a new client. Coaches may also transition to new tools or insights in their practice from the previous engagement that they think and feel may be useful to future clients.  

Conclusion

 

“Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes around again in its cycle.”

― Marcus Aurelius

As we have tried to point out, executive coaching is a cyclical process that engages both client and coach in a reciprocal relationship of give and take, where both parties benefit from an objective or goal driven relationship between coach and client. It is a co-creation process that ends with the client being less dependent on the coach and the implications of the conclusion of the engagement are explored, discussed, and next steps are identified and planned. For simplicity’s sake, it is a process starting in transition, moving to transformation, and finally back to transition for both parties if each fully commits to his or her respective role in the coaching engagement.

 

 

 

Glaser, Judith E. (2016). Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. New York, NY.: Routledge  

Siminovitch, Dorothy. E. (2017). A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness IQ. Gestalt Coaching Works, LLC

 

Goleman, Daniel, Boyatzis, Richard, McKee, Annie. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Gavett, Gretchen. (2013, August 15). What CEOs Really Want from Coaching. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2013/08/research-ceos-and-the-coaching

McKee, Annie. (2017). How to be Happy at Work. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business School Press.

Boyatzis, Richard. E. & McKee, Annie. (2005). Resonant Leadership. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

McLeod, Angus. (2017, June 15). When Coaching Standards Don’t Deliver, What Next? Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-coaching-standards-dont-deliver-what-next-dr-angus-mcleod?

O’Neill, Mary Beth. (2000). Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart. San Francisco, CA.: Jossey -Bass.

Peltier, Bruce (2010). The Psychology of Executive Coaching. New York, NY: Routledge.

McKee, Annie (2014). Being Happy at Work Matters. Harvard Business Review Nov 14, 2014

Sappala, Emma and Cameron, Kim (2015). Proof That Positive Workplace Cultures Are More Productive. Harvard Business Review, Dec. 2015

Bartlett II, J.E., Boylan, R.V. and Hale, J.E. (2014) Executive Coaching: An Integrative Literature Review. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies 2, 188-195. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jhrss.2014.24018

In short, what we wish to emphasize in this discussion is that not only is the leadership coaching engagement a cycle of growth, from transition to transformation and back to transition, but that it also can and should be a reciprocal one for both client and coach.

Transition

 

“Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”

― Isaac Asimov

        Transition is defined as ‘change or passage from one state to another; the period of time during which something is changed from one state to another.’ The leadership coaching growth cycle begins at some point of transition for the client. Typically, clients find themselves stuck in an uncomfortable place or stage in their career. They may be stagnating in their position, or they may have lost their initiative or sense of purpose for the work they have been doing for decades or merely a couple of years. They wake up one morning to the hard reality that they need to make a change. Sometimes the need for change is recommended by a boss or HR. In these cases, coaching has to be owned by the client for it to be meaningful. We, as coaches, always find our clients at some level of transition, eager, sometimes desperate, to move from somewhere, to somewhere. The destination may not always be crystal clear for the client, but the impulse to begin the journey, to change, is strong and motivating. The coach’s job is to be a catalyst for effective and actionable change for each individual with whom he or she engages.  

         Coaching is not mentoring, nor is it counseling or training. Occasionally, in the client development process, a coach may act as trusted advisor or counselor. That, however, is the exception and not the rule. The coach’s primary objective is to facilitate the client’s transition.   Fortunately, there is consensus among most in the professional coaching community about what a coach is not:

• Directive advisor: this takes away control from the client and creates dependence on the coach
• Cheerleader: the client fails to develop self-motivation and relies on an external source of drive; the coach’s praise and accolades
• Therapist: it is clearly not a coach’s role to resolve the client’s past, unresolved emotional issues
• Evaluator: this approach has a judgmental function associated with it and can hinder the development of trust between coach and client
• Inauthentic: lack of transparency from the coach can create mistrust and interfere with the coaching process

On the other hand, what a coach is can be summed up as someone who rigorously practices self-awareness (Siminovitch 2017).  Great coaches are continually assessing and evaluating their skills, challenges, strengths, and personal goals through a reflective practice, such as journaling or routine discussions with another or other coaches. Great coaches are emotionally intelligent and genuinely curious about the world around them. They are non-judgmental, caring and compassionate, build strong relationships, listen acutely, know their own boundaries and respect those of others. More importantly, they use their intuition and presence to help guide the incisive questions they ask their clients. These qualities are a result of their keen and constant focus on their own personal growth and development. In essence, that personal growth is a transition in the coach’s skill and competency level.

What a coach needs to fully comprehend is that even if he or she is coaching two CFOs from the same industry, with the same issue of being stuck in the same job for eight years, and possessing the same goal to move to the next level; clients are unique and distinct as individual human beings and in what they bring to coaching. Yes, they are both at a transitional point in themselves and their careers, but that is where the similarity ends. Although the methodology the coach uses will be fairly standard – probing questions, intuitive responses, deep, active listening – the process itself will be continually shaped and reshaped by the depth of connection and interaction between client and coach, as well as by the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical uniqueness of each client. For the coach, every client, and every client session, is a transition to a unique experience of a particular mood, energy level, commitment, focus or distraction, etc. that is wholly distinct within that encounter.    

Therefore, it is incumbent on the coach to be clearly aware of not only the discrete differences between clients, but also between each session with the same client. In other words, even though we begin to identify and develop a history with the client – opinions, insights, assumptions, educated guesses about him or her – we must be careful not to fall into a coaching routine that recycles old questioning and methodologies that may be of no further practical use.  Each session has the potential to be a breakthrough experience with a transformative quality, transitioning the client and the coach, perhaps, to a whole new level of engagement. 

Client Transformation

 

“Transformation does not happen by learning new information. It happens when you change how you view and react to other people, events, and things around you.”

― Med Jones

Transformation is defined as ‘a change in form, appearance, nature, or character; a change or alteration, especially a radical one.’  Clearly, the heart and soul of coaching is realistic and sustainable change. The coach and the client begin the process by exploring the local habitation of the client:

• Where are you right now, in your career, in your mission, in your vision, in your professional cycle, as well as in your personal life?
• What is the pain point, frustration, apprehension, fault or flaw, or aggregate of some or all of these that compel you to seek change?
• Why the change now?
• Where, through this journey of change, do you want and need to find yourself at the end?

Once the client has decided that he or she can no longer accept the status quo, and answers the questions with honesty, candor, insight, and integrity, the transition towards transformation can begin.

As coaches, we ask probing questions that help us to gain insight into where our clients have been, where they are now, and where they wish to be. We explore their professional personas, their achievements, their promotions, their political gains and sacrifices. In short, our questions should promote deep reflection within our clients, encouraging them to appreciate and value who they really are, including recognizing vulnerability as a source of strength with the potential to influence others positively. In the beginning, we just get a peek at the man or woman behind the professional curtain – the mother or father, son or daughter, the husband or wife. The details are always different, but the situation is overall the same. Everything that encompasses who the client is – his or her beliefs, values, aspirations, dreams, hopes, fears, and challenges – are brought to the coaching experience for deep and meaningful exploration. Therein lies the power of coaching, and coaches have a tremendous influence on their clients’ lives (not to mention organizations) because they stimulate clients to deeply reflect, reframe, and adjust behavior to the realities of the current situation. In terms of the coach/client relationship, coaches become trusted partners with their clients and their work occurs at the client’s most vulnerable times when he or she could be highly influenced by the coach’s ideas.

Therefore, coaches need a good dose of humility and a deep understanding of their power to influence. The coach’s responsibility is considerable, yet many coaches are not well trained or up to the task of skillfully supporting an executive’s discovery of his or her own resources. At the end of the day, executive leaders need coaches who are very smart, intuitive about business and interpersonal dynamics, have done their own personal development work, neutral in their assessment of their client, and can tailor the coaching to individual needs – there are no canned approaches in effective leadership coaching.

            Executive coach Angus McLeod emphasizes the equal importance of both the personal and the professional qualifications of the coach. McLeod observes: “We should consider not only the coach’s professional coaching background and aspects including certifications, but also their life and work experience in a holistic framework of coaching capability. As coaches, we should consider: what were the coach’s own transformative learning experiences and can they apply to the coach’s insight and skill set? Have they 'walked in the shoes of their clients to understand client’s challenges and the organizational and people-dynamics, which affect their client’s leadership effectiveness?” (McLeod, 2015).  McLeod, like many other professional coaches, clearly understands the real work that coaches do; to deftly facilitate achievement of the leader’s desired objective(s). More importantly, he also clearly articulates the critical work that coaches must do on themselves. There is a genuine need for not only well trained, certified coaches, but for coaches who have done much of the self-awareness work on themselves that they are facilitating with their clients, as pointed out earlier. The burgeoning number of coaching certification and training programs in the mainstream marketplace need to be facilitating and strongly encouraging their coaching protégés to be actively working on their own personal growth. As recent research has pointed out: “Executive coaching, both in the United States and abroad, is experiencing explosive growth. What began as developmental counseling in the 1960s…evolved into its present-day form. The International Coach Federation reports an excess of 15,000 members. Beyond its own ranks the federation estimates over 30,000 practitioners in the business of executive coaching…” (Bartlett, Boylan, Hale, 2014).  It is quite possible that many coaching programs may not see the urgent need for the coach’s personal development as the demand for executive/leadership coaching rapidly increases. That would be a grave mistake and disservice to aspiring coaches and their future clients.

           Several years ago, a Stanford University study identified a big gap between the number of executives who want coaching and the number who actually get it. Gretchen Gavett points out that “two-thirds of CEOs shared that they don't receive any outside advice on their leadership skills, and yet almost all would be receptive to suggestions from a coach.” (Gavett, 2013). 43% said they would be very receptive, while 57% shared that they would be receptive. These statistics are from a Stanford University/The Miles Group survey, mentioned above, released in August, 2013, which asked 200 CEOs, board directors, and other senior executives, questions about how they receive and view leadership advice. What is most important to note from this survey, in our opinion, is that virtually all executives admitted or realized that coaching can be a “transformational experience that carries the potential to change not only themselves, but their organizations in a meaningful way.” (Gavett, 2013).

Of course, the potential for leader and organizational transformation is very real and the Stanford/Miles Group’s findings are very encouraging for all executive coaches, executives, and organizations. The professional relationship created during the coach-client pairing forms a microcosm of the work relationships an executive creates in the larger organization. Therefore, a trusting coaching relationship provides a model for the executive to emulate and to use as a lens through which to see and create professional relationships in the wider work context. Since executives work with a wide variety of people, relationship issues can hinder the effectiveness of a leader’s influence within his or her organization. One likely cause of this problem is that most leadership development focuses solely on performance or career advancement, particularly skill development and strategic planning. As useful as these activities are, outcomes may be superficial or fleeting unless development also includes a deeper focus on professional relationship management (Boyatzis and McKee, 2005). When leaders intentionally focus on developing their relational skills, they are afforded the opportunity to:

• Live their values and have an impact on purpose and meaning at work
• Focus their vision on the future with hope and optimism
• Create professional relationships that are caring and supportive and an organizational culture where employees feel respected, acknowledged, and appreciated by their leaders
• Foster a climate where employees feel trusted, happy, and look forward to going to work.

It’s important to note the undervalued benefits of hope, optimism, and happiness not only for the leader, but also for his or her organization (Sappala and Cameron, 2015). As ‘happiness at work’ guru Annie McKee points out in her book, How To Be Happy At Work, “When we feel hopeful, we are more open and willing to consider our own and others’ strengths, our dreams, and a desired vision for our collective future [of the organization]. Hope affects both our brains and our hormones in a way that changes our perceptions of the events around us. We are more likely to see people’s actions as positively motivated and to view difficulties through the lens of problem-solving.” (McKee, 2017).

Coaching is never impersonal or just focused on work goals or performance. As we have stated, it is a growth process that promotes intimacy as a result of the deep connection and trust that develop between coach and client. Additionally, every person inside the company has an agenda of some sort which adds to the complexity of being a leader in an organization. This makes the coaching environment a rare and safe place in which to explore, receive honest feedback, experiment, and take safe risks while thinking through what is in the executive’s best interest as a leader in order to guide the organization more effectively in the face of competing agendas (Siminovitch 2017).  The coach is not only concerned with the executive’s personal transformation, but also with the transformation of the executive’s organization.

Remember, transformation, as we have defined it here, implies not just change, but radical change; change that is observable and sustainable. To achieve this kind of radical change, a coach, in our opinion, needs to be cognizant of a systems approach to leadership coaching. In her book, Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, Mary Beth O’Neill observes: “A systems perspective is highly relevant to executive coaches. When you focus too narrowly on your client alone – his personal challenges, the goals he has for himself, and the inner obstacles that keep him from being successful – you miss the whole grand “ecosystem” in which he functions.” (O’Neill, 2000). People working together on a regular basis create a social interactional field. That field is a unitary whole in which everything affects everything else and influences should be understood as multiple, mutual, and complex. Executives act and react within this field, along with everyone else they lead. If coaches fail to see how the system affects their clients, coaches will not understand why their interventions are sometimes ineffective. The client is both influencing and being influenced by a broad network of inter-relationships in and around his or her organization. Add to that network external contexts, such as the national and global economy and the natural environment, and the field of interrelated connections widens exponentially. “By taking a systems perspective, the coach can avoid pointing to one person or element within the organization as the root cause of a thorny problem.” (O’Neill, 2000).

A Plan to Transform

 

“Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.”     

― W. Edwards Deming

Real and sustainable change takes time and should not be rushed. Most of us may be familiar, at least in the Western World, with “the New Year’s resolution” and what happens after a few days or weeks (Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, 2002). Too often, as with the New Year’s resolution, coaching leads with the creation of a plan. But many plans fail because they are not taken seriously enough by the client or the client perceives, usually erroneously, that he or she doesn’t have the time to commit regularly to a plan. But this is when the real work starts and when a good coach can be most valuable. The trusting, professional relationship that coach and client both honor is critical to the success or failure of the engagement.  A plan focused on the client’s successful achievement of his or her goal (Boyatzis, McKee, 2005) is facilitated more effectively and efficiently by the coach when he or she provides the following as a manner of course:

• Emotional support when change is hard or when failure looms
• Energy by emphasizing the lessons learned from failure (and success)
• Shared resilience by encouraging the cultivation of optimism
• A place where a client can feel safe enough to mourn failures, be vulnerable, and truly celebrate success

What is key to these coaching best practices is that executives must know unequivocally that these are the behaviors that they can depend on when their resolve or optimism begin to wane.

So, we have established that coaching supports both personal and professional development in the leader. We have also established that good coaches facilitate and witness deep exploration of purpose, hope, and relationships at work with their client.  Now it is time to plan. A plan is necessary because it provides a road map or direction for coaching and makes it possible to measure the progress being made during the coaching journey. As client and coach assess their progress, they can shape and alter the path to the goal(s) as appropriate. In this sense, the plan is organic and changes as new insights surface through the coaching cycle without losing focus on the end goal or objective.

One approach helpful in supporting the creation of an effective transformation plan is a visioning process referred to as intentional change discussed in Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. The visioning is a result of extensive research in how adults learn and change in meaningful and sustainable ways. Their research concluded that there were five main steps that form a realistic and sustainable change process once the client has established a firm desire and momentum for change. Intentional change is an awareness of the need to change or improve behavior and then intentionally applying oneself to the following steps:

• The dream –  visioning
• The reality – the current situation
• Gaps and learning plan – the difference between vision and reality
• Experimentation – practicing new behavior and receiving feedback
• ‘Board of Directors – significant peers and colleagues who support my success

“The coach and client spend a good deal of time embellishing the elements of intentional change, especially the visioning component (step one), so that the client thinks and feels that he or she is “living the dream.” (Boyatzis, McKee, 2005). This is the opportune time for the client to predict and design the future that he or she wants. Visioning taps into the brain’s pre-frontal cortex to stimulate creativity in shaping the future.” (Glaser 2016).  Extended focus on visioning is time well spent and reaps great dividends. Too often the visioning concept is shortened by a desire to go rapidly to achieve faster results, as if a person were a machine that can be programed to achieve behavior change at the speed of light. What is achieved by going through this phase slowly is a deeper, meaningful, and reflective exploration of the inherent capabilities that are dormant within the client.

When visioning is done well and is followed by exploration of one’s current reality (step two), noticing the gaps between current leadership and desired leadership as envisioned becomes easier. Creating a plan for getting to the desired future state from the current one moves more smoothly, since the leader’s requirements can be seen, felt, and understood more clearly.

Once a plan is created (step three), the leader starts to practice and implement the plan (step four). Putting the plan into practice, the leader gathers data about potential obstacles to new, desired behavior(s). As the obstacles are brought into the coaching discussion, the coach supports refining or altering the plan to minimize or eliminate the obstacles to the plan’s realization. The leader is, therefore, encouraged and coached to continue to practice the new behavior(s).

Finally, enlisting of board of directors (step five) comes into play as the leader asks for support from trusted colleagues and others for feedback as he or she practices new behaviors. The coach checks in with the client during the coaching sessions on how implementation of the new behavior is progressing. Intentional change requires practice for a dedicated period of time for new behavior(s) to become the norm and for others to notice and believe in the behavior change exhibited by the executive. A period of extended coaching becomes very necessary and helpful in supporting the leader to embed the new behaviors into his or her routine so that they become the new, preferred way of behaving.

Coach Transformation

 

“Transformed people transform people.”

― Richard Rohr

The demands on, and responsibilities of, a coach are not to be taken lightly and require that the coach continually hone his or her coaching skills. Beyond basic executive coaching training, coaches need to be continually learning and challenging themselves to be better people, as we have already noted. By refining and reinforcing their own emotional intelligence competencies, they create their own rich emotional reserve for reference. Angus McLeod notes that good coaches can facilitate the transformative process of their clients through informed questions: “When coaches learn to ask questions that are designed to help the coachee learn, those coachees invariably become interested and excited to learn more about themselves; they become more engaged and committed to the coaching process and to real personal development.” (McLeod, 2015). Shouldn’t we say the same thing here about coaches? The more they engage themselves in deep, authentic self-awareness, the more they become “engaged and committed to the coaching process and to real personal development.” 

We have found, through discussions with other executive coaches, that the coach’s process of personal development can include a wide variety of different practices, interests, and engagements. One of the more common methods, we have discovered, is peer support from other coaches. Some coaches organize peer support groups that meet once a month or so to discuss hard topics in coaching or “case study” issues about which a coach may wish to solicit other coaches’ perspectives.  Of course, many successful coaches have their own coach with whom they do their own development work.

In addition, as executive coaching has become more mainstream, countless books, videos, and articles have been published on a broad range of coaching topics.

Finally, there are the questions we need to ask ourselves. No series of questions fits all coaches, of course. But there are certain foundational queries that, we believe, need to be on every coach’s list. These include:

• What is your life’s purpose?
• What are your personal/professional relationship needs?
• What is your passion as a person? As a professional?
• What are your demons?
• What are your thoughts and feelings on power and diversity?
• Why do you want to be a coach?

As we have already noted, executive coaches, themselves, have a wonderful opportunity in their coaching experience to professionally and personally grow. Once the coach has begun and continues to explore his or her own self-awareness and personal development rigorously, as already suggested, what he or she brings to and takes away from the coaching engagement can be quite substantive on a number of levels. On a professional level, a coach may help facilitate not only a transformation in an executive leader, but also within his or her organization. One’s enhanced coaching skills have the potential to affect many lives, not just the one in the “C” suite.

For one of these authors, eight months of coaching an executive at a small to mid-size organization resulted in tangible, sustained behavioral changes in the executive. In turn, the executive’s organization of just over 500 employees reaped the benefits of the leader’s changes in the observable culture change within the organization. People were happier, more productive, more collaborative, and more comfortable in communicating their needs and feedback in the new “safe” environment. For this coach, the experience was transformational in how it underscored executive coaching’s potential power to affect an organization in a systemic fashion. In addition, the author came away with a more fulfilled sense of accomplishment and several additional “intuitive” tools to apply to future coaching engagements. This experience recalls an observation by Warren Bennis on leadership: “It is important that the quality of our lives is dependent on the quality of our leadership. Only when we understand leaders will we be able to control them.”

On a more economic level, one highly effective coaching engagement can lead to a word-of-mouth expansion of one’s practice. Executives talk with other executives. If one finds high value in your coaching skills and competency, he or she will tell other executives.

On the personal level, many coaches relate stories of subsequent friendships that evolved from the coaching relationship after the engagement had ended. Both authors of this article have established long term friendships with several clients as a consequence of the strong coaching relationships we cultivated. Additionally, a good coach has the potential to take away lessons learned about him or herself in in any particular session. Often, the client may mirror our own fears, challenges, needs; as well as our strengths, core values, and insights. When we bring our intuition to the coaching session, our questions may not only be intended for the client’s growth, but for our own, albeit unconscious and inadvertent, personal development.

Transition, Again

 

“A transition period is a period between two transition periods.”

― George Stigler

When the time comes when both coach and client agree that their work together is complete, both experience a transition. In a best-case scenario, the client has achieved his or her objective(s). The root cause of the initial discontent has been identified and the client has a plan in place to address the issue(s) and is intentional in his or her commitment to change. If the coach and client have worked well together, the client is now unstuck and on a new level of leadership awareness and action. Gone is the dysfunctional behavior(s) that initially prompted the pursuit of coaching support and the repetitious patterns of poor judgment, weak communication, indecisiveness, or strained relationships. Or perhaps the client engagement was not focused on dysfunctional behavior(s), but on strengthening particular skills. Nevertheless, the client has transformed him or herself with the deft guidance of the coach, perhaps transitioning to a new role in the organization, or transforming his or her old role into one more in tune with his or her core values, vision, and dreams of a better future for the organization.

The coach, too, is in transition from the role of coach, confidant, and trusted advisor for one client to his or her next executive engagement with a new client. Coaches may also transition to new tools or insights in their practice from the previous engagement that they think and feel may be useful to future clients.  

Conclusion

 

“Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes around again in its cycle.”

― Marcus Aurelius

As we have tried to point out, executive coaching is a cyclical process that engages both client and coach in a reciprocal relationship of give and take, where both parties benefit from an objective or goal driven relationship between coach and client. It is a co-creation process that ends with the client being less dependent on the coach and the implications of the conclusion of the engagement are explored, discussed, and next steps are identified and planned. For simplicity’s sake, it is a process starting in transition, moving to transformation, and finally back to transition for both parties if each fully commits to his or her respective role in the coaching engagement.

 

 

 

Glaser, Judith E. (2016). Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. New York, NY.: Routledge  

Siminovitch, Dorothy. E. (2017). A Gestalt Coaching Primer: The Path Toward Awareness IQ. Gestalt Coaching Works, LLC

 

Goleman, Daniel, Boyatzis, Richard, McKee, Annie. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

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McKee, Annie. (2017). How to be Happy at Work. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business School Press.

Boyatzis, Richard. E. & McKee, Annie. (2005). Resonant Leadership. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

McLeod, Angus. (2017, June 15). When Coaching Standards Don’t Deliver, What Next? Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-coaching-standards-dont-deliver-what-next-dr-angus-mcleod?

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McKee, Annie (2014). Being Happy at Work Matters. Harvard Business Review Nov 14, 2014

Sappala, Emma and Cameron, Kim (2015). Proof That Positive Workplace Cultures Are More Productive. Harvard Business Review, Dec. 2015

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