Leadership Development News Roundup: Executive Coaching Edition

Workplace coaching has two sides: managers and executives coaching their employees and someone else coaching those managers and executives. It’s important for this process to be effective so the person receiving the coaching feels empowered, not criticized, and will do their best for your organization.This week’s Leadership Development News Roundup brings you a collection of articles and blog posts with advice on both aspects of employee and executive coaching.

• Be a Creator, Not a Critic: The Leadership Feedback That Really Works. Forbes: “I define the two approaches as ‘reactive’ and ‘proactive’ coaching. In the former, the coach observes the students in the skill they desire to improve—presentations, sports, writing, negotiations, etc.—and then tells the students what they are doing wrong and how they can do it differently; in the latter, the coach first sets down a set of best practices, and then leads students in the application of those skills. I am of the latter discipline. In fact, I turn down requests to ‘look at our presentation and tell us how to do it better.’ By always starting with best practices, I serve as a creator not a critic—and sleep soundly at night.”

• How to Participate in Your Employee’s Coaching. Harvard Business Review: “But today, executive coaching is often viewed as a strategic investment in human capital – a perk reserved for employees with high potential — and managers have realized that they need to participate in the process. If you are a manager with a direct report who is working with an external coach, there are several things you can do at the beginning of a coaching engagement to help make it successful.”

• Are Your Company’s Managers Also Coaches? Training: “One barrier to enabling employees in companies with limited budgets to grow may be managers like mine—those who don’t share in the responsibilities of getting the work done, despite the work ‘group’ only consisting of two or three people. When a manager is so critical yet standoffish, the one or two employees who work under him are left without an opportunity to grow because their plate is too full of the same tasks. If the manager were a partner in the workload, some of those repetitive tasks would be lifted, and the employee could stretch professionally—and do an even greater favor to the organization.”

• Coaching for Organizational Culture Change: Can it Work? Hilgart: “Just as with all of the best tools available to organizations today, coaching is most effective when used for a targeted purpose and in conjunction with other essential tools, such as incentives and team-based interventions. Doing so ensures that the value from the investment in coaching is realized by executives and by the team as a whole.”

• Executive Coaching Has Run Amok — But it Doesn’t Have To. Smart Business: “Skilled coaching remains vital for executives seeking to get better at what they do. It’s considered essential in nearly every other field of high performance, except business leadership. In a recent study, nearly 100 percent of CEOs reported they enjoyed receiving executive coaching and leadership advice. One reason may be that they realize they need help. Most of us have blind spots that hold us back and cannot be fixed in the absence of external feedback. Left to their own devices, most leaders, even high potential fast trackers, overlook key aspects of their development that they later regret.”

Let us know if you’d like our help coaching your organization’s leaders.Success Labs is a leadership development and management consulting firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.