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AN IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK
Leadership Coaching
When It’s Right and When You’re Ready
IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOKS
Aimed at managers and executives who are concerned with their own and others’ development, each guidebook in this series gives specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership problem.
| LEAD CONTRIBUTOR | Douglas Riddle |
| CONTRIBUTORS | Al Calarco |
| Candice Frankovelgia | |
| Gina Hernez-Broome | |
| Bev Paulin | |
| Clemson Turregano | |
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS | Martin Wilcox |
| EDITOR | Peter Scisco |
| ASSOCIATE EDITOR | Karen Lewis |
| DESIGN AND LAYOUT | Joanne Ferguson |
| CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS | Laura J. Gibson |
| Chris Wilson, 29 & Company |
Copyright © 2008 Center for Creative Leadership.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
CCL No. 441
ISBN No. 978-1-60491-043-8
CENTER FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
AN IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK
Leadership Coaching
When It’s Right and When You’re Ready
Douglas Riddle
THE IDEAS INTO ACTION GUIDEBOOK SERIES
This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) has generated, since its inception in 1970, through its research and educational activity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands of managers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared—in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. CCL is not simply a collection of individual experts, although the individual credentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and working together to understand and generate practical responses to today’s leadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the series is to provide managers with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL’s mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. We think you will find the Ideas Into Action Guidebooks an important addition to your leadership toolkit.
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Leadership in the top management ranks is often an isolated business. Many managers recognize that to focus their personal development plans they need the uninterrupted time and attention of a skilled, objective facilitator. This guidebook is for managers who are considering leadership coaching as a tool in their personal leadership development. It describes what leadership coaching is and can help you decide whether it is appropriate for your situation. You’ll also learn how to locate and select a qualified coach with the professional and personal credentials and characteristics that match your development needs so that you can achieve the goals you’ve set.
What Is Leadership Coaching?
Leadership coaching is a formal engagement in which a qualified coach works with an organizational leader in a series of dynamic, private sessions designed to establish and achieve clear goals that will result in improved business effectiveness for the individual, as well as his or her team and organization. A good coach helps leaders develop clarity of purpose and focus on action.
Leadership coaching uses the relationship between the coach and the person being coached as a platform for questioning assumptions, stimulating reflection, creating alternatives, and growing perspectives. The coach can be a coach by profession or a leader who uses coaching skills; either way, leadership coaching is consciously and explicitly directed at improving the individual’s leadership capacity while achieving organizational objectives. While sometimes aimed at remedying a gap or correcting a fault, it is often focused on readying a leader for increased responsibilities, speeding acclimation to a new challenge, or providing an objective sounding board and thought partner when everyone else around a leader is pushing a viewpoint. This is not to say that personal matters are never included in the coaching work—a leader brings his or her whole life to bear on the leadership task—but it means that the focus of attention is on achieving organizational success.
Is It Right for You Now?
Leadership coaching is a particularly powerful method for learning and change when it is used in the right circumstances and when appropriate lessons are sought. It is not the right solution for every kind of growth or development, but there are situations that seem ideally suited to this approach. To determine whether this is the right action for you to take at this time, think about your context and circumstances. You may be a successful leader who wants to set new goals as a function of continuous development. Other appropriate circumstances include increased complexity, organizational expectations, demands for behavior change, significant transitions, predicted changes, highly politicized environments, and moves from a tactical to a strategic role.
While many challenges are well suited for interventions involving leadership coaching, others clearly are not. Leadership coaching can be overkill when there are simpler, less expensive means of achieving desired results. Under the wrong circumstances, leadership coaching may not be particularly effective. The task is to identify the situations and opportunities that lend themselves most readily to this work.
The following examples are not meant to be exhaustive but to suggest that some kinds of growth opportunities are particularly amenable to success