Articles

Guidance on Coaching for Executives

Excerpts from ‘Becoming an Executive Coachee’. By Dr Michael Carroll

The Right Executive Coach for you

A good executive coaching relationship forms the basis of effective coaching. Little of significance will happen unless the relationships between the various people involved are healthy, contracted for, safe and trustworthy.

These relationships involve:

1. The key relationship between executive coach and coachee.

2. The relationship between the executive coach and the company of which the coachee is an employee (we will look later at contracts as the basis of these relationships). Hence, it is really important that you can work with your coach in a way that facilitates your learning.

Research into executive coaching suggests that an effective coach demonstrates qualities such as empathy, acceptance, flexibility, openness with confrontation, a sense of humour and appropriate self-disclosure.

Whether you have set up your executive coach’s services yourself or whether that person has been chosen for you by someone else, remember that you are the consumer and that it is essential that your learning needs be adequately met in coaching.

Remember also that your company is paying for executive coaching and will probably want to have a say in the agenda.

Having said that, we are aware that some executive coaches and some organizations will not see executive coaching as a collaborative endeavour and it is easy to be labelled “difficult or demanding” when you try to negotiate a different concept of coaching.

Trying to make executive coaching a collaborative alliance between all parties takes time
and effort that is well worth spending.

Most coachees look to their executive coach to balance support with challenge so that they can benefit from new learning without feeling undermined in the process. A coach who is too accepting and supportive without also being appropriately challenging may leave you feeling uncertain about the quality of your work and about the challenging areas of your development. On the other hand, an executive coach who is too critical and challenging may leave you feeling unsupported, humiliated and inadequate.

It is important to find in an executive coach the right balance between support and challenge and between positive feedback and constructive critical feedback so that you are helped to move forward in your work. You may find that this is a topic that you will want to raise at different times in your relationship with your coach.

You will be keen to have an executive coach who works “with you” and not “on you” – you are hiring a coach not a counsellor or a psychotherapist and the relationships and roles and behaviours in these different interventions need to be clear.

Executive coaching is a unique relationship in that you and your coach will be discussing your professional development so you feel safe enough to be frank about your difficulties in order that you can derive the maximum benefit from the coaching process.

Clear direct communication in coaching will enable you more easily to feed your learning back into your daily work. An executive coach with a good sense of humour can help to make the learning process a pleasure rather than a chore; humour that has a quality of sharing rather than shaming can often help us to recognise our foibles and our shortcomings without getting them out of proportion.

A short article entitled “The Frog Prince” (Coaching at Work, 2005) talks of two ways of choosing a coach: the formal competitive tender and the“scratch and sniff” method. The author suggests a combination of the two and sees the stages for choosing your executive coach as comprising:

1. Trawling for names: getting recommendations: reviewing coach databases or in many instances in organisations the coaches will be chosen by HR or a senior executive either individually or by appointing a coaching organisation.

2. Phoning potential coaches and asking the right questions: the kinds of questions asked at this initial stage will differ depending on needs. They may include questions about qualifications, experience, background, ethical codes etc.

3. Kissing the frog (meeting the individuals). If several individual executive coaches are short listed and meetings take place, then the coachee will be looking for appropriate style, connection with the coach, their ability to work together.

4. Deciding – the final decision is made and a working agreement (or contract) is drawn up. (Passmore and Gibbes (2007) surveyed the research literature on what are coachees’ and executive coaches’ perceptions of what they look for in suitable coaches. They present a table summarising the research of Hall, Otazo and Hollenbeck (1999).

What works best in Coaching?

Profile of a good executive coach

Jarvis (CIPD, undated) outlines some characteristics of external coaches that should be considered when making choices:

1. Appropriate level of coaching experience. The level of experience can be ascertained depending on factors such as: complexity of issues to be coached, the level of seniority of the coachee in the company, and prior experience of being an executive coach.

2. Relevant business/industry experience. Executive coaching takes place in an organisational setting and it would therefore be important that an external coach understand organisational dynamics and how to work with three way contracts.

3. References.

4. Background of the coach.

5. Supervision.

6. Breadth of tools, techniques and models used.

7. Understanding of boundaries and approach to referral.

8. Relevant qualifications and training.

9. Membership of appropriate bodies.

10. Professional indemnity insurance.

11. Other qualities/personal characteristics.

Jarvis (CIPD, undated) also has a useful outline of the steps in the process of selecting an individual coach:

1. Assess your development and professional needs.

2. Develop desired coach profile (individual and organisational).

3. Paper based selection to produce short list.

4. Meeting with individuals to assess.

5. Make selection and check with HR (or appropriate body).

6. Meet with Executive Coach to draw up working agreement (three way contract involving HR or manager).

Interviewing a Prospective Executive Coach

Professional coaches will not be insulted or hurt if you opt not to work with them. They understand very well that there are a range of reasons why a coachee might want to and might not want to choose them as their coach. It is always helpful if coachees can say why they have chosen to work with someone else but it is not necessary to do so. If the executive coach does not understand that then it is probably a sign that you have made a good choice.

When you are not in a position to choose your own executive coach, you may still ask yourself the same questions and perhaps make these a basis for negotiation where possible. For example, you could request straight and honest feedback about both your strengths and weaknesses in the course of coaching. And you can ask for a reciprocal contract that allows you to give feedback about what has been useful to you and what is less useful in coaching. In this way you can set the scene for the building of a good working alliance and capitalise on what this particular professional can offer you. It is also good to ask what are the person’s areas of particular interest so that you can benefit from these.

You may not have an immediate answer to some of these questions; it may be an idea to see if you can negotiate to have a trial period of say, six sessions in which you can get to know one another and assess if the coaching alliance is working well.

Remember that research (into helping interventions such as supervision, counselling and psychotherapy) regularly suggests that it is the quality of the working alliance that most contributes to the effectiveness of the outcome. You need a space where you know you can bring your real concerns and where you will receive honest feedback and help.

The kind of response an executive coach will want to hear is one that came from a small group of coachees who said: “We know that you will be honest with us about our mistakes, so for that reason we really value your positive feedback too. You are not just trying to make us feel good!  When we get negative feedback, it is delivered in such a way that we can hear it and we do not  feel shamed or put down. If we are unsure about something it is safe to ask you to explain. It is as though it is OK to make mistakes because that is how everyone learns.”

This response reflects a balance between appropriate support and caring confrontation
and points to a good working alliance.

As mentioned above, there are times when executive coachees have no say in the choice of their coach. Executive coaches are appointed because of contracts with coaching organisations and practicalities in allocating coachees to coaches.

While this may not be a problem and may not affect the quality of the relationship
or the coaching itself, it is worth taking time to look at possible implications.

We recommend that when you have been allocated an executive coach you have not chosen for yourself that you:

1. Talk about the fact that you have not chosen one another and review what it means for each of you. Executive coaches too, at times, have strong feelings about this method of setting up executive coaching arrangements and may need to talk about their reactions to it.

2. Look at the possible implications of this arrangement for your work together. Where executive  coaches sometimes have to engage in coaching as part of their overall job, they may approach the task with resentment or lack of enthusiasm or energy. Coachees, on the other hand, can see their lack of choice as giving permission not to participate in coaching (one of us had such a coachee who considered it was his right to be there, as required, but to expect the executive coach to guide and give direction and provide the answers without his active participation).

3. Schedule in review times to ensure that there are no negative practices enter the coaching arena as a result of being appointed an executive coach.

4. Be specific about the expectations of each other in coaching and clear about expectations from respective organisations (the psychological contract mentioned above).

This type of arrangement in executive coaching is akin to an arranged marriage, where couples give their consent but may have little say in the choice of their partner. There is no reason why it may not work if both parties are prepared to talk openly about their feelings and work towards an agreed coaching arrangement. Starting with the expectation that it will work is often a good beginning.

Codes of Ethics and Professional Bodies

We would expect all executive coaches to belong to an appropriate professional body (such as BPS, APECS, EMCC, ICF, CIPD) and in turn subscribe to an Ethical

Framework or a Code of Ethics and Practice for Coaches. Executive coaches will not be hurt or insulted if you ask them to let you know about both of these – their Professional Body and their Code of Ethics. Many coaches make their Code of Ethics available to coachees. If you wanted to look at sample Codes of Ethics then you can view them at the websites of the Professional Bodies, e.g., www.emccouncil.org and www.apecs.org.

A Definition of Executive Coaching

‘Executive Coaching exists to support the personal and professional learning of executive coachees and, thereby contribute to the goals of their organizations.

Part of that learning is about accountability. Coaching is a process that offers accountability or responsibility to whoever (professions, authorities, managers, organizations, tax payers, managers, investors etc) that coachees take their work seriously enough to set up a reflective space where they review that work, learn from it and apply that learning when they return to it.

Eventually, they will become reflective practitioners who reflect-in-action (think about the work as they do the work) and move towards being full time self learners.’